make sure the shoelaces are tied
well, I’m writing this for myself really. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t want to forget it or maybe I just want it out of me so I can get started on exactly that. maybe i’ll find out when I’m done.
summer in lockup, Washtenaw and Oakland county, taking care of warrants mostly, the previous fall in Portland-the short version goes maybe something like this:
general routine: boost from home depot return merchandise sell gift card for half of what its worth score meth and heroin go back to the house smoke and shoot it respectively go to liz’s house stay for a night or two get bored go back repeat when coming down too hard off of meth with no money for heroin hop the Max to Gateway steal booze from Fred Meyer get bored hook up with random tweeker girl meet metal chick in Detroit over facebook go back fuck her for two weeks realize in a heroin fueled stupor that she’s insane steal enough money from her to go to new Orleans on Amtrak because youre frankly just plain too dopesick to hitchhike and ride trains there and when in the past you’d have been above or just would’ve felt too guilty to take money from this person you’ve lost a huge piece of yourself in the last 6 months or so and you really just don’t give a fuck anymore. kick for about 3 days, the withdrawal is in its waning stages and you have enough booze to not have to worry about it.
spend the majority of the winter riding back and forth from Shreveport to California, 2 months straight in Texas including lines you’ve never ridden before near Robstown (just north of Corpus Christi) and you have to figure them out for yourself because no one you know has ridden them either, hit every single good spot on the Sunset and Transcon lines and stay in hotels every night, commit insane crimes, experiment with bloodletting and far more serious kink than what you’ve indulged in in the past and find you like it, and probably can’t go back to regular sex any longer. find a quarter of speed on the side of the road in Winslow AZ after finally getting out of texas, blowing through most of new mexico via Gallup, which is lucky because Gallup has ridiculous alcohol laws that bar pedestrians from buying, which is basically legislation against Native americans. ride from Winslow to Needles high on speed then from Needles back to Belen, get drunk as fuck there and hang out not far from the BNSF office until going to Albuquerque via commuter, get a ride to Denver from a friend of a friend, then hitchhike after more drugs and silly bullshit to St George Utah doing the person that picked you up a favor, get a ride into SLC 2 days later with more money than you know what to do with. (slc isn’t important, complete fucking waste of time on my part).
hop out of Ogden Utah, get off shortly before Cheyenne, Wyoming to discover not only is there snow on the ground but the highway is closed going East because of a 60-car pileup the day prior. wait at a truckstop and leave 2 days later when the highway opens back up with close to 200 dollars in your pocket you were given without panhandling. get a ride hitchhiking in 5 minutes and taken past Kansas City, taken care of the entire trip, then spend your last 50 bucks on a greyhound ticket to Little Rock AR from Joplin MO and spend the week there with one of your dearest friends go to a sweet metal show with a hometown band playing, get drunk as fuck, and finally leave. hop out toward Chicago but only make it to East St. Louis because you fucked up but it doesn’t matter. You make it to Chicago the next day. run into some old friends, meet another random girl but nothing winds up happening because she’s more interested in you than you are in her, smoke a bit of crack here and there, go back to Michigan to visit friends you haven’t seen in over a year now only to hang out with one of them and go to jail.
fast forward 96 days and two county jails.
you come out and having stashed a bit of money beforehand you buy a puppy. and she’s adorable, and so sweet, and so smart and she loves you. from the first time you meet her you get that feeling you get when you know that this is your dog. but having been isolated and deprived for too long you falter.
despite your urge to keep traveling, but maybe be less of a drugged up womanizing drunk, you go on a vodka bender for nearly 4 days. nothing happens to the dog (obviously you’re doing one small thing right) but you’re pretty pissed off at yourself for it.
and after another 3 or 4 days sober following that, you really start to think.
it’s been a LONG year. a long tour, a very deep sense of self-realization and a fair amount of work toward that. I keep traveling for many reasons. I keep running away. I still love it, it’s in my blood, I’ve been doing it since 2006, with only a few breaks in between (though I’ve changed a lot through that time period too, for a lot of reasons. none of which are important). I do it to keep myself happy and to have as much fun as I can living. I do it because I hate the town I’m from and the majority of the people in it.
but I’ve learned something in doing it, especially for this long.
and that’s that there are some things you can’t get away from. You cant escape heartache and heartbreak. you can’t outrun addiction, nor the large black spaces in your past it’s left, or the good, sometimes even beautiful things in your life that you had and can no matter what you do or try to replace them with, ever, EVER get back. you can’t push away deep-seated feelings of isolation and insecurity.
sometimes, for some people, myself being one of them, there are great big holes inside you that no amount of booze, drugs, sex, or freedom can ever fill. and often, especially on mornings like this when you’ve been up all night drinking coffee while your puppy gently claws at the humbling, welcoming black void out the window as she calmly stirs in her sleep by your feet, you wonder, agonize over what might one day do the job.
I’ll keep living and hopping trains, romancing and fucking, falling in love one day, tagging, and generally causing trouble, because I’m still young, I’M STILL FUCKING HERE, and I’m still very very alive, but more than anything else…
because if I stop doing this, living the way I want to, asking-no-fucking DEMANDING the most I can get out of what time I may or may not have left here,
especially now that I’ve seen true pain, and evil and darkness and in so many ways become one with it, if not just become it entirely,
it scares the fucking living shit out of me that i’ll always wonder.
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