rebustein94-blog

[rebustein94-blog]

Zippity zap, there and back Jiggity jig, home again And all that jazz. "Man, you met some characters" -- my mom, just now. Thanks, Road! Thanks, Train! No thanks, LG. (Poughkeepsie, NY)

[rebustein94-blog]

Dean Moriarty’s Dad

Dean Moriarty’s dad

of course

lives under a bridge

in Denver

with a stomach full of booze--

spittle on his chin

molasses in his ears

definitely blood in his hair

and the moon shining down on him.

But Dean Moriarty’s dad 

also lives 

on a bench in Whitefish

at Skyles Overlook

which is breath-taking

and has eagles overhead

and which I couldn’t get a picture of,

because my phone’s battery was too low,

and what does it really matter

because I don’t have any other pictures

anyway.

Dean Moriarty’s dad

works at a hotel there in Whitefish

and lives in a bar in Manassas

and in the Westside Deli in Lynchburg, VA,

where he wears a red hoodie

and orders the same sandwich 

every day, 

so that he doesn’t even have to actually order it anymore--

they just know.

He lives in the tight-packed woods of northern Georgia,

where he went to high school,

and he fixes phones in uptown New Orleans.

He plays the trumpet

and sits in the street 

writing improvised poetry.

He lives in a museum

where he narrows his eyes at people

and tries to figure out where they’re from

based on the most subtle inflections

of their voice.

One time, he almost drowned in the San Antonio River

but he pulled himself out

and dragged himself 

all the way

to El Paso, 

where he drives an Uber.

He lives in Marfa, Texas

behind an old billboard,

and he floats along the bugle calls of Fort Davis.

He sleeps with the sea lions 

by the Golden Gate Bridge

and in Portland

where he sleeps in a tent

and runs a dispensary

but eats his own product

and never turns a profit.

He sells rainwater in Seattle

and lives between the teeth

of the smile 

of a beautiful woman

who works in a candy shop.

He spent forty years

farming in Washington

drinking beer

and praying

and working at a ski lodge

just to send his kids 

to college.

When he was young, 

Dean Moriarty’s dad

jumped from job to job

at resorts all over the country,

following the same group of friends

and drinking and drugging and laughing

as much as he could

without a home

without a future

always moving

blissful in those infinite and simple moments--

the crack of an opening can

the splash of the river, cold against skin

the highway curves at 80 miles per hour

that first thick drag of smoke off a cigarette

and a bonfire before bed--

these things which resonate

beautifully

throughout time.

Dean Moriarty’s dad

laughs

and tells people, 

“I’m living the American dream!”

which is probably true

because he works in a food truck

in Minnesota

and spends the entire teenage summer

stoned at Presque Isle

where the water is warm

and time is made-up.

He has himself an apartment

and a job

and he sleeps on the curb

and pretends he doesn’t miss his family

and he sees them every day

and sleeps in a bed

and everything is okay

if you just sit back

and stop trying

and keep going.

And at the end of the day

Dean Moriarty’s dad

is probably

happily

dead.

(On the train to Poughkeepsie, NY)

[rebustein94-blog]

Screams

I was dreaming about a gift shop on the moon. In the dream, I worked there with a guy who, in real life, I haven’t spoken to in almost a year. Outside the windows, we could see the Earthrise. Beautiful and silent. We played music and danced and there were no customers. 

Then he tilted his head back and opened his mouth. A yawning, jaw-cracking O. He screamed. The scream shook. The world shook. The scream grew high-pitched and terrifying and wrenched me out of sleep.

In real life, the scream moved down the hall past the door of my hotel room. A shrill, bloody-murder, full-throat shriek. 

I sat up, turned on the light next to the bed. My first thought, the most obvious thing was, Ghosts. 

The scream dissipated. It warped into the frightened chatter of three or four different voices. They spoke around tears. Scared and uneven. I couldn’t make out the words but I recognized the frantic, matter-of-fact pattern of someone reporting a scare into a phone. 

I got out of bed and walked to my door. I pressed my ear against it. 

The one main voice kept speaking into the phone while two others babbled hysterically over it. From what I could make out, it was a woman and two girls. Maybe a mom and her two daughters.

The phone voice cracked into silence. The two girls screamed again. They began to murmur in the pleading, dear-god tones of someone asking for mercy. After a few more seconds, they let out another scream.

Jesus Christ. My heart started to punch the back of my ribs. Hard and fast. I pressed closer against the door. There, against the cheap wood, I could feel everyone on the floor stirring. Movement pulsed in every room. People were listening. People were scared. I tried but couldn’t see anything through the peephole. There was no way to know what was happening or where the noise was coming from. Not without sticking my head outside. And there was no way in hell I was doing that. 

The loud boom of a man’s voice broke across the hall: “Hey! Get the fuck... Fuck out!”

The girl’s voices shattered into clear and chilling words: “Daddy, please! Daddy, don’t! Daddy, don’t do that to her! Daddy!”

And you could feel the understanding and fear ripple down the hall. I froze. I felt the same thought surge through the entire floor: Don’t be a fucking bystander. It took me several moments to move. As I did, I felt other bodies do the same. I felt them ran with me to the phone.

I picked up the receiver and then stopped.

The police?

I could just hit zero and dial the front desk. 

Or I could call the police.

I hit 9, heard it beep in response, and put the receiver down. I was shaking. 

Christ, do I call the police?!

I kept my hand on the phone, listening to the girls outside. Screeching. One continuous thread of terror. As if they were in the room with me. The words were very clear now: “Daddy, no! Don’t, daddy! Daddy!”

And the man: “I can do what I want!”

Screams.

Fucking goddamn hell. I swept the receiver up to my ear again and called the front desk, feeling suddenly guilty and limp.

“Hello?” said a man on the other end.

I tried to explain what was going on. My head still throbbed with sleep. And I was trembling, unsure what to say.

“It sounds like some kind of domestic disturbance,” I said. “It...it sounds very serious.”

“Yes, sir,” said the other end. “We’ve already been informed and I’m going up there to deal with it.”

“Right, but...” I faltered. “Has anyone... Like should we call the police?”

The guy hesitated. “Uh... I have to...go up and, uh...see what’s going on. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up. Almost as soon as I did, there was a loud slam. And then silence. 

I sat very still, one hand still on the phone. My mind reeled and I couldn’t tell if the slam was a door or something else. I couldn’t tell why it was suddenly so quiet. Or if I had called fast enough. Or made the right call. Or if people were dead. Or what was happening. Or if I should have done more. Or if the slam was a gunshot. Or if people were dead and I heard it and I didn’t call the police and I was responsible. 

I didn’t move.

After forever, the faint tinkling of sobs bubbled through the wall. I got up and went back to the door. I listened hard. It wouldn’t be enough until I could hear all four voices accounted for. I heard the man. He shouted something about his rules. I heard the sobs. And the girls, pleading again.

I relaxed. I slumped against the wall as I heard knuckles rapping against wood. I heard a door open. A new man’s voice barked down the hall: “Sir? You’re going to have to come downstairs.”

“Fuck outta here,” said the dad.

“You gotta come down now.”

The two men fought, yelling back and forth. Under their voices, the girls kept yelling, too. “Daddy, don’t do this. Please, Daddy. Daddy, don’t do it.” The men’s voices drifted off towards the elevators. 

And then finally, again, silence.

I turned off the light and laid back in bed, just letting my heart beat.

After a while, I heard the uneven quiver of the two girls talking to the voice of an older, calmer woman.

“It’s gonna be alright,” the woman said.

The girls wailed in incomplete sentences: “I didn’t even. But he isn’t. Where did.”

“It’s gonna be alright. Hey. It’s gonna be okay.”

“What did he do to her? What did he do to her?”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“What did he do to her?”

“You’re safe now. Is there anywhere you can go?”

Their voices faded down the hall. 

And I faded back into sleep.

***

The last thing I saw on The Trip, today, was Lake Erie.

The Uber dropped me off by a trailhead on Erie’s Presque Isle. It was an almost straight concrete path down a long swath of woods. Nobody was there. It felt good to walk down the path, alone, in the birdsong and the trees. It felt like familiar terrain, at last, after months of being in strange territory.

It felt almost like New England again. Almost like home.

The path spat me out by the beach and a lighthouse. No one was around and the sky was grey. The water was cold. The beach empty. 

I had a bag of roasted nuts from that morning, from a shop across from the hotel. I took them out of my backpack. I sat on a log on the beach and ate them, watching the slow uselessness of the waves. In, and out. Up, and down. Pushing and pulling forever. 

I watched the waves roll and shove a small stone up and down the sand. It went nowhere, except those few inches back and forth. The waves kept pushing at it. They tried to move it for a long time. Eventually, I guess, they will. 

I tried to think, as I sat there, of a reason. A connection to close the circuit for good. I think part of being a writer is being able to do that. To be able to go insane for a second and staple together things that otherwise wouldn’t fit together at all. 

But what could I staple those screams to? How make sense of them? What reason, what purpose? How did they click together with this? With my final day, and the beach?

