\u201cHave you ever heard of steam punks?\u201d Pepper asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteam punks. No. What are they?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a punk rock sub-movement infatuated with like 1920s blue collar style. Thick baggy jeans, rolled up cuffs, leather boots, suspenders, hair cream and the proper hats and vests and such.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Willey_GodDoesNotPlayDice\"](\"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Willey_GodDoesNotPlayDice.jpg\" "\\"Willey_GodDoesNotPlayDice\\"")
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat on earth made you think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThose Fords I think. Did you see them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the horses in between.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
A field on the west side of the road was covered in signs bemoaning the end of freedom, the end of justice, the end of America. The stretch of Highway 97 between La Pine and Klamath Lake is remote, sparsely populated, and known for its rugged landscape and outlandish inhabitants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Winter still out at Christmas Valley?\u201d Wesley squinted his eyes in the direction of said location, though it was fifty miles away.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s out there all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s he doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRiding dirt bikes. Getting drunk. Starring at the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s some sky out there. One time I met this guy from Chiloquin at Fort Rock, a drug counselor for the Klamath and Modoc tribes. This old timer, he took kids out and tried to show them a little of the mystery of the terrain. He was humble about it, saying if he could just get one kid per trip to realize there was enough magic in the land to get you higher than anything else could, he\u2019d done his job. Anyway I asked him if they ever went to Hole in the Ground, you know that big asteroid crater?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve never been there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should go. This guy told me it\u2019s not from an asteroid at all but way back there was this giant coyote who heard a little murmuring down there in the earth, and it started digging and digging and digging, and finally what does it find? Human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019d of thunk the origin of human beings was right here in Central Oregon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGod does not play dice with the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho said that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlbert Einstein.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember my friend Albert?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watched Baraka<\/em> at his house.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou were drinking a Dr. Pepper. His girlfriend thought she was being all sly but was like grinding on his leg. Her VJ stunk up the whole room.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo way man. I definitely don\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNevermind then.\u201d<\/p>\n They passed the turnoff to Odell Lake. Crows and magpies pecked a roadkill deer decomposing amongst the cinders on the shoulder. A highway patrolman in an SUV pulled over a Prius. Weather was volatile, oscillating between bright, sharp sunlight and fast moving clouds with billowy white tops and flat black bottoms which produced a mixture of rain, hail, sleet, and snow. Pepper drove comfortably, confidently. He was upside down on his car, and always secretly hoped something just horrible enough would happen to it that insurance would relieve his obligations but nobody would be injured. He wore a black hat, a grey sweatshirt, a scar on his left brow left over from a mugging in his teens.<\/p>\n Wesley put a Four Tet disc in the slot. \u201cDo you think you could say aloud the top ten most powerful moments in your life?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn order of importance?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean if you\u2019re able but I was just thinking the top ten, generally.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI reckon I could.\u201d They both looked into the window of a vintage VW bus they were passing. The occupants had long hair and wore brightly colored shirts. They waved.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, do it then.\u201d Pepper thought for a moment, listening to the slow development of melody in the Four Tet track, then spoke.<\/p>\n \u201cWatching TGIF at my dad\u2019s house in Stockton and getting a telephone call from my mom saying she was moving to Coo\u2019s Bay. For like a year I\u2019d been praying I\u2019d get to move in with her, and the way I kept myself sane was by always imagining that moment was right around the corner, and I thought I was getting close, and then just like that, all hope and possibility was just yanked away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI remember just bawling. Just like collapsing on the couch and howling. Not even one those really sad moaning cries but forceful, aggressive, the grief is so strong it fucking pounds out of you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDamn. What\u2019s the next one?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA happy one. My tenth birthday. Everyone forgot. Nobody said a word to me about it. So at the end of the night I was pretty crushed, and I was in my room, and I prayed to God to send me a sign. I said I needed reassurance you know, I needed to know I wasn\u2019t alone. And at that very moment a fire hydrant across the street blew fifteen feet into the air. It must have been pressurized incorrectly or worn out or something but there it was. My sign.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoly shit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExactly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHave you doubted God, since then.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cConstantly. Do you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoubt?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. Not like you mean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRemember those horses, between the trucks?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah I feel you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo what\u2019s number three?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was this puppy playing in the yard across the street. And I was playing in my yard. And I wanted to play with the puppy so I called it over. And it ran right out into traffic and under the wheels of a truck. The driver didn\u2019t even stop. I ran over to it and it was like pulsating. The death rattle I guess. You wanna get some coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes please.\u201d<\/p>\n They pulled into the Pilot in Chemult. The town had always been attractive to Wesley. Amtrak\u2019s Coast Starlight Express stopped there at an unmanned platform. There was a Winema National Forest ranger station and a post office. There were annual dog sled races. Then there was the Pilot. They stepped through the automatic doors and up to a grand buffet of coffees and coffee additives. Hazelnut, mocha, Irish cream, caramel, French vanilla, extra caffeine. They had a 64 ounce Thirst Oasis mug. Pepper started filling it with an eclectic mix, adding ice and tasting regularly, until it was full.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you gonna do push that truck down the road?\u201d the clerk asked as he rang up the dollar fifty for the coffee. Wesley bought a bag of fiery hot Cheetos which they ate before their gas tank had finished filling. Wesley cleaned the windshield, and they got back on the road.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber four?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNumber four is when I was kicked out of snow camp in the Sierra in 92.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy were you kicked out of snow camp?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI blame two guys, Big John, and Jeff Stahl. So lemme paint you a picture. Back then I was all about wearing like full Starter Athletic gear, and Big John was like this ogreish farmboy I\u2019d been feuding with for sometime. So we are all part of this camp through First Baptist Church. And we roll up to Alpine Meadows in our bus and as we\u2019re unloading Big John gets right up in my face. He\u2019s sucking a tootsie pop, and fucking pokes me in the eye with the little stick protruding from his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know I don\u2019t think people would ever guess you\u2019ve had such a horrible life just by looking at you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a complement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh. Well, thank you then.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway I fucking flip. I get Big John in a headlock and I\u2019m ready to choke him and kids are screaming when up comes the youth pastor, Jeff Stahl. Stahl and I had been feuding even longer than me and Big John. See, I was rolling with all these prominent kids. Like the kids of prominent members of the church. Like my boy Jeremy, my best friend at the time, his parents ran all the music and sound for First Baptist, they were big donors and really active in the community. Thing is, Jeremy was always getting in all this trouble, but Stahl couldn\u2019t really go to his parents and say your kid\u2019s a fuckup. So he blamed it all on me. Straight classism. Because everyone expects the son of broke ass drug addicts to be doing shit all wrong, so he barely had to try to scapegoat me. And in retrospect I can\u2019t say I blame him, I mean, I think he thought he was doing the right thing, but as he hauled me off Big John and was literally dragging me up toward the lodge, it was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. I snapped. I let fly with every cuss word I knew, bellowing curses at him and thrashing around, and right in front of everyone, the whole parking lot was transfixed. So he takes me to like this nurse\u2019s station with a concrete floor and a little cot, cold as the Yukon, and leaves me there for I shit you not 36 hours before another camp counselor, Matt Bear, was driving back to the Valley and gave me a ride home. Strange thing is, that ride was really transformative. Bear put on U2\u2019s Joshua Tree<\/em> and it was like nothing I\u2019d ever heard before. I was raised on oldies or eighties glam rock, and here\u2019s this music that sounds sincere and arty and edgy all at once. The organ on \u201cWhere the Streets Have No Name\u201d and \u201cOne Tree Hill\u201d really sent me. Bear was a cool cat too, it was heartening to talk with him. He sympathized with how Stahl didn\u2019t listen to my side of the story and Big John wasn\u2019t even reprimanded. My dad came a picked me up at church and didn\u2019t say a word. I was fucking horrified. I thought he was going to kill me. Usually he had such a raging temper. He was a strong dude too. One time he literally threw the couch at me. Our place was always so wrecked, broken lamps and shit everywhere. But this time he didn\u2019t say anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you go to a lot of these camps?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh yeah there were hella camps. My dad went to them too. There was a camp called PWP: Parents Without Partners. They\u2019d get group deals on meals and movie tickets. All through First Baptist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWas the purpose for everyone to hook up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo! I mean, not explicitly at least. Fucking church camp man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you buy the religion?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor a while. I mean when I was really young I did. Then I started questioning it. God seemed just like some white dude in heaven who hates us. Or at least hates me. But then there was the fire hydrant. But then the trinity really confused me. I mean, you can\u2019t be your own father right? But when I was twelve I was all into this Mexican girl Mariza and she was getting baptized and so was I and I thought this is my chance to be good. But then one of my dad\u2019s friends from PWP had this daughter Heidi, this little slut, and she was after me hardcore, and I wanted to nail her so bad but then I knew I couldn\u2019t break bad already, just when I was learning what it means to be good. Anyway all the confusion just continued until I was kicked out of the church altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen was that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActually that\u2019s my next moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNumber five?