Road Trippin'

I left Maryland on a Tuesday, heading for Dunkirk (again) via Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh equals two main things in my mind and they are Amanda and Scott - look through this site long enough and you’ll find a comment left by one of them. They’re my cheerleaders, my biggest fans. They are good friends with each other, but I’d never met either of them. I contacted Amanda, hoping she’d be free for lunch. She was. Thankfully, she was also free, in between meetings, for dinner, because I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to get to Pittsburgh.

A hellacious storm couldn’t keep me from getting excited about seeing Amanda. Scott couldn’t make it but that just left Amanda and I free to discuss our reproductive systems over burgers at Damon’s. The waitress came up behind Amanda at one point, just as she was saying, "as he’s feeling my ovaries." I froze, staring at the waitress who also froze, visibly uncomfortable. Amanda was oblivious. It was awesome. The waitress scampered away like a frightened chipmunk as Amanda and I both burst out laughing. She didn’t come back. That was fine with us, it gave us more time to rant and rave about Rick Santorum, aka Senator Johnny McTake-My-Dead-Fetus-Home-And-Have-A-Birthday-Party For-It. (Type "Rick Santorum" in the washingtonpost.com search bar.)

I was planning on being in the Dunkirk area by 8 o’clock, but I was having too much freakin’ fun. Amanda offered to let me stay at her place and I couldn’t pass it up. A quick call to Jojo to tell him not to expect me and I was off, following Manda to her house in Monroeville, right outside of downtown Pittsburgh. Once there, I met her mom - who hugged me hello, I love when people do that - and her disturbingly hot brother, JK, disturbing because he’s only 18. Amanda, JK (short for John Karl) and I sat in the living room all night, cracking each other up. That was it. And it was so amazingly fun. I got to show Amanda my two favorite movies in one night - "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Anchorman". ("I’m in a glass case of emotion!") She’d never seen either one.

Somewhere in between all the laughing and trying not to snarf soda out our noses, Manda told me the story of her mom and Eddie. "My mom and Eddie were together as teenagers. He was a few years older than her. He wanted to marry her as soon as she graduated high school but she said no. She loved him but she wasn’t ready. Well, it really devastated him and he moved to California. They lost touch for years. She met our dad and Eddie married someone else, too. Our parent’s marriage was a disaster from the start. They finally got divorced a few years ago but it should have happened long before that. Anyway, Eddie is divorced now, too, and he sent a Christmas card to my grandmother’s house, addressed to my mom. They got back in touch at the beginning of the year and now they’re so in love. They still haven’t seen each other in years, but they talk on the phone for, like, three hours every night, like teenagers. He sends her little gifts, jewelry, stuff like that. He’s coming here to visit soon. They’re so cute."

Love is patient.

The next morning was simply a repeat of the night before, minus JK. Amanda and I cracked each other up over waffles. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to. While we were loading my car, I saw a tails-up penny. "Oh, no! Bad luck!" I cried.
"Crack an egg on your car," Amanda said. "I don’t know how superstitious you are, but an Armenian guy told me that you can crack an egg on your car to get rid of bad luck."
"Hmmmmm....." I said. "I just washed it..... and I’d hate to waste your eggs."
"Well, I’ll just spray some water on it instead!" she said, reaching for the hose. "That should work for something, right?" What a good friend!

Later on, she told me JK said, "She was like our sister or something! How did she know all the same jokes as us? And why can’t all of your friends be like that?" Because, JK, if they were, you’d have a trail of me’s following you around, dropping things everywhere so you could bend over and pick them up.

I made it to Fredonia, where the Jojo crew lives now, after making a it-stop in Jamestown, where I was born. I took Rt. 60 south, following signs for the hospital - the same route my father took when he was driving my pregnant mom there for delivery. Driving past banks and gas stations, I wondered which ones were the same in July of 1980. I wondered what my parents were thinking on that ride over, if they talked or if they drove in silence. Were they excited? Or nervous? 25 years of in-between time has dulled their memories a bit and I don’t think they remember.

I pulled up to the tiny hospital and parked. I tried to visit the maternity ward, but the volunteers in admitting wouldn’t let me, because I didn’t know anyone actually having a baby. I thought that was stupid, but didn’t argue, instead getting back in the car and driving to good, old Cassadaga. Passing into the city limits didn’t choke me up like the last time. Even seeing my old house didn’t cause a jump in my heart, and I decided that not being allowed inside was probably for the best. My parents had taken such pains to restore it and decorate it nicely that to see the beautiful wallpaper covered over and the hardwood floors carpeted would have been too depressing.

I met Jojo and Stumpy (another Jojo’s Place regular) at the Fredonia McDonald’s - the one with the accosting Sheriff Mac statue - and followed them to the new house. It was nice, a definite improvement on the crappy motel room in Dunkirk, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit homesick for Don’s. The new townhouse didn’t have woods in the back, no campfire ring, no big open space to play football and horse around. No raccoons. It was sad. I wanted to wrestle, dammit!
I walked in the door and was bear-hugged by David, in his cross-dressing finest. He even had fake boobs! Scrappy and I went on an ice cream and soda run. And thus began three days of straight "chill-laxin’". David’s girlfriend, Nykkie, who also lives in the house, made up that word. John, Nykkie, Scrappy and I went to the waterfall swimming hole the next day and try as I might, I couldn’t dunk Scrappy for anything. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been a month earlier and I dove right in, thinking, "I love my life."

