Life on Interstate 90 (standard:Psychological fiction, 4171 words)
Author: Ryan C.	Added: Mar 24 2007	Views/Reads: 3143/2162	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A spiritual adventure from Buffalo to Boston.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

“Not ‘til I see some cash on the table,” He says, eying me down. 

“How about a water, then?” 

“Do you plan on buying anything?” 

“Well let's see how your water is, first.” 

He slides over a dirty glass and fills it halfway up in the sink.  I
take what I can get.  A fat local notices me and comes over.  He sits 
down next to me. 

“I can smell you from over there buddy,” He says. 

“Thanks.” 

“Maybe you shouldn't be hanging around a place like this.” 

“I respect your opinion.”  I start drinking the water faster. 

“Don't make this hard on yourself.” 

“Is that advice or a threat?” 

He opens his mouth again and I throw my weight into him.  His eyes open
wide and he falls backwards out of the chair.  I get up, run out to the 
street, and head back to the exit ramp. 

I walk another ten miles and start looking for a place to sleep.  For
the first couple nights sleep was a tricky thing, but I've been getting 
less and less picky about it.  I move into the woods until the road is 
out of sight.  After a minute of searching, I find a beautiful willow 
tree with branches that almost reach the ground.  I push aside the 
curtain-like boughs and curl up next to the trunk. 

I close my eyes and leap backwards twenty years.  I lay in moist grass
and analyze the splotchy purple sky.  Interesting birds flit overhead 
and swollen clouds clash.  I must be miles from civilization.  Ants 
crawl over my hands and I pay them no attention.  I wonder how long I 
can stay here.  As it gets dark I hear my mother calling. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I'm not doing this for a woman.  I divorced the only woman I was ever
intimate with years ago.  I briefly considered homosexuality, but 
decided it just wasn't for me.  I just push people away by nature and 
that's the way it's going to be. 

I wake up and find a blackberry bush on the way back to the road.  I eat
some, and put some in my backpack.  I ate every edible berry on the 
first berry bush I came across, and was sick for the entire next day.  
In nature, things are meant to be shared. 

As I walk east, the sky grows darker.  I hadn't even been on the road
for an hour when the sky suddenly erupts.  Deafening sheets of rain 
pummel the road and countryside.  I am instantly drenched.  Wind whips 
between trees as they rock back and forth in dissatisfaction.  I glare 
at the sky and shout.  Droplets land in my mouth in response.  This is 
the first time that it has rained since I've been on the road and I 
hadn't thought of a plan for when it did happen.  I stand there and 
shiver while my clothes cling to me in protest.  Water flows freely 
from my sneakers.  I want to find shelter more than anything in the 
world, but instead I keep walking.  The rain will stop.  Life will go 
on.  People don't die from being wet, do they?  Cars slowly drive by, 
and I can't even find the energy to run when they pass.  Seemingly 
hours later, one woman stops beside me and motions for me to get in the 
car.  I show her my teeth at her and kick at her door.  She leaves.  
That night I would wonder why I would do a strange thing like that. 

In the afternoon I find a rest stop.  The rain hasn't given up, and by
now I wonder if it ever will.  By now it feels like my clothes have 
molded into my skin.  As I walk into the food plaza, one of the 
employees at McDonalds runs up to me. 

“Don't move one step further!  Get out!”  The guy talking to me is all
worked up.  His eyes are wide and he is visibly shaking. 

“Don't I have a right to be here-” I looked at the pin on his shirt,
“Carl?” 

“You're making a mess, I'm gunna have to clean all this up!”  His voice
is rising with every sentence. 

“You know it's raining out, right Carl?” 

“Don't be smart with me, just get out!  Before anyone else sees you!” 
Later, I would reflect upon this line for some time. 

“Just give me two minutes to warm up; I'm having a pretty rough day. 
Carl.” 

“You're disgusting!  Get out of here before I call the cops.” 

People like Carl aren't members of the human race.  They are robots in
disguise that come to Earth with their mission to make us hate each 
other.  Some weird alien scheme.  I'll play for a little longer. 

