Suddenly St. Louis and the Great River herself. Though difficult to see from Route 70, you can smell her. Glimpses of huge steamboats with big paddlewheels. Permanently docked casinos. Gambling on the river still after all these years. And the awful smell of rubber plants or whatever that is in St. Louis. And The Arch. Like an amusement park ride from a distance. Why build such a thing except to fascinate? Showing nature that we can make Rainbows, too. Only less colorful. And harder. You can touch ours. Beat that.
Jimmy had served a few years in the Navy. "This is it, man" he says gawking upward as we pass beneath the Arch. "this is as far west as I have ever been. I went up there once in the Navy." Neck careening to look straight up. Smell that air. No bypass for St. Louis as near as I can tell. Let's just go straight through. I can't wait to get to Kansas.
I have known Jim Dove all my life though we didn't meet until I was thirteen. From young bucks to drivers license and first car. Into the real world. We ran together as they say tightly from seventeen to twenty one.
I discovered Kerouac and the Beat Generation sometime after college. I call this Irony. Beat like beaten down from the Depression. But mostly what I discovered is that we are the beat generation. Too smart to be fooled down a path that leads to selling your soul for a crappy pension and the undignified end of pissing your pants in front of a pretty young attendant at an old age home. Too stupid to find a way to use any of this to our advantage. Who to look up to? Kerouac died of alcoholism in his thirties. Best to avoid that path too. So we became adventurers. Try a little of this. A little of that. Break your back for a year and then work on your ass for the next. Jimmy and I are the closest in temperament within this respect. I have milked cows and planted corn and rested with my feet up on my desk sipping espresso. Dismissed my class of screaming kids for lunch and been repremanded by the Head Waitress for having no coffe cups handy. I have worked many jobs I have. My favorites include Strawberry Farm, Candy Store, Roofer and Pizza CoOk. Not to forget Paper Boy, Nanny, Stone Picker and Executive Assistant (nice title that one). All by choice these scenarios. And I feel a kinship with everyone I broke my back (or whatever) beside. Old farmers who will never die. Slick businessmen who have never worked a day in their life. Drivers and dishwashers. Salesmen and afternoon milkers. Jim has had the same. Many of the same type of jobs I had. One night when we were young twenties, he said "I'm joining the Navy. Tuesday." And in two short days was gone. Came back a few years later staunch with a long black trenchcoat. Now the military had long worn off and you might think him from the nineteen seventies. Barrel chested with a slight slouch and peppered brown shoulder length hair. Line of a moustache. He has smoked cigarettes since birth. And unusually cursed (as some I have met are) to have his first and last name pronounced as one. Jim Dove. One word Jimdove. Even by folks who don't know him. I never thought I would be able to drag him across country. That he would be able to drop all obligations for such a gallivant. He has less than two hundred bucks on him. I have no idea how he is going to get home and thusfar he has been most impressed upon by things like gas and soda pop prices. Odd buildings and industry.
Suddenly a giant scarecrow behind a huge gas sign to the side of the highway is struck by a blue shot of lightning. Out of the clearest Sky. Burst into flame instantly right before our eyes. The scarecrow screams and clutches his burning breast. "Did you see that?" Jim asks completely amazed. "ninety five cents for ninety three octane. Unbelievable." This didn't really happen.
Missouri is a landscape more familiar to me. The small green hills and rivers remind me of New England. Only on a larger scale. And the brown murk of the rivers seems terrifying. No sweet rope swing from a low hanging willow for us. The mud would wash you away and hide your body forever. And the morning Sun and crunchy human food put us in a daze. You can see the road ahead for five miles at a clip. Up and down up and down like a great brown ribbon ahead. Dots of cars. Sudden traffic jam. The day is clearer and hot now. I am regretting that I didn't have my air conditioning fixed. Almost. Cold stale are is nice if you can't stand the heat but I think that it's probably not so good for you. But the heat was putting us into an afternoon nap state like a belly of hot food. More gas. More human pet food. Kansas City up ahead.
A town that first had me wondering about the way our country was thrown together. Like a patchwork quilt. The capital or at least largest cities of states are near the state borders. Kansas City shining example. It is half in Kansas and half in Missouri. What if Kansas suddenly contested MO for ownership? A whole army of Sun dried men and women rolling in on old Ferguson tractors. And horses. Poor positioning if you ask me. And St. Louis. Illinois could steal it if they could cross the river. Wyoming dares the nice people of Nebraska to try and take Cheyenne. Nobody will ever steal Dallas from Texas. Buried nicely in her heart.