Later, on the phone with my mom, I told her about the creek. She told me the runaway slaves used to follow it on the Underground Railroad, since it originates in Canada. That night, a bunch of us went on a darkened stroll to another leg of the creek, this one by the college. Passing the campus of my mother’s alma mater, I told the gang about my imaginary mom, the tiny 18-year old one that I picture walking to class in bell-bottoms and tight tees, long brown hair parted down the middle. They smiled.

We cut through a moonlit vineyard, following a gravel path between the bushes. Stars peppered the sky around the silky clouds that stretched close to the horizons, illuminated by the moon. I reached my hands out on either side to feel the tall grass and sweet wild hay brush my fingertips. I could hear the water rushing as we approached some woods. The Little Dipper watched us sneak silently through the field and disappear into the treeline.

That particular spot is a big party place, with a wide, flat space for sitting and drinking and the burning of things. We didn’t think anyone would be back there, but we were wrong, and ended up joining a college party already in progress. That’s where I met Jory, a puppeteer and really cool guy. He was sitting further back from the campfire than everyone else, but I noticed him right away because he looked exactly like my friend Ilker. I fell into conversation with April and Annie, two sweet, life-long Fredonia girls who told me that growing up in Fredonia wasn’t as backwards and countrified as one might think. They said they didn’t even realize it was rural until they stayed in Fredonia for college, and met people from other parts of the country, people who said, "God, I can’t believe you’ve lived here your whole life! It’s so boring!". April and I talked for awhile, until she was called over by her boyfriend. That’s when I said, "Jory, come talk to me. Tell me more about this puppet stuff."

He was shy but so very cool, a broad-shouldered guy with long black curls, wearing - what else? - a black t-shirt and black shorts. He looked out of place at the party, surrounded by preps and jocks, but it was obvious that they all adored him. He was the beloved Token Geek. I wanted to know all about puppeteering - doesn’t that sound like a job where you just play with toys all day? He told me about the shows, the traveling, how living in a van with three other puppeteers gets annoying. He told me about the inter-company drama and I laughed. I never imagined a job like puppetry being fraught with scandal. We were interrupted at one point, when two huge, HUGE fireworks went off right over the trees above our heads, sparkling green and gold in between the leaves. They trailed into the night like weeping willows. It was incredible. No one knew where they came from.

Jory went to school in Brooklyn, around the same time I did. We compared notes on 9/11, where we were, what we did. He watched the towers fall from The Promenade in Brooklyn Heights and then crossed the bridge into the Manhattan, walking around and taking pictures. "That’s intense," I whispered.
"Yeah, but the whole scope of it really didn’t hit me until I got back to Brooklyn. It took awhile for it to really sink in, what had happened."
"Me, too," I said.

I wandered away from the party at one point, down the steep bank to the creek bed. The water looked like pools of black oil separated by a large, flat rock. A break in the rock on the far side of the creek let the water rush over the stones between the pools. It felt good to be away from the wafting heat of the fire. I dipped my legs into the cool, kissing water and was surprised that I could see my toes. The water was so clean, untouched. I looked up at the kids partying on the raised bank and pictured a different scene - slaves shivering, trying to sleep in the darkness, not daring to light a fire lest it be seen from the road, running from a way of life this generation will never understand. Shouts of, "Oh my god, you’re such an asshole!" and "Dude, I’m so gonna get fucked up this weekend!" floated over the dark, clear water, distracting me as I tried to suspend the image of dark faces worriedly listening for the barking of hunting dogs in my mind. Had the runaway slaves ever hid under the water when trackers got too close? It was certainly deep enough. In the darkness I pictured the head of a young black man breaking the surface of the water, gasping for breath and shaking the water from his hair, hoping that the hunters had moved on. Pulling my legs out of the water, I said a little prayer for all those who had to use the creek as a map, a barefoot path to a better life.

David, Scrappy, and Nykkie walked back to the house, but I was having fun talking to Jory and everyone, and stayed. John stayed with me, to walk me back. The two of us left soon after, once I had given people my number and email. On the walk back through the field, I spun around in circles, dancing out of unadulterated joy just to be there, in a vineyard in the moonlight, underneath the stars. "Come on, let’s walk," John said.
"Not yet!" I chirped, laying down on my back, my arm propping up my head. "Look, that one looks like George Washington!" I pointed to a cloud.
John laid down, resting his head on my chest, staring up at the sky. I wrapped my finger around a lock of his hair. He laughed quietly. "That one looks like a race car."
We lay there for a long time, watching the silhouettes the clouds made for us. He turned his head to look at me, smiling. "Thank you," he said. "Sometimes it takes someone who’s not from around here to remind us how great this place really is." His eyes were so beautiful, so genuinely grateful.
"You’re welcome," I smiled, blushing. "Look, there’s a pony!"