Six Hits The Road

[icebluenothing]

I realized, as I was sitting reading my book, that what I really didn't want was to spend another sunny Autumn day here, inside my little box. I wanted to get out somewhere, do something.

My life is spent in a larger box, my travels normally bounded to the north by Vancouver, to the south by Portland. In my mind, there is nothing to the west but water, death by cold and wet and green; nothing to the east but desert, death by sun and rock and sand and bleached white bone. I've broken out of that box a few times, but not many, throughout my life.

Today, I wanted, really, sun on my skin; to be out somewhere in desert and scrublands, to stretch out on a rock like a big lizard and drink in sunlight. I wanted to touch the death that waits in the east and come back.

I decided that what I wanted was to go to Eastern Washington.

It was a little late in the day to start such a trip, nearly 2:00. I wasn't sure if my truck, the Annabel Lee, was really up to the journey -- it's been handling a little rough lately, in a way that makes wendolen suspect transmission problems, and I've already had a mechanic tell me it needs over a thousand dollars worth of work done on the brakes (although I've never noticed a single problem with them). Undaunted, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. I just figured I'd head east and see how far I would get.

I soon found myself on a familiar route -- SR-522 up to Monroe, then east on US-2, the path my family used to take to reach Gold Bar. (We used to have a trailer in a campground there, for vacationing.) Traffic into Monroe was crawlingly slow. When I reached Monroe, I went looking for the Safeway I knew was near an old smokestack. The smokestack was there, but the Safeway was gone -- it seems the town has changed somewhat over the course of the last twenty years. How odd. I started to pull into a nearby Albertson's instead to get something to drink.

Just then, "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf came on the radio. Now, you may not realize this, but Federal law mandates that if you happen to be out driving and "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf comes on the radio, you have to keep driving. So I got back on the road.

I saw a sign on the outskirts of Monroe that said, "PASS OPEN." Immediately, a sarcastic, chiding voice bubbled up from my subconscious and said, "Oh, you are not going over the Pass."

I decided that was just exactly the kind of automatic, self-defeating, practical, pragmatic nay-saying I was out here today to ignore. I now had a specific goal in mind -- to get over Stevens Pass.

Along the way, I stopped at a rest area just east of Sultan and west of Startup. There was a creek leisurely running alongside it. I recognized the area, vaguely, from my childhood, and decided on impulse to do something I never would have been allowed to do as a child -- wade across to the other side.

To my surprise and delight, there were trout swimming in the creek -- big ones. (At least, that's what I think they were. I'm no icthyologist.) They scattered at my approach through the water. The water was bitterly cold, but endurable.

I started looking on the other side for a rock to take home from this place I'd never been, as if I were visiting the moon, when I saw motion out of the corner of my eye.

Scattered rocks piled in the middle of the creek made for a slight natural dam, and there was splashing -- there were trout caught in pools among the rocks, some of them flapping half out of the water, gulping at air, drowning in it, dying. I froze.

In seconds, I told myself that this must happen all the time. Trout swim down this creek and some of them make it and some of them die. It happens all the time and it's natural and there's nothing you can do about it. Hell, you eat fish all the time, so why is the fact that these fish are dying bothering you?

I didn't know. But it was. I thought about trying to grab the fish, flip them into the water; it didn't sound practical. Instead, I grabbed a stick. I would push them into the water, I thought frantically, with the stick. All of them.

I reached one. It wasn't as easy as I imagined and I had to move rocks out of its way and it was panicking. Finally, after what seemed like minutes, I managed to get it free of the rocks, but I didn't know if it would live. It was still moving, twitching, fighting for breath as it floated downstream, tail-first, but it wasn't trying to right itself, trying to swim. It looked as stunned and defeated as I felt. If the water still felt cold to me, I no longer noticed it. I had no idea if I'd done the fish a favor or just prolonged its miserable death a while longer.

I looked at the other fish that were still slapping against the rocks, headed back to the far shore, and tossed my useless stick into the stream.

I watched another trout come down from upstream and get caught against the rocks and felt completely helpless. I watched it struggle, watched it try to jump over the rocks. Come on, I thought. Come on. You can do this.