All I came up with was some bullshit about screams in general. Some half-assed symbolism. How I never saw the faces of those screams. How the not-seeing made it so much more frightening. How, if I could only assign a face to the fear, the fear would be so much less powerful. To bind it in flesh would be to end it.

But since I couldn’t do that, I needed to be okay with leaving that 2 AM fear unbound. Leaving it unanswered. Hoping for the best. 

The bullshit part was about how everyone has these screams. Their own screams, I mean. No matter what they are. The ones that wake us up at 2 AM. The ones that haunt us, even in the safety of familiar terrain the following day. But we have to be okay with leaving them faceless. We have to be okay with not assigning a face to our own fears, and trying to bind them anyway. Because there’s nothing else you can do. So you just keep walking the path. And try to be okay with it. Try to bind it, even without a face.

Part of The Trip, I guess, was about binding my own screams. Not the ones I screamed, you know, but the ones I’ve heard. Forever. At all 2 AMs in all hotel rooms.

Or some kind of bullshit. 

If that makes any sense.

Sitting there by the lake, which really seems more like an ocean, it did make sense. It made a lot of sense. And it made the beach seem like a good place to end everything. There, sitting on a log, eating nuts. It made me feel better.

I’m just not sure how exactly to put that into words.

(Erie, PA)

[rebustein94-blog]

And It’s Still Not Even 9 AM

So far, downtown Erie, PA hasn’t exactly shown itself to be any more habitable than the bowels of the Chicago Union Depot. 

I stumbled onto its streets at about 7:30 in the morning, after traveling all night from Chicago. The main thing I’ve learned about taking the Amtrak at night is that they seem to blast cold air through the vents, turning the entire train into one giant glacier, barreling along the dark tracks while inside, everybody shivers themselves to sleep. It’s terrible and unending and when it’s finally, miraculously over, somebody’s covered you with greasy ice during that one half hour you actually slept.

This was the state I was dragging around with me when I walked to my AirBnb apartment in downtown Erie. I was pretty sure I had the address memorized, so I marched up to 433 and rooted around the mailbox, which was tacked to the wall on the front porch, for the key I had been promised. I didn’t find the key, but the door opened as I was standing there. So that seemed, like, fortuitous. A kid of about twelve blinked out at me. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

Christ, I realized. School hasn’t even started yet.

“Hello,” I croaked. “Ahem. Do you, uh…know Larry?”

“No,” said the kid. I was pretty sure he was pretty sure I was a murderer.

“Is this 433?” I asked.

“Yeah.” The kid started to close the door on me. Not that I could blame him.

“You know what,” I said, “I’ll try around back.”

I went around the side of the house to the side door. There was another mailbox there. I opened its rusty lid and voila! The key!

I opened the door, almost tearful for the imminent shower, nap, contact removal (mine were basically laminated to my eyeballs at this point). As soon as I stepped inside, though, I knew I had the wrong fucking place. The interior was completely bare and covered in dust. A layer of carpet had been recently removed, according to the barrier of tacks sticking up all over the edges of the floor. Paint cans were scattered throughout the rooms. Turned-over chairs, peeled tiling. The works.

Well, hey, I thought. He said the upstairs was mine. So maybe I just walk through here to get to it.

Ever hopeful, I crept through the abandoned home, trying not to turn too fast and whack my bags against anything. Like hobos or ghosts. I found a door at the far end of the apartment and, on the other side, voila! The stairs!

I trudged up to the second level and immediately realized that I was looking for 443, not 433. I got to the top of the stairs just as I realized this, and peered through an open door into a living room littered with toys. A baby was screaming somewhere. A hair dryer blowing. 

I noped silently down the steps, backwards.

443 looked a lot more promising. It looked like a full, white, normal house. Someone had even written in Sharpie, “This is 443” on its side. So that was helpful.

I checked and double-checked the listing on AirBnb. I triple-checked it on Google maps, matched the image there to the one I was standing in front of. I analyzed the map to make sure I had it absolutely right. I went back to the AirBnb app and checked it again. I went on checking everything and double-checking it for several minutes. I did all of this because inside the mailbox on the front porch was nothing but air.

There was no key.

My addled brain went, “Mmmyeeagghh,” and decided to check again. Because you never know! Of course, the damn thing did not magically appear, which was a bummer. I checked everything again just to be safe. I was definitely in the right place. I went around the side and checked that mailbox. You never know!

No key.

I sent my guy, Larry, a message. Waited. Called him. Waited. Called. Waited.

Maybe I’ll think more clearly if I get some food, I decided.

There was a gas station/ “Casual dining” joint (according to the sign) back down the road a ways. I dragged my ass back to it and discovered that they meant “casual” dining as seriously as is possible. See, I expected a diner or something. Maybe a shitty café. A deli. Ah, no. It was a gas station with tables at one end. Casual indeed. I bought a soggy wrap for four measly bucks and choked it down. Slumped into a chair in the corner and rocked back and forth as I tried to figure out what to do.

A man sat down across from me. He had large, sad, dead eyes and he used them to give me a hard look. He was broad-shouldered and old. We stared at each other for several moments. He folded his hands on top of the table. I put my hands on top of the table. For the sake of form.

“I wonder,” he said, “if you can do an army vet a favor.”

I blinked at him.

“You ever heard of Desert Storm?”

I sighed. “Yes, I’ve heard of Desert Storm.”

He leaned forward. “I need six dollars. Six lousy dollars to buy a ticket.”

“Dude, I really don’t have any money. Here.” I dug around in my pocket and took out a jumble of coins. “There’s about a buck-fifty.”

“I need six dollars,” he repeated. His voice sounded like it was on the verge of cracking and leaking tears.

“It’s all I’ve got,” I said. 

“There’s an ATM right there,” he said, pointing.

I spread my hands. My chest hurt. I wanted him to implode and leave me alone. “Look, man. It’s really all the money I’ve got.”

He gave me a sad, distant look. It said something like, “You’re really not going to help a man who can ask if you’ve heard of Desert Storm?”

I shrugged, hoping the shrug said, “Sorry, man. That’s it. Anybody can ask if I’ve heard of Desert Storm.”

He rose from the table, muttering, shaking his head. He ambled off. I kept my coins.

I decided to get the hell out of there and see if anything at the apartment had changed. You never know! I walked the two blocks back only to discover that, obviously, nothing had. I sat around for a while, giving this Larry guy the benefit of the doubt. I called him. Waited. Called. Waited. Texted him. Waited. Finally, I tried to get in touch with the AirBnb help center. There’s a long rigmarole you have to go through on the app in order to get to any kind of helpful page, and when you do, that page reads simply, “I can’t check in. What do I do?”

I clicked on that, seeing as it was my only option.

The thing to do, apparently, is let AirBnb send the host a message for you. As if they have a number you don’t, or something. If the host doesn’t respond within an hour, the reservation gets canceled and you can get a full refund.

I sent the request and stared at the ground.

An hour! Sweet God! What to do for an hour?!

I gazed down the street towards the gas station. The only other things around were a CVS, a thrift shop, a dark broken-windowed Greek restaurant, and a place called Sally. Not even Sally’s, as in Sally’s Café or anything. Just Sally. Like, Go inside and there’s Sally. Or whatever it meant.

I figured Sally was probably not a safe bet so, grumbling, I went back to the gas station. Halfway down the block, I tripped over a bone. A bone! Some kind of leg or something. On the sidewalk! Christ! About twenty seconds later, I was swarmed by three or four skinheads with face tattoos, each wielding a cell phone and trying to get in touch with Cleo.

As I passed them, one was saying to the other, “Fucking bitch stole our fucking dope and ran off up the street. Goddamn Cleo.”

Geez, Cleo. It’s not even 9 am yet.

Within thirty seconds of entering the gas station’s “casual dining” area, dropping my bags there for the second time in less than an hour, I was accosted by a man whose left cheek was just a large boil.

He sat at the table next to mine, shaking his head. He kept saying loudly, “Oh man. Oh man, oh man. Hey, man.” He pointed his boil-face my way.

I stared at him blankly.

“You from around here?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You got a cell phone number?”

I looked down at the cell phone in my hand.

“No,” I said.

“I’m getting my car towed,” he explained. “And I don’t have the cash to deal with it. So I need to go borrow some. Do you have a cell phone?”

“No,” I said, holding one.

“The tow truck will cost thirteen bucks. So I have to borrow some. Can you hold onto my military ID and do you have a cell number?”

He took out his wallet. Handed me his ID.

“Why do I have this?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, as if it were obvious, “you got a cell number? I have to borrow thirteen bucks. I have to get it.”

It was then that I realized he wasn’t looking at me as he spoke. He was looking past me, out the window to the curb. And I realized, too, that he wasn’t “borrowing” anything.

He was going to panhandle for the money.

I nearly shot out of my seat. “Lemme just give you thirteen dollars, man.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I was gonna buy coffee anyway. I’ll just get change.”

“Oh, thank you, man. Thank you.”

I wandered away into the store, kicking myself. Feeling like I might cry. Thirteen dollars? Why would I give away so much? Especially after so many incidents with things like this. Especially after the infamous NOLA shoe-cleaning incident. How could I just fork over the money like this?