The yellow Sun turns gold as afternoon sets in and before long the black icy rectangles of downtown Kansas City look skyward to our right. And with unaccustomed swiftness Missouri is behind us and we are obviously in Kansas.
Long gold Kansas. Soft hills of wheat and an band of grey highway before you as far as ye can see. Less than half the traffic of Missouri. More Trucks. The last obstacle keeping travelers from Colorado and the Rockies. We looked at the map and looked and hoped that we could make it to Colorado before turning in.
The road lies like a great grid over the state and you can see highway exits running off north and south into eternity. Big houses in the distance shrouded by well planted trees years ago. Like a dark clump on an otherwise golden sheet of velvet. And the tan grasses a shimmering windy sea. We pulled off an exit and into a wheat field. Trevor picked a handfull of sheaves that we marveled over in the car all day. By California their grains would be long crushed under foot with other bits of flower and Sage. I took a photo of him holding this wheat and later gave the picture to his cousin Kathryn. It became Legendary in that moment.
We stopped for an afternoon lunch in a little plaza off the highway. Anxious to stretch our legs. And while Jim was buying a sandwich, Trevor and I walked down beside a great reservoir to touch some silver Kansas water. I brought a bottle to fill in case. But signs read "Keep Out" and "No Swimming". Signs. I am an Indian Brave I thought. The blue Sky is my sign. So beside the buzz of moving cars I made my way down some sharp stones to the edge of a reservoir that I wouldn't have swam in anyway. Kind of foamy. Who cares. Dunk my head and flip my hair back. Cool dry wind and blue Sky in Kansas. The air licks dry the drops from my face. I am reborn. Back to the car where Jim eats his sandwich and we watch the river waterfall into the channel and become the reservoir. A huge white bird glides by beneath us just above the water.
About eating. Crossing America (or any long road journey) it is tough to digest food. Sitting all day and sleep at night. For this reason I try to stick to the crunchy human mix whenever possible. Three essentials are apples, almonds and sunflower seeds. These have all kinds of nutrition and are easy on the gullet. Try steak an eggs three times a day cooped up in a car. Forget it. And the best part is this: after a few days your belly will work with you. A good handfull of seeds will fill you up. You have to let your body make this adjustment however, because your mouth will still ask for steak and eggs on day four even though your bowels wills say what the hell is going on up there. And of all travelers with whom I have run, Trevor was really putting this concept to use. Just fifty cents worth of raisins and peanuts for lunch thanks.
Back on the highway we decide to try and capture some of this space in a photo. This cannot be done. We know. I learned this in the Grand Canyon. Not only can it not be captured on film but there is one thing worse: folks who have never been there believe the photo. Best not to fool them. Though we try. Trevor snaps a photo as the Sun goes down from a rest area. Little structure built deliberately like a castle. The wind threatens to blow us to Oz. Let it. I have a few questions for The Wizard. The photo is ok but captures absolutely none of the magic of Kansas. S'Ok. Photos suffice for those who really don't need magic. Just proof.
Driving into the Sun is a hazard car makers never forsaw. Floating softly at ninety miles per hour and this big orange light keeping you from effectively seeing the path before you. No matter. Invent Sunglasses. On my first trip through Kansas the Sun burned my face and hands and I had to stop periodically to close my eyes. My shades were nurturing a nice little blue bruise on the crest of my nose. Damn the things. This time I was ready. I will use my willpower or whatever magic powers I have to avert this discomfort. Believe this: it worked. I never wore Sunglasses that afternoon and never had to stop for pain. Though the Sun never left my face. Three crows left their footprints beside my eyes that day though.
The gold of Sky and wheat around us began to soften. A smoky amber dusk and flat plains ahead. I wonder what the pioneers first thought. Or the fleeing Native Americans driven west before them, running for their lives. Did the world go on forever? The Sun going down and so is Jim Dove. Sprawled out in the back. Trevor and I whisper not to wake him. "Is he getting all this you think?" he asks.
I dunno. In his own way I guess.
"He definitely sees all the signs." Says Trevor.
Signs like from God? We laugh.
Everyone gets something different. I once laughed at a kid who told me at a party years ago "I hate the fuckin midwest." I thought he was kidding. He thought I was a fool. So what. We all get something different.