“How about a bite to eat before you kick me to the curb, Carl?  A man's
gotta eat, right?” 

He ignores this.  “Oh my God, you're barefoot!  Are you some kind of
nut?”  I had ditched my shoes and socks hours ago, victims of 
precipitation. 

I could only think of one response to such a question; “King mealworms
can eat their way out of your stomach if you don't chew them well 
enough.” 

With that said, he actually moves forward with his head down, and starts
pushing me out the door like a bull.  He keeps saying something but I 
stop listening at that point.  I push him off me and head back to the 
road.  I pass a sign saying that I had entered the state of 
Massachusetts. 

I originally thought that I had left Buffalo purely on impulse.  I had
thought that it was just a strange way of dealing with a mid-life 
crisis, and that I would end up turning back before the day was over.  
I am now painfully aware that this can no longer be the case.  A sense 
of purpose has begun to rear its thorny head. 

The rain stops by nightfall and the clouds clear to reveal one of the
most beautiful, star-filled skies I've ever seen.  I find a clearing, 
lie on my back and fall asleep, still soaking wet and shivering. 

I find myself in a room filled with couches and Russians.  At the center
couch is the one and only Joseph Stalin.  Advisors sit at both of his 
sides.  We chat, drink and laugh.  I ask him why he governs such a 
harsh regime and he replies, “To stay on the map, friend.”  Later on, I 
stand beside him as he delivers a great speech and sends his army to 
battle.  I look into the soft eyes of the soldiers.  My knowledge of 
history tells me that they are about to perform a historical massacre. 

*  *  *  *  * 

In the morning I am awakened by a horrible odor.  I open my eyes and see
a confusing, blurry mess of flesh, teeth and hair.  Without my 
permission, my mouth emits a pathetic little squeal.  The horrific 
mound of stinky flesh moves away slightly, revealing a mangy dog.  His 
fur is a mixture of brown and black, he is terribly skinny and he has 
clearly been a stray for some time.  Despite his appearance, he stands 
over me with unmistakable regal pride and before I even sit up, I name 
him Kingsley.  I have never dealt with stray dogs before, but I can see 
his harmlessness in his eyes.  He looks hungry, so I feed him the 
watery berries left in my backpack.  My clothes are still damp and I 
suspect that I have developed a cold. 

Kingsley proves to be a great companion.  He follows at my side wherever
I go and, to my delight, he barks at the cars passing by amicably.  
Loneliness is a terrible thing, even when self-induced.  Having 
Kingsley around is a welcome change for me.  I throw branches into the 
woods for him to find.  He doesn't always find them but I'm not perfect 
either. 

A car pulls over and I don't bother running.  A woman rolls down her
window and asks if I'm okay.  I tell her I'm fine and ask if she could 
spare me a bite to eat.  She passes two granola bars out the window and 
wishes me luck.  Food is getting to be a real problem.  I haven't had a 
solid meal in days.  Hunger is a slow grinding machine, always in the 
back of your mind.  I begin to wonder how I will be able to feed 
Kingsley too. 

Darkness falls, but we keep moving in order to make it to the next rest
stop.  This time, it is just a simple bathroom area with park benches 
and vending machines.  I find a rock and smash the glass on the food 
machine.  I grab handfuls of candy bars and chips and fill my backpack 
with them.  A line of drool falls from my mouth and I take no notice of 
it.  I also take no notice of the three teenage kids that have crept up 
behind me.  As a result, I am especially confused when my face 
unexpectedly rockets forward and smashes into the broken glass in front 
of me. 

A piece catches my cheek and tears it open.  My forehead slams into the
metal spirals that separate the bags of potato chips and ensure equal 
distribution per purchase.  My vision swims in and out of darkness and 
I stumble backwards.  As I try to turn around, my backpack catches on 
the glass.  It holds me in place as the first punch hits me in the side 
of the head.  I shout slow, nonsensical gibberish at them and keep 
turning towards them drunkenly.  Just before I lay eyes on my 
assailants, another fist comes from nowhere and catches my jaw.  I fall 
slowly to the floor and just listen to the sounds around me. 

“Get ‘em!  Get ‘em!” 