Because I had it, is the answer. Because I could. 

A scream boiled in the back of my throat. 

When I got back to our casual little corner, the guy eyed the money in my hand and said, “With tax, it’s actually seventeen bucks.”

Which is hysterical, because that’s the exact amount of change I had.

I shoved it at him. 

“Here,” I said. 

“Thanks, man. Oh, thanks.” And he bolted out of there quicker than lightning.

I sat and waited.

***

I watched the clock, nervous that the AirBnb guy might call with a minute or two to spare, and that then I’d be stuck in his crazy-ass home. But he never did. The hour passed without a hitch. So I snagged my full refund as soon as the option to do so popped up on my phone. I booked another hotel in a matter of seconds, just a few minutes away. I schlepped my shit another couple blocks closer to the lakeshore, to this new hotel. I heard choirs of angels “Ha-ah-ahh”-ing and trumpets blaring as I dumped my bags again, now onto the floor of the hotel lobby. Then I looked up and saw the sign: Check-in 3:00 pm.

Thank God they’ll be merciful! was a weird and unbelievable thought I had.

Of course, they were not merciful. Of course, I asked the woman at the desk, “Is there any way at all I can check in early?”

And, of course, she said, “There’s a $50 early check-in fee.”

I threw back my head and laughed. “Yes! Good!”

“But after noon, it goes down to twenty-five.”

“Ho-ho! Brilliant!”

She agreed to hold onto my bags for several hours while I tried to entertain myself in Erie. My head was throbbing. My feet hurt. Everything about me felt dirty and reeked of train. And it was cold. Painfully cold. Winds driving off the lake into my very soul. 

The first interesting place I came across was the maritime museum, where a coterie of old men proceeded to shanghai me and explain the extraordinary significance of the reconstruction club they had. The group had rebuilt and maintained the ship the Niagara, which had won a decisive battle on Lake Erie during the War of 1812 (in a battle actually fought in the fall of 1813). Now, there’s a large number of volunteers and professionals who keep the ship running and even live on it. They have to pass inspections and things. Like there’s a whole board of people deciding whether or not your ship is authentic enough or not. Which means there’s hundreds of these kinds of groups. Hundreds of these kinds of ships.

As the guy was explaining it to me and the only two other people there (a young couple who really loved boats and kept asking a mind-boggling number of questions), I kept thinking, Why? Why do this? Why keep it all going like this? Why maintain the past with such fervor?

“What’s the name of the exact mechanism that lowers the anchor?” asked the young guy next to me, playing with the gold chain around his neck with his thumb.

Our old tour guide gave him some complicated answer that soared above my head.

“Gnarly,” said the young guy, clearly impressed. 

We got to go onboard the ship and see all the work the volunteers did, and then, somehow, I got it. I understood. Because living and working on a ship like that looks fucking awesome. To eat and sleep below-decks? To learn the names and functions of all the ropes and sails and things and not have to worry about British cannonfire? Or scurvy? What a dream! 

Not a word of the old man’s tour passed low enough for me to catch it. Most of it was too deeply mired in nautical terms and ship-speak to not go over my sleepy, sleepy head. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. 

So, anyway, I managed to kill a few hours learning about ships and the Niagara and Oliver Hazard Perry, who was the Erie bigshot back in 1813. Despite zooming in and out of everything that was happening, and sometimes losing my balance, and wanting a nap and a shower more than anything else on God’s green Earth, I’m actually really glad check-in time was so late. I’m glad I never heard from ole 443. I never would have gone to the maritime museum. 

Ah, silver linings...

God, am I beat, though.

And it’s not even 3 now!

Wow!

I still have to wait!

Could this day get any better?!

(Erie, PA)

[rebustein94-blog]

A Short Chicago Post to Remind Everyone I'm Still Alive

I’m still alive.

I’ve moved on through Minnesota after a short ~respite~, as the kids say. I’m sitting now in Chicago’s Union Depot, where so far the biggest events that have happened to me were both pretty terrible to witness.

I heard, for example, a guy puking in the bathroom of a sandwich shop. Loud, wet, racking gags. Retching up his goddamn intestines, as far as I could tell. On and on, for twenty minutes. His wife sat outside the bathroom, chewing her nails until at last, one final demonic “HEEEURRGH!!” made her call an ambulance. When it arrived, the husband burst out of the door, skin grey and maybe falling off? He marched himself right up to the ambulance and through its open rear door, completely ignoring the two men who offered him a gurney.

The second thing was a homeless man who came up to me and held out his hand as if to shake mine. Not knowing what else to do, I offered him my hand. He clung to it as he explained, “I’ve been here for two days, sir. Please help me get… I’ve been here for two days straight. I just… Two days.”

I gave him all the change in my pocket. I didn’t look him straight in the face because I thought it might make me go mad and scream. You could buy a small palace with all the change I’ve dumped in homeless hands over the course of this trip. I try to give it away in big gulps to the first person who comes along, so that later I can truthfully say, “I’ve got no change!” And think, “Thank God for that” as I move quickly away.

A few minutes after watching this particular guy shuffle away, I watched a cop lead him outside. And a few minutes after that, I watched the guy stagger back in to make the exact same rounds he had before, to a now very confused and slightly afraid set of travelers. And then a few minutes after that, he was caught and led more forcefully into the night. He did not come back a third time.

Anyway, I’m only here for a short layover. So that’s all I saw of the great, great city of Chicago. I’ve been here before, and seen sights and eaten the pizza, so I didn’t need to see any more now. And especially not now.

Nice place.

I’m definitely ready for my train.

(Chicago, Il)

[rebustein94-blog]

The Feeling of Mountains

So whatever ghost there is in the Izaak Walton, it never showed itself while I was there. Or here, still. For a bit, anyway. My train leaves in an hour, which is good and terrible because I’ve been itching to keep moving and itching to stay forever.

But either way, I'm finally leaving the mountains. It’s a relief, honestly, because they make you feel great. But they also make you feel desperately small and useless. After spending over a week nestled inside of them, I’m shooting through to the Midwest, which makes you feel big. All a matter of perspective. Today’s leg is about twenty-two hours, and it’s the last great leg of The Trip overall. 

The Walton’s been great, if not spooky. I became friends with most of the staff and they invited me to a bonfire they were having a few nights ago. A few more of them took me out for drinks yesterday. They took me to this local hole in the wall where I paid six bucks for two gin and tonics. Six bucks! Somewhere between the first and the second gin, as we stood outside beneath the mountain-filled horizon, somebody said, “You gotta come back, Sam.”

“I know,” I nodded. “I would love to work a season here, actually.” Which was true, there in the warm breeze and the company of four other guys that I could see myself shooting the shit with for months on end.

The guys all nodded back. Especially the one who was driving us around, a skinny, older dude named Roger. The whole day, Roger kept squeezing my shoulder and saying, “Goddamn, I’m glad I met you, man.”

“You, too, Rog.”

“You’re a real cool guy, man.”

“You, too, Rog!”

We sped along the Montana roads and I kept feeling it. Kept drowning in the laughter of these random guys I found myself with, and the country music on the radio. And all those crystal-blue lakes and rivers. I leaned out the window and let the wind beat against my face.

I still can't explain the feeling of the mountains here. Its almost maddening, having the air full like that. Having some kind of solid rock inside the horizon. Something about it makes the very air hum with danger and power.

We drove by a grizzly bear at one point. It was standing by the side of the road, a ways back, against the trees. It was the first bear I’d ever seen in the wild. Just standing there, gazing out at the passing cars with its massive, powerful head. It felt like an offering from the Rockies themselves. A glimpse of ancient, beautiful, natural power, just to hush us for a moment, and lower the tide of the madness with which we were cruising through a land we thought we owned but didn’t.

It humbled everybody in the car. All five of us peered out the windows, trying to catch another sliver of something. For a split second, nobody spoke. Somebody cracked a joke, tore the silence open. We erupted again, and the moment was gone. But it’s power like that that you can only find in the mountains. 

It’s scary as hell. And I wanted to be in it forever. 

I was looking for something still, of course, and I didn't know what it was. Ever since Alabama and all the used tires by the side of the tracks--all that garbage piling up in the whole country--I’ve been looking. Feeling like I’d know it when I saw it.

The bear and the mountains felt close to it, but not quite.

Nothing got closer as when Bill told me to go for a walk at night.

“There was an avalanche a few days ago up the road,” he explained a few nights ago from behind the front desk. “If you go down at night, when it’s clear, you can see all the stars and everything. It’s real pretty. In fact...” He typed something into his computer. “Hey, look at that! It’s clear tonight!”

“I’ll check it out, then,” I promised, feeling obligated. Since he looked it up and everything.

So I went out into the cold and dark. By myself. Carrying this little can of bear spray the staff had lent me for when I went hiking alone (which all the signs say not to, but fuck it, right?). I walked around the hotel and up along the railroad tracks towards where I figured the avalanche was. Bill had said there was a white paved path leading to it but everything looked white or dark grey in the moonlight, so I couldn’t tell where the damn thing might be.

