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The Trip Down

  I think it was late-February and snowing out. I was off from work for a week and fed up with everything in Rochester, New York. I wanted to do something besides sleep in, play video games or get drunk.

  I lived with a rag tag group of Bohemians. We had very little in common with each other but since everyone was basically respectful conflicts were minimal.

  The house matriarch only demanded civility and privacy from tenants, beyond that all rules or decisions were determined by majority vote. Tracy didn’t give a shit if we were in our rooms getting stoned and staring at the ceiling all day or robbing a bank in another state, all she wanted was our monthly share of the rent and utility bills.

  The arrangement worked well for about three years

  The woman whom I loosely considered my girlfriend at the time lived in Connecticut. The relationship had not yet congealed into any sort of real commitment beyond conjugal visits between college semesters, midnight phone calls and lots of letter writing.

  I had also been spending a lot of time hanging out with a seventeen year old punker girl who was easily four or five years younger than me. We met at a mutual friend’s New Year’s Eve Party and slept together that same night after getting drunk. It turned out that she was still a senior in a suburban Catholic High School and her parents were oblivious to the double life she lived.

  She liked that I had a car and would take her to trendy boutiques along Monroe Avenue Saturday afternoons. I liked having sex with her.

  I didn’t coordinate my vacation with either person. Both young women had plans so I was free to do something alone.

  With little or no thought I spontaneously decided to take a trip. I took a quick shower then removed all the money I had stashed in my bedroom nightstand and put it in my wallet.

  No one was home. I departed soon after taping a handwritten note to the refrigerator door that informed my roommates I was going to Daytona Beach for a few days. I changed my mind though before leaving the New York and started heading towards New Orleans.

  This was a bygone era before smart phones, text messaging and wireless internet access. My only communication or connection back to the world I was about to leave was a sloppily written message fastened to a Frigidaire with a broken kitty cat magnet amongst old grocery lists, Chinese takeout menus, a few business cards and scraps of paper inscribed with unlabeled phone numbers. It was quite possible that my absence would go unnoticed.

  I left town with about two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, a Kodak automatic 35mm camera (with a single roll of film) and an American Express credit card in my pocket. I didn’t bother packing any extra clothes or a toothbrush because I usually kept a duffle bag filled with those things in my car just in case I ever needed them.

  Looking back, the whole experience felt like a plot taken right out of an Elmore Leonard novel.

  I didn’t use a map. I just followed signs from one big city to the next driving Westward first, then South. Playing a game I called, “Connect the Big City Dots;” starting with Cleveland, to Columbus in Ohio, then over to Indianapolis, Indiana and down to Louisville, Kentucky. From Louisville I kept going southward though Kentucky to Nashville then over to Memphis, Tennessee where I decided to stop and rent a hotel room for the evening.

  The car stereo was my sole companion as I drove south. Satellite radio hadn’t been invented yet so my listening choices were very limited.

  I remember hearing Sinead O’Connor’s song “Nothing Compares to You,” on all the radio stations and playing the two tapes (The Eagles Greatest Hits and Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe) I had in my car repeatedly. AM stations with ‘Talk Radio’ formats were also an option but most sane people can only tolerate so much Rush Limbaugh before they start shouting at the radio and are overcome by the urge to change the station.

  Throughout the first leg of my trip I only stopped for gas, two or three piss breaks and one forty-five minute catnap at a random rest stop somewhere near Seymour, Indiana.

  After twenty-two hours of tiresome, tedious driving, eating just a box of Hostess HoHo’s and drinking a twelve pack of Diet Coke that I bought at a 7-Eleven after filling the car’s gas tank in Rochester, I decided I should stop driving. I was in Memphis, Tennessee.

  My body was exhausted, despite my racing mind. I needed to find a room with a bed, clean toilet and shower. I pulled off the highway and checked into a Marriot hotel.

  After I was settled into my room I thought I’d unwind some and take a walk around the hotel neighborhood. I needed to move around after driving for so long and calm my mind so that I could get some sleep. I then got the stupid idea in my thick skull that I wanted to find Elvis’ Graceland and began looking through the maps I found of the city in the Frommmer’s travel book I kept in my car’s glove box.

  I should have just gone to bed. I walked what felt like ten miles, around the area where I thought the mansion was supposed to be. I even walked out the city limits into Germantown, not realizing how far off course I was. I must have looked like an idiot looking at my book, the street signs and building addresses in my John Lennon sunglasses, faded black Hard Rock Café t-shirt, ripped jeans and sandals.

  I was so stubborn about finding the place that when I returned to the hotel I got back into my car and started driving deeper into city, looking impatiently for the Landmark. I was clueless on just how big the Memphis area actually was.

  I was only interested in getting a quick snapshot of the estate’s gate for a friend who liked Elvis Presley; to prove to them that I had actually been there, but couldn’t find it! I was so frustrated with the whole situation from the lack of sleep and sore feet that I eventually gave up as the sun began to set. On the way back to the hotel I ordered a ‘Cheese Burger Extra Value Meal’ at a nearby McDonalds drive thru.