“We ‘got' him already, come on.” 

“Oh shit, guys!  This is bad!” 

“We're fine.  We caught ‘em stealing.” 

“Let's cut him.” 

“What are you nuts?”  Then I heard barking and snarling.  I had
forgotten about Kingsley. 

“Oh, shit!  It bit me!”  For a few seconds, I only hear scuffling and
grunts, and the unmistakable sound of crying. 

“What if it has rabies?” 

“Its mouth isn't foaming or anything.” 

“Stop crying, dude.” 

“It can still have rabies, man.  Let's kill it.”  Apparently the people
in Massachusetts aren't much classier than the people in New York. 

“Let's just get out of here.” 

“Yeah.” 

Kingsley keeps barking at them until the car pulls away and vanishes
down the road.  I lay on the ground for a few minutes before trying to 
move.  Kingsley comes over and licks my face.  For a moment, I don't 
even mind his lethal breath.  I tell him that he's a good dog and he 
wags his tail.  I get up, drink some water from the bathroom sink, and 
find a place in the woods to curl up.  I close my eyes and eventually 
slip into a merciful sleep. 

I am standing on a candy cane miles high and poking through the evening
clouds.  A tiny figure dwarfed by a giant pillar of striped sugar.  I 
am the king of a pillowy heaven, stranded on my throne.  The thin air 
makes me grow faint.  It gets late, and I begin to wonder how I will 
get back down. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I wake up in a good deal of pain and Kingsley is gone.  My head is
throbbing.  I touch my cheek and a wave of nausea hits me.  I'm cold 
and hungry.  I look around for the backpack and remember it ripping on 
the vending machine glass.  I had left it behind, with all the stolen 
food.  I'm going through all this torture for nothing. 

I look around for Kingsley and call him but he doesn't come.  Ugly
questions start forming my head.  He could very well have saved my life 
last night.  I feel terrible just thinking about it, but I have to take 
care of myself.  My skin is hot.  I think I have influenza. 

The rest stop is full of people and they all avoid me.  I feel as if I
am of a different species than them.  A boy points at me and makes a 
face to his brother.  I go into the bathroom and wash up.  I do my best 
to clean out the lacerations on my cheek and bandage them up with paper 
towels.  When I finish, I head back to the woods and walk around, 
calling for Kingsley and looking for any signs of him.  Eventually, I 
give up and head back to the road. 

The day is uneventful and I spend most of it feeling sorry for myself. 
I don't bother running from cars anymore.  Traffic is getting heavier 
the further I move east.  Boston is less than 20 miles away.  I should 
be able to make it to my destination tomorrow.  My head is still 
exploding and Kingsley is still missing.  I wonder if I will ever see 
him again. 

In the afternoon a police car pulls up next to me.  He says something
over a speaker and I spit on his window.  The officer opens his car 
door and I run away, laughing to myself and happy for the first time 
all day.  I am constantly surprising myself with the strange reactions 
I have been having lately to humans around me.  To avoid any further 
hassle, I continue my progress in the woods rather than the road.  I 
idly call for Kingsley every now and then, but give up as darkness 
falls.  It chills me to think that I may never know what happened to 
him. 

I come upon the last rest stop on Interstate 90 around what should be
dinnertime.  There are dumpsters behind the food plazas so I head back 
there in hope of some relatively fresh food.  There is a young employee 
smoking a cigarette and sitting on the steps to a back door of Dunkin' 
Donuts.  He waves to me.  I wave back and approach him. 

“Hey man, you look terrible.” 

“Thanks.  You think you could scrounge up anything inside for me to
eat?” 

“Yeah, sure... I'll be right back, man.” 

After a minute or two the kid comes back outside and hands me a Dunkin'
Donuts bag and cup.  Rather than going back inside right away, he 
lights up another cigarette and strikes up a conversation. 

“So when you get to wherever you're going, do you really thing that
it'll be any better than the place that you left?” 

I don't answer right away.  “If different is better, then yes, it will
be.” 

“It hasn't been easy on you.” 

“I've already seen the other side.” 