Everything was so still. The moon so bright that it lit up almost the entire place. As I walked along the tracks, this tiny electric whine began to buzz in my ear. This small, metallic singing. After a second, I realized it was the track itself. Vibrating with electricity. And further down, coming towards me, I could hear the train. The sound of a thousand blades pounding against themselves. 

Suddenly, it was on me. It punched through the calm silence of the night. Screeching this blood-boiling clamor. Crying and squealing and banging down the track. The hot stink of its passing washed over me. This I felt, too. There was something majestic about it. This massive, snake-like creature that had carried me so many miles. Down and across and back over the whole country. Now here, in its natural habitat. Careening though the moonlight without another soul around. I admired it for about a minute. Then the screeching began to drive me mad. It grew and grew into this ear-bursting whirlwind of noise. The kind of brain melting cacophony that makes you want to scream in unison with it. Makes you claw at your ears and howl back. 

This went on for years. 

Until finally, the thing ended and burst onward into the night, chugging along down the track. And the track, in its turn, vibrated and sang and hummed one final time. Before the silence swallowed it again. 

It seemed like the same thing as seeing the bear. Some majestic thing living unhindered by man. A creature that I respected and trusted so much. One I had relied on for months. Right there, all alone, except for me, punching through the night on screaming wheels.

I never found the avalanche. But the train seemed like enough. Because it was the thing, wasn’t it? Everything from the whole Trip rolled up into one icon. All the doing and the going and the being. I don’t know, but it felt magical for a while there. It made me think about The Trip and all its twists and turns and how it all went down. Made me feel like I had seen something, and that I would never be able to say what it was or what it meant. But it was something invaluable nonetheless. It made me feel good. It made me feel like going.  

God, I love going. 

(Essex, MT)

[rebustein94-blog]

What’s Inside of Room 25?

Glacier National Park is indescribable. You turn a corner and wham, there’s another peak, even taller than the last. Another corner and blam there’s an entire range you haven’t seen before. And you’re standing there, admiring the way the mist steams out of the very trees along its side, so awed that it takes you a full minute or two to realize that’s not mist. It’s the clouds. The mountains are so tall that the clouds can’t even rise above them.

Nothing will make you feel God like a mountain will. Nothing else in the world like it. You can almost hear them humming with age and power.

You can mess with the desert. Conquer it. Live in it. Whatever. You can own the prairie and the plains and the woods, of course. Swamps, too, I guess. The tundra, if that’s what you’re into.

But nobody fucks with a mountain.

I made friends with some of the staff at the Inn and they invited me to go on a hike with them down to this place called Swinging Bridge. You go over this excitingly treacherous, definitely swinging plank thing and up towards a peak called Scalplock. We stood by the bank of a river running through the center of a wide valley for a while. The water is this pure light blue and it keeps pummeling over the rocks so hard you wonder where all that water is actually coming from. If it’s all just melting snow pouring down from the peaks, how much fucking snow is there?

I looked around the valley. It swept out over a long stretch of rocks and dirt and bare trees. I told one of the girls who had invited me there that we didn’t have open land like that in New York.

She blinked at me. Glanced around the valley. I guess it looked relatively small to her because she said, “You think this is open?”

“Well...yeah.” Wasn’t it?

“Maybe I’m just spoiled,” she said, shaking her head. “But this is nothing.”

On our way back to the car, we came across the foreleg of a deer. It ended in a red and bone-white stump. It was bent just so, and lay directly in the middle of the path. No sign of blood or a struggle or anything else around. As if someone or something had carried it there and dropped it. Had left it exclusively for us to find.

“Must be bears nearby,” one of the staff members. But there was this edge to the way she said. This clipped tone of confidence and we all knew. Or felt it. That there was always the possibility for something more.

We moved quickly back to the car.

Because nothing makes you feel the devil like a mountain.

***

Since Glacier is so indescribable, let me describe instead an update on the Izaak Walton’s ghost.

The girl who invited me on the hike and told me I didn’t know what “open” meant is named Margie. When I asked Margie about the ghost on the third floor yesterday afternoon, she nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “We had a member of our house staff always refuse to go in room 25 because she said it freaked her out.”

I rubbed my hands together. Of course, I love a good ghost story. “Any specific reason?”

Margie shrugged. “Just a feeling she had. And one time, one of our security guys saw someone standing at the ATM downstairs way after the lounge down there was closed. So he went down to check it out. But nobody was there.”

“Excellent.” Yes, this was good.

“There’s a guy who stays in 25 every summer. He says he can see weird markings on the wall.”

My eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. Like something’s in the wood.”

“Please let me go up there,” I said.

She gave me the key and I went up. Room 25 was at the end of the hall. I felt nervous opening the door, but in a fun haunted-house kind of way. Not a “I’m instinctively sensing my at-hand death right now” way.

Inside, it was just like all the other rooms. Except it was cold as death. For a second that got me. For a second, I went, “Ooohh!” But I figured they probably just didn’t have the heat on, since no one was staying in there. Dread gnawed at me as I opened the bathroom door but inside was just some dumb old bathroom.

No markings on the walls. Nothing.

I had expected symbols burned into the woodwork. Or maybe claw marks from some horrible nightmare-dwelling beast. Or demonic designs formed by the knots and warps of the very wood itself, indicating some demonic presence within the very beams of the hotel.

Nope.

I brought the key back down and said, essentially, “Well, that was all a nice little ghost story. Thanks.”

“Sure,” she said, obviously feeling the same way. And I would have mostly forgotten about it.

But then I met Bill.

Bill’s hairline is halfway up his head. The hair he does have is this white straw stuff that swishes around when he moves his head. He has thick glasses that magnify his eyes to insect-like proportions and the widest, most genuine smile I’ve ever seen.

Bill’s from the Midwest.

“Oh, sure,” he’ll say if you ask him a question. “Yeah, you bet.” As he bobs his head agreeably, grinning such a straight-up smile it’s almost off-putting. Almost. Then you realize he means it and you’re like, “Okay, right on, Bill.”

Bill was on the night shift last night, so it was just him and me and the darkness after about nine (when all the elderly couples curl up into their pods and unplug their alien brains...I assume). So in the dim light of the lobby, I asked him about the ghost.

“Oh!” he said. “I’ve never seen anything here. I’ve heard some things from people but I think it’s all bogus, you know. I used to own a bar, though, and we had some things happen there.”

“Like what?” I asked eagerly.

“Well, gosh. Let’s see. One time, I took this photo of the dance floor when there were all these people dancing. But in the middle of them, in the picture, was this very tall black man in a tweed suit. Like, seven or eight feet tall. And you could see right through him.”

“Spooky,” I said, intrigued.

Bill, encouraged by my enthusiasm, went on. “Another time, we snapped a picture of the stairs. And we saw three little orbs at the bottom of the staircase. So we took another picture. And they were closer. Another picture. Closer. Coming up the stairs. Until finally they were right in front of us. And, gosh, we got a chill, then, you know.” He laughed.

“That’s awesome,” I said. Bill had some good stuff.

“And this one time,” he said, really beaming widely now, “I was upstairs. And my wife was down in the bar. And I heard this bloodcurdling scream. So I stopped. And listened. And I heard another one. Just bloody murder, you know. So I run down and I ask, ‘Barb? You hear anything?’ And she goes, ‘No’. So that was pretty weird.” He laughed again.

I stared at him. In the darkness of the lobby, almost entirely alone, thinking about the notion of hearing anything out of the ordinary, let alone a bloodcurdling scream, I was not on board with this laughter. How is that your reaction? How do you hear a disembodied scream and go, “Say, that’s odd!”

“That’s nuts,” I said, less enthusiastic. My spine felt suddenly cold.

But Bill was on a roll. “Another time, somebody got stabbed in the hallway by the bathroom. But there was no one else there.”

Stabbed?!

“Okay, Bill.”

“Oh, and we had someone get pushed down the stairs.”

What?! My room was upstairs!

“Hey, that’s great, Bill.” I started backing away.

“Oh, and here people have seen figures walking around the lobby at night sometimes. I just remembered that.”

Sweet Christ! We were in the lobby! The very same lobby!

“Anyway,” said Bill, shrugging. “I’m about to close up. So good night!”

And he left me alone there, which was a terrible idea. I have a very good imagination.

Although, really, who’s to say Bill isn’t the ghost?

I mean, I’d buy that. I’d buy that in a second.

But it’s an old hotel. It creaks and groans all the time. The pipes clang and the wood snaps as it settles and warps. The floors scream and the walls ooze and the elk bust on the wall drools blood. Just normal old hotel stuff.

It’s got character, you know? It’s cozy. Super cozy. Not scary at all.

In fact, I’m sitting in the lobby right now! All alone, long after dark. And I love it! There’s this clattering sound that strikes up every few minutes somewhere by the bar that I’m seriously having trouble identifying and someone keeps walking around above me and I’m not 100% sure there’s anyone staying down that hallway because I haven’t seen anyone down there yet but there are people around and it is a cozy cozy old hotel. So what if I honestly can not shake the feeling that I’m not alone right now? Right? It’s just an old hotel!!!! RIGHT??!!