Earlier Jim had gone into a local grocery store just off the highway. His mission was to spend less than ten bucks and buy us all food that we could munch on for a few days. I all the while had been blathering about the thick dialect in the voice of Kansas. So. Jim takes about fifteen minutes to produce peanut butter, bread and cheese, crackers and grapes. Oranges. Sufficient haul. And he gets in the car and says "y'know, the girl that rung me up didn't have much of an accent." He downs a few grapes. I stare at him blankly. I had been raving since we left about the different dialects everywhere you go. We being oblivious to our Yankee tounge. "Do you mean to tell me" I ask "that you didn't hear an accent and maybe there really is no accent around here?"
He shrugs. "Just saying."
"You talk to like one person in the whole state and there it is? Have you been listening at the gas stations? These people have sounded different since Ohio." Pleading now. This is my own fault.
"I dunno" he shrugs, "I'm just saying."
And I know with sudden certainty that he hasn't heard this dialect I have been ranting about. Perhaps hasn't been listening for it. Perhaps thinks I am full of shit. Maybe it's self preservation. Don't let the aliens in. Just a few. We can only handle so much new input at once. But I still want to bang on the window of one of the little ashy farm houses in the distance. Drag the old brown farmer out of his feather bed and make him recite the National Anthem for Jimmy. Ow sigh kin yee sigh.
So Jim Dove is breathing the deep drown of exhausted slumber in the back. Cracker crumbs on his shirt and little moustache. We don't have to whisper too much. And the soft orange Sun has again melted into the forward horizon. Like hot watercolors or firelight painted across the fields. Then pink then blue darkness.
"Don't worry about Jim," I tell Trevor while changing music "you know why?" "Why?"
"Cause" I say pressing play "we're in Colorado boy."
So we are. Great big Colorado. The West. Two days from start and this far. I still don't understand the time we are making. Best not to wake Jimmy. Press on we decide and get a motel. Another hundred miles? Ok.
Colorado is cut neatly down the center by the edge of the Rocky Mountains. In this way it seems like two places. The mountains and villages and towns to the West and the high flat land to the East that I can only describe in one word. Tundra. At least that is how it seems to me. The long fields rise and slope up and away and become plains. Black and blue shades of shadow and ink. Starlight like the glow of frost. I can feel the altitude in my brain. Somewhere out in that dark prairie horses are watching us buzz by. Like a small lightning bug . My heart is all a tingle. We are out in America in the summer. Exploring. And my own threshold just up ahead.
Two years ago I had made this same voyage alone. Except at Denver I turned north on 295 toward Cheyenne. Denver was a myriad of twinkling lights to my left that night. And the mountains were looming shadows behind. As close as I ever got. Same time of day too. Tomorrow when we are through Denver I will be on virgin soil. A road never taken. Straight over the spine of The Rocky Mountains.
Amazing how desolate this half of Colorado is. There is nothing around us except blue plains and starry darkness for a million miles on all sides. Gusts of wind jerking the car around like a toy. And climbing slowly. Jimmy asleep drinking the thin air.
There are little turnouts off the highway where exhausted truckers will park their mounts for the eve and clamber up into their beds for a needed rest in the prairie night. I am so tired I wish I could too. But they don't take so kindly to this. Cars pretending to be Trucks. There are exits every seventy miles or so it seems and small services packed together there. Gas stations and motels and diners. Scant trees and rusted farm equiptment. A few horses. Rolling plains on all sides. The Range. So we choose a motel in the dark on the basis of exhaustion. Might not see another one forever. Can't chance it.
Trevor says "We're in Colorado now. I can finally say it. Kick ass!" He means it. Jimmy stirs. Big yellow motel. Pricey. We open the door and the wind that has been trying to topple us gets in the car. It's ten degrees. Cold as hell. Mid June. Trevor is in bliss. Toothy grin. I actually don't mind it compared to the damp heat of Missouri. Kind of refreshing. Unexpected though. But as I look out over the star lit expanse, the wind makes sense. It belongs here. It lives here. Like in Idaho.
The motel is a little expensive and very nice and has no character as I recall. Second floor room. I stand for a short while on the balcony looking searching the night Sky and icy summer tundra. Somewhere out there a cowpoke kicks dirt on his fire and pulls down his hat. A thousand miles to the East the Corn Silk Princess dances across a parking lot in a light Rain. Off to dreamland.