I thank him for his time and head into the woods.  The bag contains two
bagels and a muffin, and the cup is full of orange juice.  I restrain 
myself from devouring everything at once.  I eat everything but one 
bagel and drink all of the orange juice.  I can hardly imagine a better 
tasting meal.  I think about Kingsley.  I find a pine tree with a 
relatively comfortable bed of needles and drift off to sleep.  Today 
hadn't been that bad after all. 

An old friend appears in my home.  He had left town after high school
and traveled to Seattle and Hawaii, then settled in Germany.  He is 
friendly and always found a way to make ends meet, even if it meant 
sleeping in the attic of a warehouse where he worked illegally.  
Standing in front of me, he has one arm.  The other is cut short at the 
elbow.  He tells me that he didn't love the things around him.  I 
flinch and he vanishes, only to haunt some other place and time with 
his dopamine-fueled soul. 

*  *  *  *  * 

I wake up refreshed and eager to get back on the road.  I am running a
high fever and my joints ache, but I ignore them.  The morning is crisp 
and warm.  The sky is clear and I hear wildlife all around me.  I eat 
the last bagel on the way out of the woods and start walking.  The 
extra food in my system gives me energy, and I even consider jogging 
but decide not to.  I had come this far walking and didn't want to do 
it any other way. 

Several hours pass.  I come to the tollbooth bordering Boston a and
sneak around it.  After the toll, I jump back on the road until I enter 
the city, branch off onto smaller streets, and never see Interstate 90 
again. 

Boston is infamous for its design.  Rather than having streets that run
parallel to each other to form a grid, the city streets make a sort of 
messy circle that only the locals truly understand.  I had only been to 
Boston twice in my life, on business trips, but I knew enough to be 
able to find the water.  The city was built around the harbor, and most 
main roads lead to water if you take them long enough.  The air is a 
strange mix of fish, salt and pollution.  I can literally smell the end 
of my journey. 

The residents gave me strange looks but mind their own business.  They
walk in a slow, drudging way that makes me feel sorry for them.  They 
walk with strange purpose that only they know.  As I make my way deeper 
into town, I feel even more estranged.  I take a minute to stop and 
look at my reflection in the window of an antique store.  I look like 
hell.  My cheek is still torn and looks like it is beginning to get 
infected.  The side of my head is covered in bruises.  My skin is 
radiating heat and I feel nauseas.  My clothes are in tatters and I am 
still barefoot.  I stepped on glass shards on the side of the road and 
my feet bleed with every step.  My backpack is long gone, probably 
buried in a landfill by now.  My hair is tangled and matted with dried 
blood.  I have grown a strange, patchy beard and my teeth are a sickly 
yellow.  Even my eyes have developed a wild, bloodshot look to them.  I 
look through the window and see a woman on the other side.  Her mouth 
is hanging open and she is speaking very quickly.  I take this as a 
signal to keep moving. 

On the way here, I had considering poking around town, since I had been
on the road for so long.  Looking at myself I realize that I can no 
longer possibly mingle with society.  I look like a corpse dragged off 
a battlefield.  I decide to stop stalling and move along. 

I walk until I find the Boston Harbor.  I find an isolated spot between
an extremely large, white pavilion and a fishing company warehouse.  
There is a railing over the water and I lean against it.  I feel as if 
I should be exhausted but I'm not.  There is a kind of strange pulsing 
energy moving up and down my body, electrifying me.  The railing I lean 
against is thirty feet over the slowly moving water.  I take a deep 
breath.  I turn and look behind me to check for Kingsley, one last 
time.  Not surprisingly, he isn't there. 

I climb up onto the railing and spread my arms.  I look up at the sky
and can't think of anything clever to say.  There isn't anyone around 
to hear it anymore.  The fall is surprisingly melodramatic, and happens 
very quickly.  I enter the freezing water and keep diving downwards. 

As I swim deeper, I enter a strange room.  The walls around me are
white, the ceiling is white, and the floor is white.  Mounted in center 
of the floor is a human brain that appears to be very much alive.  Time 
passes.  The walls turn noticeably darker, but I ignore them.  I stand 
there and gaze at the brain while beautiful birds flit overhead. 


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