(Essex, MT)

[rebustein94-blog]

Little Slow Tonight, Isn’t It, Lloyd?

Last night was my first night at the Izaak Walton Inn, just at the edge of Glacier National Park. The only other guests I’ve seen so far have been elderly couples who march up and down the main road and eat the hotel restaurant’s steak for dinner and then call it a day. I did spot one other young guy at the bar, but when I came back a minute later he had vanished like a mirage. Other than that and the eight or so staff members, I am alone.

The Inn is hard to describe. It’s part relic and part...something else. The very air smells forgotten and old. The town in which the Inn is located has 60 people living in it year-round. Mostly, they seem to live in isolated cabins along the highway. If there’s an actual “town”, I haven’t seen it yet. The hotel employees live in special housing, and the few there actually are do everything. The woman who served me dinner, then breakfast this morning, was also the one ringing me up at the bar last night. 

Don’t get me wrong. The Inn is cozy as Hell, in that very silent and comforting way that hugs your spine and makes you go, “Mmm.” But also in that way that begins to worm up your spine to the base of your skull after a while, making your soul itch, and making you wonder where all the bodies are buried. They pipe love songs from decades long dead through the vents, and because of the loneliness, the whole thing has an underwater city of Rapture vibe, or, obviously, an Overlook Hotel kind of feel. 

There’s no cell service. There’s no town. There’s just the Inn and the railroad.

Which is actually pretty much the only reason the Inn is there, anyway. It was built as a station house for the Great Northern Railway, and then supposedly burned down two separate times. I think. The history is a little fuzzy. The current setup (I think) was settled in 1939, according to my new buddy at the front desk. It was gradually converted into an Inn, but retained an apparently intense codependency with the railway. More than half the furnishings are made of old rail spikes and bent lengths of iron from old tracks. The stained wooden walls are decorated with old train schedules, menus from 1970s dining cars, and dozens of paintings of steam engines. No, hundreds of paintings of steam engines. There’s also a massive display of rusting padlocks tacked to a wall in the lounge that I haven’t quite figured out yet. 

During my first stint in the restaurant, I heard a loud clatter and whir overhead. I thought it was the rain at first, so I glanced outside. Sunshiney. It took me a few moments to look up and see, running on a track around the entire room, a miniature train. It whirred and chugged and dragged its dusty, sorry ass all the way around the ceiling.

“Dear God,” I couldn’t help saying. 

“Wow!” said an old man at another table. He gazed up at the thing with childish wonder. Followed it across the entire track with his eyes, which glittered wistfully. “Gee...”

“Yeah, we get a lot of what we call Foamers,” my front desk buddy said later. We’ll call him Todd, because he looks like a Todd. Hefty build, dark beard. Glasses. 

I asked what Foamers were.

“In the summer, we get a lot of train fans,” he explained. “They come just to see the trains and be with all the memorabilia, I guess. I’ve seen grown men sit and wait in the lobby for a train to come by, and then jump up and run outside to see it. Foaming at the mouth. Foamers.”

“Hey, weird,” I said.

“We get a lot of strange people around here,” he agreed.

Another spooky thing about the Izaak Walton is its grandfather clock. It squats like a demi-god in the restaurant and every hour, it sounds what can only be described as the hollow, brass knell of impending doom.

Tum-dum, tum-dum. Tum-dum, tum-dum.

Every half hour, it lets out just one little fart: tum-dum. Which always makes me jump.

I was starting to get used to the place after an hour or so of writing in the bar last night. Started to feel more of that “Mmm” and less of that tum-dum. 

I climbed the stairs up to the lobby, where Todd was still hanging out. It was almost eleven at night and they had shut the music off. Half the lights in the hotel had been extinguished. The feeling was very much that Todd and I were the last two people left alive anywhere.

Todd knew I was a writer, from earlier conversations, and so he asked how my work had gone. Not bad, was the answer. He mentioned that he writes a bit of his own stuff, and even had a story published in his college’s journal. Which I was pretty impressed by.

“But I haven’t really written anything in years,” he sighed. “I don’t feel like I have anything to write about.”

“I’m of the philosophy that if you feel that way, whatever you need to write isn’t making itself known yet,” I said honestly. “Not writer’s block but...whatever you’re supposed to write isn’t possessing you yet. So don’t feel bad. Just wait. It’ll come.”

He nodded sagely. “I had a writing teacher who said if you get stuck on a story, you start a new story.”

“Eh, I do that too often. I have too many scraps now. I think that’s only healthy to an extent.”

“Well, if you get stuck, you could write about this place,” he said. He explained the idea for a sitcom he’s had for a while, based on the Izaak Walton.

“Absolutely, man,” I said, enthusiastic. “I was thinking the same thing earlier. It’s ripe for something here.”

I started heading up the stairs and he said, almost under his breath, “Or I could write about the ghost.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Whirled around to face him. “I’m sorry, what?”

He grinned mischievously. “There’s a ghost on the third floor.”

“Tell me all about it,” I demanded.

“Apparently, this old woman died when she was staying here, on the third floor. Nothing violent. Just in her sleep. But people have heard footsteps up there. When they go up there at night, they feel like they’re being watched. So I never go up at night if I hear noises. People have heard children whispering, too.”

“Great,” I said. “I’m going up there right now.”

I did and I didn’t hear anything. No dead kids murmuring in my ear or anything. 

But as I turned and began to head back down the stairs to my room, I did have the distinct sensation that someone stood at the railing, gazing down the steps, watching me. And whatever calm had finally burned away the creepiness of the Izaak Walton Inn was shattered.

I slept well and hard, but not after a long time of staring at the crack of light under my door and knowing that if I saw or heard a peep, I’d lose my absolute shit.

***

This morning, the sun is bright and the mini choo-choo is still running. There’s even a Foamer sitting here in the lobby with me as I write this, bobbing forward and back in his chair, eyeing the rails outside the window.

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

(Essex, MT)

[rebustein94-blog]

Man Fucking Down

Sir Hincty Brinkley

sometimes a Lieutenant

sometimes a Captain

depending on my mood

but always a knight

and a handsome 

beige 

little man

is lost to us.

Gone.

Swallowed

by the great unknown

and the unknowable.

The missing

and the damned.

Ye Gods!

How could thee tread

on a precious 

beige 

little soul

such as that

of Sir Hincty Brinkley,

adventurer extraordinaire.

Damn ye!

May your spines break

your muscles melt

and eternal torture 

torment thee!

Seriously

just like 

why?

Fuck you.

***

Sir Hincty Brinkley was plucked from a basket of free figurines at the WWII Museum in Toccoa, GA. I was trying to think of a strong army man name and Lt. Brinkley popped into my head so it stuck. And I was reading On The Road at the time, which was a wishy-washy idea, at best, because it made me a little nuts for a while. Dean Moriarty flicking at the back of my skull and whispering mania into my ear. One of the words he and good old Sal Paradise use a lot in the book, and plastered to my mind, is “hincty”. He’d say, like, “We stopped at this hincty town.” Or something. So I figured it was a name that would encapsulate The Trip (or part of it, at least), and it stuck, too. Hincty Brinkley. 

Anyway.

The birth of Brinkley at this simple event in the museum gift shop was a wondrous one because he stuck with me until now. Over a month! For many magical moons we traveled together, across endless states (especially Texas--talk about endless). He was a perfect, silent companion. Never complaining from his home in the...bottle holder? The fuck you call that thing? The outer side pocket thing on a backpack? What is that?? Look, we all know what it is and the point is that that is where Sir Lt. Hincty Brinkley lived for nigh on a month. A comforting presence through many travails. He never made a peep, even when we were out in the blazing sun and the shivering rain. Or when I shoved water bottles on top of his tiny, plastic beige form. Because that’s where you hold them, you know.

Nope. Faithful to the last, that Captain Brinkley.

Bless him.

I thought he vanished many times. Swept away by my own carelessness or a too-hard bump of the backpack. Accidentally dumped on some train or trail. But he always persisted. Always greeted my groping fingers with his firm, beige plasticyness. Always there at the bottom of the...bottle holder. Strong as Hell, that guy.

I didn’t know what I would do with him when I got home. Prop him on a shelf somewhere, maybe, as a subtle reminder that The Trip happened. As a gentle nudge into memory, wherever I happened to end up in future.

But alas.

For when I slipped on my bag this morning, and checked for my little buddy, as usual, he was but mist. Gone from my...bottle holder. I panicked, checked all over for him. Scoured my entire room. Nothing.

Sir Captain Lt. Hincty Brinkley, Esq. was fucking gone.

Gone 

gone

fucking gone.

The bastards--this world!

Alas.

I’m sorry, buddy. I’m really sorry. I let you down. First my pictures, now you. All gone. All wasted. Tis a cruel world, old friend. I miss you. I’m sorry. 

Come back to me. Please. Or at least let me know you’re safe in the great bottle holder thing in the sky. Some kind of sign. Anything. 

Please.

Alas.

RIP, Sir Lt. Hincty Brinkley. Your life was short but sweet. I’ll miss you.