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYessir.\u201d They passed a giant statue of an Oreodont in front of a chrome dealer. Passed the Collier Memorial State Park Logging Museum beside the Sprague River near Chiloquin. Klamath Lake spread out beside them, soft and blue as always. A bald eagle perched atop a telephone pole. A gravel pit beside the railroad tracks. A double rainbow disappearing into the lake. They stopped at a mini-mart in the rain, where they filled up the giant coffee mug again and bought another bag of fiery hot Cheetos. They walked out to the Weed sign and took a few photographs. Wesley was wearing a shirt that said \u201cMontanans for Immediate Nuclear War\u201d which drew a lot of confused glances from gas station attendants and convenience store clerks all across the west.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what my mom always used to say?\u201d Pepper\u2019s eyes were wet but he had on his dark glasses as they struck out into Butte Valley. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re the parent and I\u2019m the kid.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow did that make you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI dunno, like there were no rules in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWas that a good thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes and no.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n To the west stood Mount Thielsen, then Mount Scott between the highway and Crater Lake. Around Kirk they\u2019d get a shot of Union Peak above the Sun Pass State Forest.<\/p>\n \u201cSo there was a whole string of incidents like snow camp, and all of a sudden I\u2019m moving to Oregon. To live with my mom. It was like getting kicked out of my own fucking life. Turns out Stahl talked my father into it. Said I was headed for Satan or whatever and I needed a fresh community.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you wanted to life with your mom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know, but the timing was all fucked. By this time I\u2019d made a life out of it. I\u2019d stopped dreaming about being with her and made good friends, put my roots down, if only in an adolescent sense. And you know what Jeremy said?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhose fault was it then?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJeff Stahl. So says Jeremy. And of course I agree. Now me and Jeremy had been doing a lot of prank calling in those days, so we were playing fast and loose with the phone, and suddenly he\u2019s like, you should call him. So I do. He picks up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is fucking me up for the rest my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that he was wrong about me and what he was doing was wrong and he\u2019d have to answer to God.\u201d Wesley laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cYou told a pastor he\u2019d have to answer to God?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did. Half an hour later the senior pastor called my house and told my dad I was banned from the church. For life. The next day I took a bus to Coo\u2019s Bay. Turns out my mom was living in a trailer with her fifty year old AA sponsor who was hopelessly in love with her though she wanted nothing to do with him. I remember running over this grated bridge and when you got going fast enough it felt like you were flying because all you could see was water when you looked down. I passed a timber mill everyday on my way to school, which was always sending a great plume up into the sky. Across the street from the trailer park was a Chinese restaurant and a bus stop. I was always listening to Gish <\/em>and In Utero <\/em>and Downward Spiral<\/em>. My mom worked at Ray\u2019s. I started hanging out with Shawn Goodman down by the railroad tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy the railroad tracks?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI dunno. They were there. There were always some old cars parked around there and you could hide between em. Everyone had been telling me that I was doing drugs for so long that I was determined to prove them right and do every drug I could get my hands on. Shawn Goodman got me into punk rock and cigarettes and we\u2019d steal forties from Ray\u2019s and drink em. He always had a shitty little steel string, so we had that too. For Christmas, my mom bought me a bus ticket back to Stockton to see Jeremy and my other friends, but when I get there I decide not to go back to Coo\u2019s Bay, and start couch surfing, living in the heterotopias, on the fringe. I spent a lot of time hanging out at fast food restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid your dad know you were back?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot at first. But then I went to visit my sister, who lived with my aunt at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour mom\u2019s sister?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you ever move in with her?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne time she tried to make me eat macaroni and cheese made with mayonnaise instead of butter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s fucking disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know. I saw her looking for the butter and when she couldn\u2019t find it plop a big spoonful of mayonnaise in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust thinking about that makes me sick.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway she told my dad I was back and he asked around and found where I was crashing. Do we have any fruit?