  Because of my experience I have come to disregard everything I’ve heard about the musician’s mansion over the years, good and bad. I think all the rumors were made up to lure people into the area to spend their money. Graceland to me was, and still is, only a legend, not a real place.

  I have no memory of what the room looked like beyond the TV being located to the southwest of the bed. By the time I got back to the room my mind was in a serious fog. I was more concerned with eating the food I bought and lying down than the rooms layout. At that point I just wanted a safe place to sleep and take a crap.

  I sat on the bed and ate my food. After devouring my cheap dinner consisting two smashed florescent orange-ish yellow sandwiches, a medium sized French fry and Coke, I laid down and started flipping through TV stations with the remote control. It only took me a few minutes on my back to pass out from exhaustion. I fell asleep fully dressed with my head propped up on several pillows, the remote in my hand and the TV tuned in on HBO, the movie “Major League.”

  I woke up early the next day and showered. Before checking out I grabbed a banana, raisin bagel, two donuts and three cans of warm cola from the continental breakfast table in the room next to the main desk. I was back on the road heading for New Orleans by 5:00AM.

  When I stopped for gas in Mississippi it was easy to tell I was an outsider. I could tell that I was now in the Deep South of Confederate country and my Northern Yankee ass was not particularly welcome, though I’m pretty sure my money was.

  A small group of local residents standing outside the run down station I pulled into got quiet and stared at me while I filled my tank and went inside to pay.

  An old back guy was doing a weird trick with his lighter that was making the fat white cashier laugh, at least until I came in. The elderly person quickly put his lighter into his pocket and cast his eyes downward as I walked by.

  The slovenly, overweight man tending the register was wearing worn denim overalls without a shirt underneath and looked (and smelled) as if he had not bathed in over a week. I grabbed two Snickers candy bar and put them on the counter to add to my purchase.
He told me the total of how much I owed and I paid him.

  Before leaving I asked if I could use their bathroom and he matter-of-factly replied, “No.”

  I got the hint and left. I could hear everyone inside the building laughing at me as soon as I got to my car.

  The further South I drove the more I noticed how the highways were littered with old abandoned cars, trucks and associated parts like rusted bumpers and grizzled, chunks of tire. I wondered if people down here simply dumped their broken down cars along the roadside rather than trading them in or selling them to junk yards.

  Geographically, or at least along the freeways, there did not seem to be much of a difference between Mississippi and Louisiana.

  I remember driving through a quick morning downpour as I crossed from one state into the other. The humidity of the air also jumped up a notch soon afterward and did not go down until I started working my way back north, towards home, several days later

  Driving through Bayou country was a very new experience for me. I was on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a highway built on a system of bridges over swamps and wetlands. Everything was so green and all I could see from the road was the tops of trees and draping moss that spread for miles in all directions. It was all very different looking than what I was used to back home.

  I was welcomed to the region a by a pickup truck, whose body appeared to be constructed entirely of duct tape. It was transporting a gaggle of backwoods hicks who drove up next to me honking the horn, hooting and hollering while holding up a New York license plate they found in their passenger side window. The five men sitting in the flatbed section all flashed me the bird and the handsome woman in the passenger seat flashed me an eye full of stretch marks on a deflated chest.

  Once in inside the New Orleans City limits, finding The Marquette House Hostel on Carondelet Street was my next undertaking. I drove around the Downtown area for a while but could not get my coordinates straight or find any of the street names labeled on the cheesy map I was using.

  I eventually found Carondelet Street and parked my car at a meter. I started walking towards the buildings listed address under the impression I might have better luck finding the hostel on foot.

  I was a naive northern boy strolling through a neighborhood I did not belong in. The area was run down. Buildings were falling apart or abandoned. Bricks, glass, rusty car parts and garbage were strewn all over the street and sidewalks. I noticed strange looks from all the people just hanging out on their porches.

  I saw an officer in a patrol car parked nearby and asked him if he knew where the hostel was. He laughed at me and frankly told me that I shouldn't be walking around this neighborhood alone. He told me to go back to my car and gave me what he thought were safer directions to the hostel. When walking back to my car it occurred to me that I was the only white person there and that the hostel might be a lot further down Carondelet Street than I initially assumed.

  I followed the policeman’s directions and drove up St. Charles Street. The side street he told me to look for was easy to find and the hostel was nearby, just a few houses from the intersection. I parked my car and proceeded to check in. I think it was around ten dollars a night plus two or three dollars for sheet and pillow rental.

  This section of Carondelet Street was another world compared to the part I first saw. I wondered if it was near the Garden District. Many of the surrounding homes were old, nineteenth century style mansions. The fenced in lawns were all well-tended. There were lots of huge oak and willow trees along the street and in the yards. Most of the houses also had pillared front porches and balconies ornamented with thoughtful flowerbeds and vines. I felt like I was in an Anne Rice novel.

  Soon after paying a deposit I was directed to another building across the street where I found a room, selected a bed, made it up then dumped my denim jacket and duffle bag of essentials from the car on it.