(Whitefish, MT)

[rebustein94-blog]

Screw LG.

Screw LG. My second LG G4 phone--the replacement from the crapped-out phone I got almost exactly a month ago in New Orleans--has died. Stopped responding completely and unexpectedly. All five hundred photos from the trip--gone. The snippets of audio I had--from street performers in NOLA, wind chimes in Huston, that cafe guy in Klamath Falls--gone. All because my phone suddenly, unapologetically, turned into a brick. Again.

I had to take a cab to another town today to get a new phone. They could only give me another LG, which is swell. 

When I got back to my hotel room, I called customer services and tried to explain the whole thing. How much I was relying on my phone while traveling. For maps, Uber, train schedules. How nerve-wracking it was, then, when the thing died.

“There must be some kind of compensation,” I wailed, “for having my phone fail twice in a single calendar month. Twice during the same vacation! I had to spend ninety dollars in cab fare running around to Verizon stores to get it fixed! Surely, there’s some kind of compensation or something.”

“Unfortunately, sir, there is nothing we can do,” said the guy on the other end, through a thick accent. “But as a customer of LG myself, not just an employee, I can sympathize.”

“You can?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you can understand how nervous I feel relying so heavily on this new replacement LG phone I got from Verizon? Knowing it could die and leave me stranded at any moment? You can understand how I will never buy another LG product and I’ll tell everyone I know to do the same? You understand how frustrated I am that all my pictures are gone? That that happened twice? How can I trust LG ever again?”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“But there’s nothing you can do.”

“No, sir.”

I let out what I considered the big one: “And you feel okay ending the call, then, knowing how I feel and knowing there’s nothing you can do?”

He paused.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, finally. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

I know it sounds horrible, but I really hope that guy’s day was darkened because of me. Really, I know that’s bad. But I was so angry and tired and I hadn’t brushed my teeth or slept yet, since it had been another red-eye train ride the night before. I wanted somebody to suffer with me. So I settled for this guy.

Now, I feel bad. I do. I hope he never gave me another thought. And that the rest of his day was peachy.

But then again I hope I keep him up tonight. I hope I haunt his every step.

***

When I arrived in Whitefish, MT, it was about eight am. The train station is right by the middle school and as I walked to my hotel, I passed crowds of short humans on their way to class. Swarms of kids ambling along in their swishy coats to PE or biology or math or whatever.

Seeing them, and thinking about the lives they must lead, I figured, everybody’s pretty much the same. Everybody is just having a day. Right?

It’s images like that which I use to remind myself of that. Things like the fact that there’s a middle school in Whitefish, MT--a town I’ve never thought about-- that’s just a regular old middle school, with regular old kids. Same as anywhere else. Just people. Having days.

So I hope Mr. LG Customer Support forgot about me.

***

Amtrak brings out some real wierdies. Some real class-act ghouls haunt the rails. Like the guy who spent eight hours completely under a sheet, only to emerge when they called his stop, revealing himself to be a one-eyed black man. 

“Agh,” he said to the ceiling. “Home again.”

Or the woman who I sat with on my way to Portland. She talked a mile a minute, feeding me her entire life story at this schizophrenic, spitfire rate. She’d get excited, waving her hands around, white foam spreading around the corners of her mouth. Then suddenly, she’d frown at something she said, and scowl out the window, nodding unhappily for several seconds. Then her face would crack into a smile just as suddenly and she’d be off again. 

“I love horses, man,” she said. “I’m a horse girl. I don’t know why anyone would be cruel to animals. I really don’t.” Scowl. Then: “I had a horse named Rusty when I was eight. And my mom.” Scowl. “My mom gave away my saddle that I had for him. I loved that saddle! It was just perfect for me. And Rusty was so sweet. Yes, he was...”

For hours.

Another one was the old woman rocking side to side on the train just last night. She was crooning old love songs like a dying crow. Short bursts of what you might call lyrics, strung together by periods of mumblings. “And I...murmur murmur...HOLDING YOUR HAND! Murmur murmur BAAABY!”

It’s those kind of people I try to not hate. I try not to glare at them over my headrest. Try to empathize. Because they’re just people. Right? Just having days.

***

The host of my last AirBnb did turn out to be a pretty devout Christian. We were talking on her porch when she pointed at the necklace I usually wear-- a Celtic cross.

“I saw your cross,” she said, meaning: I noticed you’re one of us.

“Oh,” I said, toying with it idly, self-consciously. “Yeah, it’s...” Actually not Christian, I almost said. “It’s made out of one interwoven...noodle or whatever.”

She nodded, this blank euphoria stuck on her face. I expected her to say something. But she just beamed at me like a broken robot.

“Right,” I said. “So it’s supposed to be about how we’re all connected.”

“I know,” she said. “You know, the Pope just gave a Ted talk on that.”

I told her why I loved grocery stores in towns that weren’t mine. And...

Eh, fuck it. I hope I’ve got red eyes and I’m clawing at Mr. LG’s nightmare-fevered skull until he awakens in a waterbed of his own sweat.

Connected or not. I’ll sweat with him. As long as I’m not alone.

(Whitefish, MT)

[rebustein94-blog]

Flood

Some time ago 

there was a large flood 

in what I guess you’d call 

the Wenatchee River Valley 

in Leavenworth, Washington. 

This raging wall of melted snow

or whatever it was 

carried with it 

countless lengths 

of timber 

among other things.

Christ-- 

to think 

of a massive wall 

of rolling wood 

and wet 

rushing towards you...

Anyway

the spilled logs 

are still there. 

You can walk across the bridge

in the park, 

look down over the side 

and see them there 

all scattered over each other. 

These frozen 

mossy logs 

under the glass surface 

of the river. 

Stuck there forever

slowly rotting away

after the flash flood 

of a single moment.

Which 

really

is kind of 

what the whole world is. 

Isn’t it? 

The scattered debris 

of split-second mistakes 

or bad decisions 

that happened

long ago. 

A landscape 

of old trash

with the half-life 

of endless millennia...

Anyway, those logs are pretty cool. 

Five stars.

(Leavenworth, WA)

[rebustein94-blog]

Tumwater Canyon

Somewhere between

the yogurt 

and the beer

it struck me that 

I really love walking through grocery stores in towns I don’t live in. 

Wow do I love it.

Like entering

another world

close to ours

but not quite the same

where products are all

vaguely familiar

but totally alien.

And then

what really struck me

was how you could just walk

into any of them

from anywhere.

Into any neighborhood

and any world

from any other one.

In fact

if you had the time

you could walk from

the Stop and Shop in Poughkeepsie, NY

all the way to the Safeway in Leavenworth, WA.

Hell

I could walk

from New Orleans

to Canada.

Pretty much everywhere

around here

is freaking walkable. 

Which I think is astounding

and 

tragically

easily forgotten. 

***

Taking the train from Seattle to Leavenworth, you pass by so much gorgeous countryside and forest and mountains that it breaks your heart. I thought I would cry after gazing out the window at the ninth or so raging streambed we passed over, so precarious on those old wooden bridges. It’s like being on another planet, filled with gnarly, lichen-covered trees and mist. Stuffed with glowing white and blue mountains and rolling green farms. The sun warm against the steely-colored rock and snow, hazing up out of the horizon.

I wanted to swallow the whole thing. It was so perfect and quiet and wonderful. I went a little mad on the train just looking at it, actually. Wanted to beat my palms against the window and howl. Strip naked and just roll around in the majesty of it.

If everything was bigger in Texas, I didn’t notice. Here, the trees are miles tall. They’ve got pinecones the size of your fist. Sharp, too. You pick one up and it stings your fingers. They pound against your roof at night like the very sky is punching your shingles. It would have maybe helped to know that before I lay anxiously in bed, gaping at the ceiling and calling, “Hello?”

Klam-boom. 

“Is anyone there?!”

Slam-clash.

“Oh God! I said, is anyone there?!”

The answer is no, of course. Nobody is here in Leavenworth, WA. 

Except the host-lady of the AirBnb I’m staying in. Every time I see her, she beams at me. In fact, she beams so hard the force of it throws her head back. Jolts her hand into the air and whirs it around in a wild, excited wave. She greeted me when I arrived and made sure I had everything I needed. Then clapped her hands, bowed, and said, “Blessings.”

That, and the strange noises at night, and I was pretty much ready to be butchered by a cult. 

But, no. She’s just really nice. She really did wish me good blessings. In fact, everyone around here is nice.

It was creepy at first, not gonna lie. I thought they were brainwashed or something. I mean, of course I did. I’m from New York. Who’s just nice like that? I figured, how could everyone just be going about their business and be so happy? Be so content?

The answer is obvious. They just are content. They’re peaceful and they realize they’re fine.

Because the mountains have been around for millions of years, so whatever BS is happening today is only happening today. 

Seems to be more or less the attitude.

Plus you could be taken out by a pinecone any second so why bother?

***

Down the road from the Safeway is Dan’s Food Mart, which is small and has carpet floors. Carpet floors! I’ve never seen that in a grocery store. Have you?? Holy Hell, this is why I love going to other grocery stores. You really see people’s daily lives in ways you wouldn’t otherwise. I spent several minutes just walking around, feeling the purple-ish blue carpet massage the bottoms of my feet and going, “Wow.”