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n They passed Worden and soon entered California above Dorris and then passed the agricultural inspection station. The officer on duty was a young woman who looked like she couldn\u2019t care less if you actually had any produce or not. Pepper sped to 75 through Macdoel beside Meiss Lake and they started climbing up toward Erickson and Grass Lake, Mount Shasta looming ever larger beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cSo my dad came and got me at wherever I was staying and tried to take me to juvie. He told them I was a runaway and so forth but they wouldn\u2019t take me. I mean, I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. So he was hella frustrated, and finally just drove me down some old delta road. Like out the 12 towards Rio Vista or the 4 towards Bethel Island. And then he just left me there, and this was late at night. So I\u2019m standing there in the darkness and every once in a while cars pass and I try to flag them down, but nobody stops. I don\u2019t know if they could even see me and if they could why would they stop? Some crazy kid out in the middle of nowhere. I was out there for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n They pulled into the Living Memorial Sculpture Garden, \u201cdedicated to all veterans.\u201d Snow was falling lightly and it skittered across the pavement. There was a sculpture of a soldier returned home raising his arms to the sky to ask why, soldiers lifting the flag, a prisoner of war in a cage, a female flute player symbolizing peace, another of a woman standing with her arms out as though she were holding the flag after it is folded over her lost love\u2019s coffin. One resembled a desperate, more melancholy version of Rodin\u2019s Thinker. Three nurses carrying a prostrate body on a stretcher. Then there were two figures embracing: the soldier returned home. The pieces were all smooth metal, featureless, stretched somehow, long and lean. Pepper walked to a great marble wall of names and stood in front of it, his eyes closed. The light was black and white, only the faintest shade of green radiated out from the pine needles. Wesley took a shit in the cold outhouse and jogged around the place to stretch his legs. The snow fell harder as they drove through Carrick to Weed.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFinally my dad came back and took me to a fucking mental institution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? Why?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe claimed it was because I had talked about killing myself, which I had, but like a year earlier, and never seriously. Although I had thought about it seriously, but I never told him that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhoa.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo did you like the mental institution?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActually, I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow come?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWearing pajamas all day. Carpeted basketball court where you could play barefoot. There were a lot of kids there in worse shape than I was so it gave me a better perspective. I had this acid fried roommate who was fucking hilarious. There was this hot black punk rock girl I made out with in the common room after lights out one night. Have you ever been to the Weed store?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. I\u2019ve always wanted to go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMe too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n Pepper pulled up in front of the store with all manner paraphernalia capitalizing on the alternate meanings of the town\u2019s name. Wesley asked the proprietor how the name came about and she informed him it was named after its founder, Abner Weed, timber baron. Pepper bought a little corncob pipe and started smoking some of the dried out marijuana he\u2019d brought wrapped up in a little piece of tin foil. They pulled into the flow of I-5 and passed a parking lot full of trucks every color of the rainbow.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2019s time for number six.\u201d Pepper was quiet for a moment. Woodrow put a hip-hop mix on the stereo. Gang Starr, Mobb Deep, UGK, Company Flow, Wu Tang, Nas, Fat Pat, Goodie Mob, Devin the Dude, Big Pun.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber six. I was at the top of the lift in Mammoth. A beautiful, bluebird day. And suddenly I had the most powerful feeling about my sister. Like I could feel her being almost inside my own. It took my breathe away. At the end of the day, when I was through snowboarding, I got the call that she\u2019d been killed in a car accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWas it a sad feeling, that you got on the lift?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, not at all. Maybe a little melancholy but not sad, just powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWere you sad when you found out?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course. But relieved as well. Because it was one less person I had to worry about failing. Now she could never fail. She\u2019d never have the chance. I never told anyone that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNumber seven?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat would be getting married.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike the you may kiss the bride moment?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore like the reception, afterward. I had to try hard not to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not let yourself cry?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWesley, big girls don\u2019t cry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you cry when you orgasm?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI usually apologize when I have an orgasm.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI usually say you\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s rich.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNumber eight?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy California exodus with my friend Guinevere. After high school I took some summer classes at community college. Eastern Religion and Sociology. Working at Starbucks. I got a scholarship for a thousand bucks, they just cut me the check and that was it. Guinevere was going to Willamette College in Salem and said she had some friends with a room to let for 200 a month, and I thought there\u2019s five months rent right there in that check. I called her up and she drove all the way down and picked me up and brought me to Oregon all in one night. She was all into the RAF and the SDS and her boyfriend was like trying to become a real urban guerilla, culture jammer or whatever. Anyway I got a job at Starbucks and the Gap. Hung out at Willamette. Ate at the cafeteria. One time there was this huge food fight. My friend Frankie caught a cheeseburger somebody threw, and it was still all in one piece, and he took a bite and said it was the best burger he\u2019d ever had. But I still felt like a bottom feeder. A townie. I started trying to smoke every brand of cigarette I possibly could.