It was a long day of desert scenery and prairie . I had awoken early to see that last remnants of Kansas as the sun rose. A lot went through my mind. Was I making the right decision ? Should say fuck it grab the quickest plane to Southeast Asia and disappear for a year and come back all tatted up having kicked smack for the 6 th time( that's Phil Brams fantasy)? All I knew was that I looked and felt like shit.
I got up and headed to the snack car. The snack guy and I where now on a first name bases. I ordered a cup of coffee and a jimmy dean sausage sandwhich. I went to the observation car sat down and started writing for the next couple hours.figured it was something to do. I saw my seat mate. He had spent most of the night reading Ayn Rands Atlas shrugged which apparently takes place on trains. We both found it ironic.
As I sat watching the landscape before me I noticed that on certain farms you could tell how long the farm was in the family by the houses. Their would be a new mobile home than, an older looking mobile home, than an older house from the 40s and than you would see a house off to one side that looked to be from the 1890s. My mom had talked about seeing the same thing when she visited Montana . All along the way I would see abandoned houses and farms, left over from a different era. Maybe the people had moved to something better. Who knows. It made you wonder.
At 1030 we where given a fresh air break in some town in Colorado . I wondered out and had a look around. The air smelled clean and fresh. Never have dealt with that in a while. Got talking to a lady who lived in New Mexico. She had moved to be closer to her kids. I thought back to all the people I grew up with who had moved down to New Mexico. This whole area of the country had always been something I had wanted to see. Maybe it was because it was so alien to anything I had ever known. Who knows?
I looked over and saw that someone had left a pack of Busch beer out in the cold. Bet whoever it belonged to, they where regretting it. After looking around I hoped back on the train. We continued to going through the flat lands and into the mountains and desert landscape of northern New Mexico .
We continued on our journey through the New Mexico desert. Seeing a desert that was covered in snow and stretching far as the eye could see. It made me think back to the westerns I watched as a kid growing up. Of john Wayne as the ringo kid in stagecoach hailing the travelers with his shotgun and posing in that iconic pose. Of Jimmy Stewart the naive easterner coming to out west to be a lawyer in the man who shot liberty valence. Of Gary cooper in high noon. James Coburn in pat garret and billy the kid. Of men doing what they had to do to protect the ones they loved. Fighting and being the only hope in a world gone mad. The mythic western hero. A type that isn't around anymore. Except in Django Unchained, their was a throwback to the John Wayne's, Gary Coopers, Clint Eastwoods, Jimmy Stewarts. The man from nowhere avenging what had been done wrong to him. Jamie Foxx's role will go down as an iconic character in the annals of the western.
As I sit my mind goes all over the place. To my past , present and future. Asking what is before me. Is this what I really want from my life? What am I doing? I talk to my mom. She heard a sermon from her priest talking about moving forward in life and not holding into the past. That's definitely a sign I say. I look out the window and watch as we stop in random towns. Las Vegas New Mexico, Trinidad New Mexico. We stop in a small town, not really a town. More like a crossroads. It's an artsy looking place. Kind of place full of old hippies living in yurts. But something seemed off, maybe like something had happened. I immediately google the town. It was the disembark point for everyone working on the manhattan project. This was the train to Santa Fe would stop and Teller, groves and Oppenheimer would meet a contact and head off north to Los Almos. I sat their and really took in all that had happened out here. The area felt haunted. Like all of the ghosts of the scientists who had worked on the manhattan project where wandering the desert, paying for the sin of unleashing Pandora's box onto the world. I sat and slowly dozed off as I thought about this.
I awoke in albequerque. That town made famous thanks to mad men. I thought back to the bloom county comic strip. They once had a story line about an anti baldness tonic that ends up becoming like the crack cocain epidemic. They had a panel of a cop who looks like Don Johnson and his badge said Albequerque vice. At the time we all laughed but now it was the real thing. I had an hour to kill and decided to get food. As I got off the train and went into the train station and out onto the streets of albequerque , I was reminded of what I saw in billings. Poor people who where obvious meth addicts wandering the streets as zombies, not realizing what they had become. Selling whatever they owned. I remember going back to my hometown in Washington state and bumping into a kid I had known who was now a meth addict. He seemed so lost and a captive to this monster. It wasn't like weed or shrooms. This drug was an evil monster along with heroin. It would destroy you.