And that’s when the part about everything being walkable struck me.

If everything was bigger in Texas, I didn’t notice. Because everything is massive in Washington, and nobody says a word about it. They don’t have to.

Which raises some interesting questions about Texas, honestly.

(Leavenworth, WA)

[rebustein94-blog]

Let’s All Raise A Glass to P.J. Malone

I only spent two nights in Seattle. My first night, I wandered around the neighborhood I was staying in, on Capitol Hill. Saw all the nice bars, coffee shops, the crowds of hipsters and punks. I went into a pinball arcade/bar and played around for a while. Listening to the metallic churning and whirring from the machines around me, and the surge of the people drinking IPAs at the bar.

The part of the city I was in was filled with fancy houses and mansions and giant, pink blooming trees. It was sunset when I was wandering that first night, and everything was beautiful golden-yellow, so I was content to just saunter along for a while. Looking up at all the lives behind gates. Every so often turning to gaze across at the downtown skyline. At the mountains and the Needle, of course. Just letting my mind float around in the cool breeze of the northwest sun as it faded away.

My mind was really somewhere else when I walked through the smell of a campfire. Whatever I had been thinking about (can’t remember now), it was slammed out of me by that smell. I stumbled, jerked my head back. I stopped there on the sidewalk, looked around. Sniffed the air. Hard. Great gulps of smoky, woody stench. I tried to swallow all of it.  Snorfling big lungfuls of sticky air because there is nothing on God’s Green Earth that I love more than the smell of a campfire.

But I couldn’t find the source. 

I turned in complete, idiotic circles. No smoke anywhere. No people lounging on back porches. No sound of laughter or melting marshmallows. The fences too high to see the backyards. To see whatever fire pits might be hiding around there.

The neighborhood seemed utterly quiet and desolate. I felt abruptly and entirely alone. It didn’t take me long to realize that this was probably because campfires are all about community. About safety and togetherness. Gathering together in a shared warmth to push back the unknown of the night. And there I was, on the outside. 

And thinking about that made me realize something else-- that smell hadn’t made me think of anything. It didn’t shoot me back to a specific childhood memory or a single good day somewhere in the back of my mind. No musings or reminiscences. Nothing came up. No connections. Just the simple thought, “Wow, I love that smell.” 

And that made me feel kind of worse. Feeling like there was nothing visceral there. Nothing strong enough to be attached to like that. I mean, that’s the thing, right? You smell a particular smell and it sends you somewhere? The olfactory or whatever? Bringing up whatever rosebud you’ve got stored away? Accessing deep, secretive parts of your brain? Right?

So where the hell were mine?

I stood on the curb for a few minutes, wondering. Wondering why I hadn’t gone back to anything. Or if I maybe felt like there was nothing specific to go back to. Which, of course, is bullshit because writing this now I can think of dozens of things. Dozens of campfires shared and days loved. So that’s really not it.

But there on the curb, alone, in that split second when the smell swallowed me... I don’t know.

***

Further up the hill was the cemetery. Supposedly, it was where Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee are buried, so I wanted to check it out. The thing slopes up a big rise, heading up towards the setting sun. If you stand at the top, you can look down on more of the city, rolling out into valleys and hills, forever and ever in that golden-green glow of the end of the day.

I passed by a grave where somebody had left three vases of flowers. The largest had toppled over, spilling its bouquet onto the ground. I felt something grind inside of me. Some fist turning inside my chest. I knelt and righted the vase, putting the flowers back where they belonged. I walked away quickly, feeling spooked. Not at the grave, but at myself.

I ran into a family that was trying to find the Lees as well, so we banded together and just Googled it. Took us about thirty seconds.

“God,” said the mom, shaking her head. “We’ve been out here for twenty minutes! How did we miss it!?”

The gravesite is pretty nice, actually. There’s a bench you can sit on, and there’s stuff all over the graves. Flowers, oranges, scraps of paper and things. The headstones shine like new. Slicked-up marble and gold lettering. Really nice. Really loved. And now, this family clambering all over it. Me sitting by myself on the bench.

Then I noticed, off to the side, a much smaller and older grave. It was tucked halfway under a bush, and was completely overshadowed by the spectacle of the Lees. It belonged to a guy named P.J. Malone, who lived for about forty years back in the mid-1800s. Whoever that was.

I pointed at it. “I feel bad for this guy.”

The family noticed the grave then, too, and laughed. 

“Yeah,” said the mom. “Nobody’s leaving flowers for P.J. Malone! Come on, kids. You got your selfies.”

The family ambled away. The mom, dad, and their two kids piling into a beat-up minivan. I continued to sit and stare and P.J. Malone.

Granted, the guy probably did have people to leave him flowers. He probably had plenty of family members and friends who loved him and would come to visit, back in the day. But standing there in 2017, the contrast was so stark. The faded old lonely headstone, and the warm glory of the worshiped right next to it. Standing there in 2017, in the sunset, in a city in which I knew no one, the contrast was clear: You’re either a Lee or you’re a Malone. You’re either remembered or you’re not. You’ve either got yourself a nice campfire or...

Something.

The battered old minivan drove away and the hill was silent. Eventually, I left, too. I took a different route back down the hill, not wanting to pass the smell again by myself.

(Seattle, WA)

[rebustein94-blog]

History

It’s a small thought but I’ve been meaning to write about it since San Antonio. I’m in Portland now, at a bed and breakfast desk in the corner of the room, where you can feel the grey green morning outside, and the rain, humming through the windows, all calm and quiet.

So anyway, I guess it’s time to jot this down. Make it would stop buzzing around my skull.

***

One of the main things you’re supposed to do in San Antonio is see The Alamo. Everybody sees The Alamo. You have to remember to see The Alamo. 

The thing was about a half-hour walk from the place I was staying. So I figured I would saunter along in its general direction, and look for food along the way. It being lunch time and all. I pulled out my phone and did a simple search for nearby places to eat. I found a restaurant down the block that looked decent. But there was a small line of warning-orange text under its hours of operation on my screen that read, “Cesar Chavez Day might affect these hours.”

Cesar Chavez Day? Never heard of it.

Genuinely. Not a bell rung. 

As far as I could remember (and I reached far), I didn’t know what that day was. What exactly it was supposed to commemorate or who was celebrating it. Nobody was in the streets dancing. There weren’t any signs for Cesar Chavez Day sales events. No nothing. The only evidence I saw of the holiday was that little orange line of text. And it popped up under half a dozen or so other places I Googled. All of which I actually walked by, and all of which were open. Completely unaffected by the day. As was everyone around me, it seemed.

Those open places were all too expensive, though, so I ended up at this joint on the River Walk, drinking a margarita, crunching on chips and salsa. As I sat there, watching all the tourists amble by, I realized I didn’t really have a good grasp on what The Alamo actually was. I knew it was the site of some battle that was bravely fought and bravely lost. I knew we were supposed to remember it as this shining beacon of hope for those times when the odds are mountainous against you. Remember The Alamo, because they knew they would lose and they fought anyway.

But what battle? Why fought? Who dead? When lost?

There were bees circling my margarita at that point. There wasn’t much left of it. Just some dregs at the bottom. But nevertheless, they flickered around the salt of the rim. One landed and teetered on the very lip of the glass, sucking at the salt. After a few minutes, he fell into the swamp at the bottom. He stirred once, and was still, suspended in the murky, alcoholic water. As he died, the other bees vanished. Scared, maybe. If bees feel fear.

When I finally arrived at The damn Alamo, it was much simpler than I expected. Just a stucco building and some gardens beyond. You didn’t even have to pay to get in.

They were selling self-guided audio tours for seven bucks. I didn’t feel like I needed one, and didn’t feel like spending the money. So I just went inside.

Inside, there are several plaques and signs describing the men who died at The Alamo. I was surprised to see Davy Crockett and James Bowie had been there. Two American legends, both dying for a cause that I barely grasped. Something about the Texas Revolution. Something about liberty. Something noble.

I tried reading all the signs and things but honestly, so many of them were about the same thing that it was hard to follow the actual history. So many of them were just lists of the bravely dead. So many described The Alamo as an amazing example of American willpower, stubbornness and gusto. But kind of failed to explain why.

Eventually, it came together, in pieces across several different displays scattered throughout the entire place, that The Alamo had been a Spanish mission. The Mexican government, led by President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, had been treating people pretty cruelly. In an ostensibly unrelated event, the government gave The Alamo folk a cannon to protect themselves against attacks from Native Americans. Failing to mention, I’m sure, how ineffective a cannon is against a band of skilled warriors. But when the Texas Revolution went into full swing, the government asked for the cannon back. The Alamo replied, “Fuck off” and made a flag that picture the controversial cannon and read, “Come and take it”.

To which the President General said, “Hey, you got it.”

He sent an excessive number of troops to shut them down, supposedly seeing them as a symbol for the revolution. A mockingjay, so to speak. And if they could be stopped, anybody could. So it was important to shut them down. Hence the battle. And the death.