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had this idea about writing an essay on what you can tell of a person from their cigarette. Like profiling the brands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you come up with?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow about me. What does my Top say about my personality?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMinimalist. Egalitarian. Poor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOK, how about Camel versus Marlboro?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCamel is the world standard. It\u2019s international. Marlboro is more working class and Western. Cowboy cigarette. Anyone could be smoking a Camel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cParliament.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you smoke Parliaments, you party.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNat Sherman\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA girl who smokes Nat Sherman\u2019s is upper class, educated, prissy, isn\u2019t really addicted to those Nat Sherman\u2019s but just smokes them socially or when she drinks. If you get in with a Nat Sherman smoker it\u2019s fat city for you bozo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican Spirits?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCould be someone who is health conscious, insofar as they think American Spirits are a healthy alternative to regular cigarettes. They are wary of those additives. Or they like the taste. Or they imagine some connection to Native Americans or the traditional culture of tobacco.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDave\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDave\u2019s is a hard cigarette to profile. I think of it as like the indie-pop cigarette. Maybe you smoke them outside a Built to Spill show. I dunno about Dave\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKool versus Newports?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s an east coast west coast thing. Newports are east coast, Kools are west coast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKents?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never had any Kents but those are what she\u2019s trying to buy in that Romanian film about abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n They drove over Lake Shasta and down to Redding.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber nine?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith you. Alaska. Specifically, that moment under the bridge in Kitwanga. We\u2019d been hitching for a week and that was the most remote spot we\u2019d been in. I remember sitting on the side of the road watching the storm roll in from over Prince Rupert way. And suddenly there was a torrential downpour and we were running for the underpass. We dropped our bags and hopped around, trying to shake off the water, and then I snapped that picture of you, where you are blowing on your hands, and then I felt how much we are all in the wind, remote, how every moment is an encounter with something primitive and unnamed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s touching.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, seriously. Any other Alaska moments?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWaking up next to that float plane near Tok. The false summit on Mount Sheldon. When we almost split up and were leap froging down the highway, and everyone was warning us about Black Bears, and there were those crazy travelers with the machetes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat was fucking insane.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTruly. It all seems so crisp and bright now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sunlight.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore than that. I dunno. And Jimmy the Greek.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJimmy the Greek, he don\u2019t give a fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSaying goodbye in the Jack in the Box parking lot. And that girl who gave me a ride. I think she gave me herpes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd your last moment, number ten?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHmmm. I think I\u2019d have to say working at Mission Six. I couldn\u2019t believe I was going to get paid for working at a snowboarding company. And all the free shit I got. It was like Christmas everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n Nobody spoke for some time. They dropped into the Valley. Passed Anderson, Cottonwood, Red Bluff, Corning. They started talking in fake character.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what nobody realizes?\u201d Pepper said. \u201cThe most powerful economic indicator, the best representation of consumer confidence is the McDonald\u2019s menu. Every spring, people are feeling a little better, wanna treat themselves, what does the Golden Arches hit us with but bam: McRib. Then again, back in the fall, when everyone was hurting, dollar value meal menu. I tried to explain all this to my business teacher but the bitch wouldn\u2019t listen. She doesn\u2019t even eat at McDonald\u2019s probably. Probably eats at Carl\u2019s Junior. You know they got something called the six dollar burger at Carl\u2019s Junior?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs it really six dollars?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the fuck is wrong with you? It\u2019s called the six dollar burger. Now if you go out on the street and ask people if they\u2019d rather buy a six dollar burger or a one dollar burger, nine out of ten people are gonna go for the one dollar. And that\u2019s just cause one out of ten people\u2019s a fruity wacko. McDonald\u2019s know consumer confidence. That fucking teacher, talking all kinds of shit about me behind my back. See when I talk shit I always talk it to your face. I might tell other people later but I always shit talk you direct first. I\u2019m all about utility, efficiency, that\u2019s the way you gotta be in this world. Unless I\u2019m talking to my wife so help me God. She\u2019s always on me about why I don\u2019t take care of the baby.