It did. It struggled and jumped and was over the rocks and gone.

I headed back for my truck.

Bought myself lunch, or dinner, or whatever meal I was on, at the Gold Bar Family Store, which, despite its rustic name, looked as modern as any Safeway or QFC. Egg salad sandwich, some Chex Mix, a bottle of fruit juice with ginseng and ginko biloba or something like that.

I debated turning around and going home. Decided not to. Decided that while it was kind of pointless to just barely get to Eastern Washington and then turn around and go home -- no lying on rocks in the sun for me, at this late hour -- it would be even more pointless to come all this way and not make it to my destination at all. So I kept going.

And the closer I got, the more terrified I became.

(what if it gets too dark and you get lost what if the brakes fail while you're up on the pass what if you run off the road)

Stevens Pass looms large in my childhood memories as a place of ice and snow and tight turns and roads bounded by sheer rock walls on one side and sheer drops into nothing on the other and I am very, very afraid of heights. Stevens Pass goes over the Cascade Range at an elevation of 4061 feet.

Even though I didn't think snow and ice was likely -- at least, not terribly likely -- I know Stevens Pass can give even an experienced driver pause. And I'm not an experienced driver. I've only had my license since late April.

(what if you fall down a cliff what if the truck breaks down and you're nowhere near a phone and who would you call anyway)

I'm a horror writer. It's my job to imagine the worst that can happen and I can't turn that off.

My arguments with myself, with that same damned pragmatic "You Can't" voice I'd been fighting all day, grew more frantic and violent.

It came down to not letting that voice win, no matter how reasoned its arguments. To not living inside the box it wants to keep me in.

I made it over the pass. It was nothing. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing I couldn't handle.

It was worth it. It was beautiful. Mountains full of trees, tall evergreens mixed with patches of rust and flame colored foliage, lit by deep golden Autumn light, slanting down from a setting sun.

Once I was over the pass, I kept seeing places I could turn around, but I wanted to keep going until I reached civilization. I realized I was getting depressingly close to Leavenworth, where treebyleaf and I didn't make it as planned this year, and I knew I didn't want to go quite that far. Not without her.

I made it as far as the US-2 Nason Creek Rest Area (MP 82) near Lake Wenatchee. I figured that was civilization enough. I got a cup of coffee and a cookie, tipped the gentlemen at the rest area a dollar, and headed home.

The trip home was uneventful, except that it seemed to take longer than I thought it would, and that there was an ungodly amount of bugs flying over the road back to the Pass -- it was like driving through some horrid, living snow.

I got home without incident, made myself a milkshake, and played with the cat.

Soon, to bed. Tomorrow, a funeral.

Comments

the voice...

[autumngray.livejournal.com]

I have that "worst possible" voice too. Maybe I should think about horror writing. Maybe if I practiced I might be able to write stuff half as good as your post. Real.

<> I really do want to read the rest of Tattoo... <> :)

Autumn

[wendolen.livejournal.com]

such a beauty.

treebyleaf and retcon and hardrock have (I believe) all retired at this point, or I'd make 'em come and read.

if I'm not mistaken, that's the rest area where Roger and I caught a few hours of sleep the first time we were both too tired to keep driving on the way to Toronto.

and, last, but not least: i'm fucking shaking, sweating, sick with envy. and so pleased for you.

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

What on earth do you have to envy? You're the one who's driven across the country -- ?

[wendolen.livejournal.com]

Yes -- three and a half YEARS ago.

You left your usual hamster-wheel existence TODAY.

If I had a semi-steady diet of such things, I might thrive.

(it's true, of course, that going around with treebyleaf makes me find new stuff on the hamster-wheels I've been on for years. and that's another kind of fun, but it seems nonessential to me.)

[gothkittyn.livejournal.com]

Hey! sounded lik an incredible trip. Keep in touch, and stop listening to the voices in your head;) (at least the ones that say youi can't do something) --Bev--

You have such serene places in your soul...

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

...and you haven't really experienced the desert, have you?

We're going to have to remedy that one of these days.

And yes, you can drive. :)