  The area was set up in a typical dorm style with five or six metal frame bunk beds. The brown Berber carpeting was very worn and stained in several spots. The walls were painted off white and had a few gashes and punch holes memorializing the escapades of former lodgers.

  The converted house was thankfully was air-conditioned but smelled like mildew, cigarette smoke and stale beer. There was only one small window on one wall of the room up by the ceiling that did not open. The building had a single large bathroom with several sinks, toilet and shower stalls for boarders.

  Overall the facilities were clean enough for transients but far from pristine. I was glad to have a cheap place to sleep, shower and meet new people.

  After settling in I wanted to explore the City and start socializing. It was only 2PM and there was still a full day ahead of me.

  Armand

  I quickly struck up a conversation with the guy on the bunk across from me. I asked him if he knew where I could buy a sandwich and soda to eat.

  He smiled and said with what sounded to me like a German accent, “Dare ist ein schmal stor ont Zant Karls tat ist nich far von heer.”

  While pulling out and lighting a cigarette to smoke, he then asked, “Vee do Americaner’s trink zo viel soda pop? Ist zo not hellty und taistes abzolutlee dreadful!”

 

  His name was named Armand. He was a medical student from Hamburg, Germany who was traveling abroad for a while. Working his way from Vancouver, Canada where he started his trip four months ago to Miami, Florida where he planned on flying back home in eight weeks or so. His English was not very good and my German from High School was not much better but we could carry on a coherent conversation by mixing and matching words from both languages that we both understood.

  Armand was in his early or mid-twenties and stood about six foot tall. He had short brown hair, pierced ears and was slim looking. He was wearing black leather loafers, faded jeans with a frayed hole in the left knee and a blue scrub top.

  He only checked in to the hostel a few hours before me and just woke up from a nap. He acknowledged that he was hungry too and wanted to sightsee.

  We decided to go out for a walk, get some lunch at the deli he mentioned then find a way to get to the French Quarter.

  I overheard several conversations at the hostel and quickly figured out that I arrived the day after Fat Tuesday. A lot of people were still lingering around the Marquette and St. Charles Street, sightseeing or participating in post Marti Gras revelries, but probably nowhere near the numbers that were there for the official celebration in previous days.

 

  The weather was very hot and humid compared to Rochester, New York. The neighborhood smelled like a damp garden forest most of the time. Possibly because of the torrential thunderstorms that occur daily.

  I was glad that I had a few extra T-shirts in my bag to wear. Shorts would have been nice too but the Levis I was wearing were all I had and much more practical for traveling purposes.

  We got sandwiches and ate them while we walked towards a nearby trolley stop.

  The store was small but had a good selection of stuff to eat. It appeared to mainly cater to customers from both the pension and neighborhood. There were basic staples like bread, beer, milk and eggs along with a good selection of premade, ready to eat foods and a deli counter.

  I bought an assorted medium sub, bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and a Coke. Armand got a tuna on rye and drank water from a canteen he brought along with him. He also continued to reiterate his previous sentiments about the soda I was drinking and how he believed that Americans consumed a lot of what he considered garbage with a look on his face that clearly displayed his revulsion. No words needed to be spoken; it was obvious to me what he was thinking as I drank my pop and at the junk food.

  After getting his point across, Armand pulled out another cigarette, lit and started smoking it.

  I replied, “I agree with you. A lot of what I eat is probably not very healthy but that
won’t stop me from eating it because it still tastes good, despite being bad for me. Your cigarette smoking is probably just as harmful, if not worse than my eating habits!”

  He smiled at my response and changed the topic saying, “Da trollee ist almost at our stop.”

  He quickly finished his cigarette before getting on the trolley.

  While riding the trolley to the French Quarter Armand asked, “Are you attending ooniversitee? Vas subyect are you stooding?”

  I answered, “I just earned an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts and started working on a Bachelors Degree in English at another school last semester.”

  Armand then asked, “Vee ist es taking zo long tzoo get your degrees? You appeer tzoo be alter tan da oosooal Americaner ooniversitee yooneerr.”

  I explained, “I also work full time fixing computers. I’ve been attending school part time afternoons and nights for over five years now. I initially had a hard time focusing one subject so it took a while for me to decide on what degree to earn but since my employer pays for my classes as a benefit, the cost and the time it was taking me to graduate did not matter so much.”

  He thought a moment about my response then pointed out that that the education system is different in Europe. He sometimes wished that he had the option to attend university part time but since he does not have to pay for his education, getting a job to help pay for the debt was unnecessary.

  Armand also added that it would be very difficult for him to devote himself to his studies if he had to work even a few hours a week. His nine month Zivildienst obligation, when he was nineteen, and this trip set him back some.

  Regardless of the delay he considered his time in America a well-deserved break between his clinical science studies and final clinical specialty years of college.

  He wants to be a working as a general practitioner in his father’s office (who is a family doctor) before turning twenty-eight so he needs to be serious and stay focused to meet that personal goal.

  The topic was then changed abruptly, Armand inquired “Are you reading booken fur leesure or shoola?”

  I said, “Yes. Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. I read it a couple weeks ago for a contemporary literature course. I also finished Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf a few days ago.”