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t get smart with me. I\u2019ll go tap tap lobotomy on your ass. Hey let\u2019s go to Taco Bell.\u201d They passed a big Taco Bell billboard, advertising an upcoming location in Orland. Pepper got three gorditas, Wesley got three seven layer burritos. They tried to fill the giant mug up with soda but the clerks wouldn\u2019t let them. \u201cCross-contamination\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cTaco Bell isn\u2019t very good for you\u201d Pepper said.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything\u2019s good for you\u201d Wesley replied. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in the idea of something being bad for you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust categorically?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCategorically.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat else don\u2019t you believe in?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRandomness, lateness, obviousness, mundanity, chance, uselessness.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo you believe everything is useful?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n Together they finished over thirty packets of fire sauce. Wesley started driving.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season One?\u201d Pepper asked him.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are your top ten moments then?\u201d<\/p>\n Farmland sped past in a blur. The hills between Dunnigan and Vacaville, which are usually parched bone dry looked green as Scotland. There were paintball courses and blue chip firms heralding the beginnings of the bay area. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNumber one is my very first memory. An old man, my grandfather I think, in a red and black lumberjack shirt and an old hunting cap with the ear flaps knotted together beneath his chin. And he\u2019s wearing dark blue jeans and big brown winter boots with fur liners peaking out the top. He\u2019s pushing a sled, a big wooden toboggan with metal runners. We\u2019re in the woods, big pines all around, and its really cold so the steam from our breath fills the air, in fact it\u2019s snowing lightly, so every once in a while my granddad brushes the flakes off his shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMan, your moments are really different than mine. What\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe smoking monk.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was in Burma I caught malaria. I\u2019d been way up north, north of the tropic of cancer, where the people look Tibetan, and I had to get back to Yangon, and I was riding the river, the Arrawady, the whole way. We\u2019d already been on the boat for days, it was surreal, endless zedi studded landscape slipping by, endless fishermen, endless soldiers with their machine guns. Endless sacks of rice. Girls with thanaka faces. Anyway most of the passengers came and went, village to village. One guy, a monk, was with me all the way past Mandalay. He had no baggage, only his bowl. I never saw him eat or drink, but he had a pack of Ruby cigarettes and a yellow lighter. At every stop we\u2019d disembark and could stand on the jetty or the bank amidst the usual chaos of strand roads. I remember one place in particular. I think it was Katha. I bummed a cigarette and smoked with him. Of course we had no language between us. He smoked quietly, slowly, and I remember he closed his eyes. It seemed as though he moved in slow motion. All around him was the hubbub of loading and unloading, but he stood stalk still, the smoke rising in wisps. I never felt so far away from my own life. As though the person I was could so easily disappear. I realized how big the world is. How you can get so far from yourself you never find your way back, and that\u2019s not a bad thing, it\u2019s beautiful actually. God does not play dice with the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEvidently not. What bridge is this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCarquinez.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019d passed the Six Flags at Vallejo, and approached the refineries of Hercules.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what\u2019s number three?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProbably waking up on the Algerian border in Morocco. Dawn on the Sahara dunes. These guys had tied their camels up by tying their ankles to their thighs, but the camels could still walk on their knees, and throughout the night they\u2019d gotten like kilometer away. I was traveling with this French girl, Kristine. She didn\u2019t have a hair on her body, besides on her head, and that hair grew to her waist. She was the color of the sand. All of her. Eyes, hair, skin. We drank mint tea. They wouldn\u2019t let us into Algeria.\u201d<\/p>\n They stopped for gas again, in one of those mall towns that seem to be made sixty percent of parking lots. Underneath the florescent lights, Wesley stood at the checkout counter with Amp energy drinks in tall aluminum cans and another bag of fiery hot Cheetos. The clerk was stocking the drink cooler and singing to himself. Wesley wasn\u2019t sure but the melody sounded like Dies Irie. The clerk looked right at Wesley but didn\u2019t seem to realize he was waiting. After a moment, when another costumer queued up behind him, he abruptly ceased singing and hopped the counter.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry\u201d he said, \u201cI was really in my own universe there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAren\u2019t we all\u201d Wesley said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what\u2019s the next moment\u201d Pepper asked him once they were back on the road. They were listening to the San Mateo jazz station, which was playing Mulatu Astatke.