As I walked past the drug addicts I took in the town. The downtown was obviously up and coming. It had a fun funky twist that you would find in god should I say it?Brooklyn. It's funny living in NYC with the annoying hipsters with their snobby attitude about everything made me turned off to some of that. But now I was missing that. Southwestern murals adorned many a wall. Man these artists guys must be doing a lot of peyote or something. I followed two guys from the train into a subway. Back in NYC they would do the bare minimum of toppings. Here the guy was going all out. Maybe it was the crappy food I had eaten or maybe it was the fever that was pulsating in my head. But that ended up being one of the greatest sandwiches I ever had.
I went outside and breathed in the air. God this southwestern air was amazing. I felt like president screw in space balls snorting cans of air. I mean you go from the east where the air isn't stellar to the southwest and it's a huge difference. I feel like iam going to become a fiend.
I looked over and saw a group of Navajos selling artsy items. I had a gander. Nothing to write home about. I reboarded the train, went down into the bathroom and washed myself in the sink. Not as glamorous as it sounds let me tell you. Rubbing luc warm water all over you them using paper towels to dry off, it makes you happy for what you do have.
As we left albequerque I felt the fever and headache getting worse and worse. I definitely had picked something up. I sat their watching the desert scenery go by before me. As the sun set in the west, the sky turned a bright blood orange. All I wanted to do was hold onto that moment forever. We get these moments that come along everyonce in a great while. The birth of a child, when my dad took me to my first Major League Baseball game, holding a loved one in your arms and watching the sun set over New York on a late summer evening. It's moments like that that make all the crap worth dealing with. A lot of things went through my mind. All of the questions that I've had. That's all I have now is questions. Not so much answers but questions . All of this went through my mind as we headed off into the New Mexico night.
I tried to sleep, but couldn't. My Ayn Rand loving seat mate hogged most of the area. Man what a fucking ass. The fever of course got worse and u was feeling like hell. I would go in and out if consciousness, dreaming about moments and people that I missed. Wondering about the future.
The train pulled into San berindino around 6. I had to pee badly but the path to the bathroom was blocked by people getting ready to get off the train. God my body ached. Maybe I had picked up the flu. Wouldn't be surprised. My seat mate awoke. He left and came back. His grandfather had died. He had to head back to Michigan . I felt sorry for him, even though he was a bit if an ass. No one deserves that. He left the train to head to the nearest airport.
The train continued towards LA. The sun was rising and everything looked a golden orange . Immediately their was palm trees everywhere. As far as the eye could see. We passed new developments and freeways. As we got closer we passed the industrial heart of LA. This was the part out of every film noir ever made in LA. The home to the big chase in This Gun For Hire. I expected to see Robert Preston chase Alan Ladd through a train yard.
I looked out the window and could see downtown LA in the distance. This was going to be my new home. I thought back to movies like LA confidential, Chinatown , and menace II society . Of course my mind doesn't go to glamorous LA, but that's always been me. The train moved passed the LA county jail. We pulled into union station . I got off the train and looked around. Huh I thought . I walked through the station passed other tired passengers. The niners had beat the falcons and the ravens had won. So it was going to be a harbourgh Super Bowl. Can't wait for that family get together. The waiting area was strait out of the 30s. It was the same place bugsy seagal had arrived at when he came to LA. Hell the whole mob came through union station .
I walked out the front entrance. It was a cool 65 degrees. It was 28 in New York City. Maybe this was a good choice. Right about now Obama was getting ingratiated back in the east. I walked across from the train station to Olivia street, where LA was born. So much was going through my mind.
When I left Washington state nine years ago I was just a kid who didn't know a damn thing. Now I was a man of 29 about to embark on the next great adventure of my life. All I could do is be open and jump off the cliff.
A couple days later I went up to Runyon canyon park in the hollywood hills. The previous October I had gone there. It had this amazing view that looked out all over LA. You could see the whole city, from east LA and downtown, south towards Long Beach, and west towards the Pacific Ocean. I hiked up to the top of the canyon and looked out towards the city. It was dark and the lights of the city shown brightly. So much went through my mind . My friends in NYC, people I've loved, things that have happened, what I was doing, where I was going. I thought about all if it. I had gone through so much in NYC. But now was the beginning of something new. If I could bitch slap NYC ,LA would be my prison sex slave. I stood up and looked out towards LA. I screamed at the top of my lungs that LA would be mine. I stopped and looked at everything. Things would be okay. I smiled to myself and walked off into the LA night.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)