But nobody really talks about that. None of the tourists were interested in that. There were a bunch of them sitting around this one pavilion as a brief history talk began. One guy, ignoring it, called his wife to see where she was. Another family just left. A bunch of school kids giggled through the whole talk. I was the only one listening.

On the flip side, there was an unlabeled diorama in the gift shop, completely encircled by crowds. It was incredibly well-detailed. Hundreds of little figures. Fake smoke and blood and horses everywhere. 

People liked that, for sure. Lots of oohing and aahing and faces pressed up against the glass, turning the sky of the model a cloudy, foggy white.

The Alamo was so proud to have Davy Crockett and James Bowie among their names. And that’s totally understandable. But despite the dozens of plaques honoring them and the other men that had been there, there’s only one plaque that talks about how Bowie actually died. He had been in bed. Didn’t fight at all. The enemy broke into his chambers and bayonetted him, staked him to the mattress. And Davy Crockett might have surrendered and been executed after the battle, which is a lot less honorable than dying during it. But that part’s a little foggier.

And nobody seems to remember that, anyway.

***

When I left The Alamo, I wandered over to the Tower of the Americas, and walked down the River Walk some more. It was nearing dinner, so I pulled out my phone again. The nearest restaurant was, in fact, right next to me. But again, the warning: “Cesar Chavez Day might affect these hours.”

I looked up. The place was wide open.

“Goddamn,” I thought. “Cesar Chavez Day doesn’t affect anything.”

A long series of clown-colored tour boats, filled with people from other cities and other parts of the world, slowly made their way down the river next to me. Cameras pointing and flashing in every direction as I walked on, trying to ignore them.

(Portland, OR)

[rebustein94-blog]

Epilogue

It snowed overnight in Klamath Falls, and the snow hardened into a thick crust. The rental car folk hadn’t given me an ice scraper, so I fumbled in the bushes for a stick and went at it. Clawing at the windshield like a caveman. Cars kept passing me and slowing down to watch. Which all felt like a good thing to wake up to, right?

Sure. 

The woman at the rental car agency did offer me a ride to the train station, though. Which was nice of her. When she asked me what I had done for the last few days, I told her about Jack. 

“What was his name?” she asked. “It was probably someone I know.”

“Jack.” 

“Jack Jensen?!” 

“I think so.” 

“Missing a tooth?” 

“Yes!” I couldn’t believe it.  

“Yeah, that’s Jack. Wow.” She shook her head. “Jack’s always been a little out there.” 

“For sure,” I said, suddenly self-conscious about maybe offending someone she knew.

But she laughed when I tried to explain everything Jack had said, and nodded solemnly at the parts that required it. 

“We’re probably doomed,” she agreed. 

“How did he lose the tooth?” I asked. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been that way as long as I’ve known him.” 

“Oh,” I said. “That’s comforting to know, I guess.”

I thanked her for the ride, and left. 

(Klamath Falls, OR)

[rebustein94-blog]

Kind of A Peace: Kind of a Poem in Two Canto-type Segments

I.

Sitting on the bank

of the Klamath River

in southern Oregon

amongst the pure white blossoms

of the fruit trees

and the roar of the water

was a guy

named Jack

who wore a nametag:

“Hello! My name is

Unique in the world.”

He was missing a tooth.

The river had overflowed

and flooded

most of the valley

drowning the trees and whatnot

and I’ve been

you know

trying to

Walk Through The Door 

now

so 

when I saw Jack there, I figured I should ask him

“Do you live around here?”

“Oh yes.”

“Is the water always this high?”

“Oh no. I’ve never seen it this high.”

There was a long bursting pipe

on the opposite bank

so I pointed to it

and said

“Yeah, I see the pipeline’s leaking.”

“Oh those are redwoods. They built that in the 1920s. Hollowed-out redwoods. The leaking bits are the metal bands linking the trees. Because the wood doesn’t rot. And the bands allow some leakage, to keep the pipe intact. Because the wood won’t rot.”

Jack went on to tell me

that one winter

long ago

the very air 

dove below zero

and the water from the pipes froze

in great gushing sculptures of pure ice

curtains billowing down in wild white sheets

and the local paper

published

a series of photographs 

which Jack took

of the ice

--they even gave tours of these natural sculptures

until it inched above zero again

and the whole thing melted.

By now I was sitting

and watching

the gap in his teeth

as he spoke

and he asked me where I was from

so I told him New York.

“Oh, that’s good. That’s very... I mean, everyone always wants to take you out. New York, I mean. Everyone is always gunning for New York. You know, I don’t think there can really be world peace.”

And 

without a breath

or a blink

he began.

I would never be able to get it all down

because he spoke so quickly

and so much

but here are some highlights

as far as I could understand them:

“There are five great peaces in the world. The pax atomica is the most recent, but there’s also the pax romana, and others, throughout history. I posited that there would be a pax universalis, but I didn’t know how it would come about. I jumped out of bed one night with the idea. And I was doing all this research. Reading through entire encyclopedias and cross-referencing all over the place. Between different wars and eras. What I concluded was that if there could be universal peace, it could only be within a specific nation. And to have a global federation, you need completely sovereign nation-states that can enact their own laws and whatnot. But who are held accountable. So I came up with this idea that a global peace, and a global federation, could only be achieved if the governing body could do three things: Create its own laws, be able to enforce that set of laws, and enforce punishment for its people if they didn’t follow them. Nobody had ever thought of that before. So I wrote this paper and the newspaper published it here and I sent it off to Oxford University. They didn’t write me back. But then I wrote another paper after more research. After I leapt out of bed with this idea again. And they wrote me an apology for not responding sooner. Oxford wrote me an apology. They never do that. Now my friend Higgins is smart. Higgins is sharp as a tack. And I said to Higgins that they wrote me an apology and Higgins said, ‘Why would they do that?’ Why would they? Unless they knew. Unless I was onto something big.”

He started explaining something about NATO being a governing body with more power than the UN, which actually couldn’t enforce any real change. Which didn’t have any actual jurisdiction. He told me nuclear warfare is inevitable and that the time for diplomacy has ended, because nobody is in a headspace now where they won’t attack each other. Because everyone is so tense. Something about the UN not having jurisdiction over Trump, but NATO having it. Trying to keep him in line. He told me we were beginning to turn towards a global federation run by a NATO-esque task force, but the turn would be very slow, and would depend upon the death of millions through war. Which got him talking about the term “gigadeath”, which describes the massacre of a certain number of people. He wrote to Oxford about bringing this term into the dictionary. He revealed it was a term he made up. Because he saw a hole in the English language and he wanted to fill it. And they, Oxford, “lapped it right up”, supposedly. He also had some trouble making “pax universalis” a real term. It was sent to some committees and things and shoved around, apparently, while they figured out if it should be a capitalized term or not, or something. 

At that point

it had been 

forty-five minutes

so I told him I was sorry

but I really needed to go.

“Oh that’s alright. You’ve given me enough time already. It’s fun, you know. But. You know, my point is: all these things started happening only after I wrote my article about the possibility of a global federation. Nobody had had that idea before. I’m just saying. And I’m a nobody. I’m from a small town in Oregon. I run an auto shop. I showed them. And you know how I did it? The Lord told me. He gave me the idea. He made me leap out of bed. And He said, ‘You can’t take credit for this. You didn’t do anything. I did it through you. You can open your mouth and things happen and now you’re done. You won’t do anything like this again. Stop it. You are a fool and you can’t take credit. It was me.’ So anyway, all this tension and everything that’s happening right now is happening because of some nobody in Oregon. But I’ll let you go.”

“I didn’t know I’d meet a prophet by the river,”

I said

because I thought he’d appreciate that

and that’s honestly

what he seemed like

and really

who knows

right?

But he looked uncomfortable

and said 

“Oh I’m no prophet.”

When I finally got away

I realized I was wearing

my Oxford jacket

and I knew--

I mean I guessed all along

of course

that it was a very

real possibility

that this man

was insane.

Or maybe we were all

gigdoomed.

Which is pretty goddamn terrifying.

II.

It was my birthday.

I cruised around downtown

Klamath Falls

until I found

a quiet cafe.

Inside

were four or five other people

sitting alone at tables

and one older guy

singing folk songs perfectly

and softly 

into a mic

in the corner,

his eyes closed,

his fingers guitar-plucking away

so effortlessly.

So peaceful

and calm.

His woman sat near him

knitting 

as he sang

and I thought-- Goddamn.

To be so

in tune

with the heavenly.

To let it wash over you

so regularly

and so wonderfully

that you

can just

sit

and knit.

Then he played

this song

about a dark-haired girl

who could turn his head

and when it was over

I clapped.

He nodded at me,

pointed at his woman

and said to me

“For her.”

Then we both laughed

this nice

shameless

universal

laugh

and he played on.

So really

I guess

your peace

is relative.

(Klamath Falls, OR)

[rebustein94-blog]

The next two weeks of the journey, now in Technicolor! From the Texas plains to the turtles in Santa Barbara. From Laguna Beach to the National Steinbeck Center, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and beyond. This isn't for you, Carl.