<\/p>\n \u201cNew York City at night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClassic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRooftop party. Brooklyn. Saw lightening strike the Williamsburg Bridge. Rode bikes at dawn amidst Hasidic men in fur caps. A friend I\u2019d been feuding with called and quoted Tupac.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI ain\u2019t mad at cha?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSho nuff.\u201d<\/p>\n They dropped down into Berkeley, passed Golden Gate Fields. The population grew dense. They drove along the marina and Emeryville and through the McArthur Maze and onto the Bay Bridge. There was a bottleneck at the toll booth. Wesley handed over his four dollars and they approached Treasure Island just as all the financial district lights were coming on.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber five?\u201d<\/p>\n After my mom died, I was hitch hiking back from fishing season in Alaska, to Big Sur. I\u2019d been in Portland drinking coffee on rooftops with friends and then one gave me a ride out to the coast, I remember we listened to Sung Tongs<\/em> speeding through the darkness of the coast range, and my friend told me about how he loved to clean his tools at the end of workday, and put them in their proper place, because in the morning, when he\u2019d wake up and go looking for them, the sensation of finding them exactly where they are supposed to be got him high.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the moment?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. He dropped me at the dunes and I slept in the sand. The next day I had a string of bad rides. A drunk. A right-wing Christian. Then long waits on the side of the road. It was nearly dark, I was about to give up, because the chances of getting picked up in the dark are slim. I started looking around for a place to camp. This was in Brookings, so I was thinking the beach. Then, up comes this Volvo with Vermont plates. Baby blue, with the green Vermont plates and I know Volvo and Vermont are both good signs. The occupants are two beautiful blonde girls, with blue eyes, in faded plaid shirts and jeans with holes in the ass and at the knees. They are listening to Tom Waits and smoking Drum tobacco. Turns out they are going all the way to San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe drove down the coast the whole way. I slept with them on the beach near the mouth of the Russian River.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHad sex?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith both of them?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt once?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, consecutively. But later one said she was more turned on by watching than by fucking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you keep in touch with them?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never saw them again. But I miss them. She might have been the love of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich one?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe one I loved.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley drove them off the highway and up Market to Clayton, to the top of Twin Peaks, where they got out and looked at the city.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber six?<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the bridge in Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Yukon.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn British Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur first overlapping moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA moment in common.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeven?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was young there was a woman who sometimes took me to school in her bike trailer. You know those neon yellow trailers for kids?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes we\u2019d go to this old time donut shop on International in Oakland. They had so many fucking different types of donuts you wouldn\u2019t believe it. Something about that place, and those steaming, early morning streets. I can\u2019t shake it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEight?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d been on a bus for 48 hours. Up from Guatemala City. I finally got to Bucerias to see my family, but they weren\u2019t home. The gate was locked. So I threw my pack over and went down to the ocean for a swim. The sun was setting, the water was perfect. I remember floating there as all the waves turned magenta. Light as a feather. Not a care in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know a 24 hour donut shop near here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLets go.\u201d<\/p>\n Wesley got an old fashioned, Pepper got a crueler.<\/p>\n \u201cNine?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe summit of Broken Top. The silence up there. A loud silence. Echoing off the glaciers.\u201d<\/p>\n They drove out to Ocean Beach. They saw a poster for a \u201cRedneck Reality Show.\u201d Wesley talked about how he was disappointed in God for being so jealous.<\/p>\n \u201cIf God really had it going on, he wouldn\u2019t need to trip about people courting other gods. I mean if you\u2019re the shit you don\u2019t worry about people looking elsewhere. You know you got what they need. You know they are gonna come back pleading for more. Like Wu Tang. They know they got something everyone wants to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n They parked next to the Great Highway and walked out to the edge of the water, then back to a sheltered spot in a sand canyon sparsely dappled with bunch grass. Pepper lit up the last of his pot and the smoke bounced off the walls and slipped away.<\/p>\n \u201cIs this really the end of America?\u201d he asked Wesley.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they say.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo then what\u2019s number ten?\u201d<\/p>\n The last streetcar rattled away behind them, up Judah Street, bound through the Sunset tunnel and down beneath Market Street to the Embarcadero and downtown midnight.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is\u201d Wesley said, stretching his arms up to the sky and then bringing them together behind his head. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" for Daniel Olson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}