Karma Bugs

Have you all heard the story of the Karma bugs?

It goes something like this:

A man on a road trip (please dismiss any similarities to the author) has a tussle with locals in a smalltown, because he spoke when maybe he shouldn’t have. Anyway some good came out of his speaking, but if you ask the locals they will disagree and say that bad things have happened on account of his talking. For example, perhaps their church was shut down. Or maybe someone in their church was apprehended by the police because they became aware of their presence after the road trip man spoke.

Anyway, they didn’t like the results of his speaking. And it’s just one more reason for them to dislike strangers in their town. The stranger leaves, but they still want to get even – so what do they do? Karma Bugs – that’s exactly right.

So the road trip man (okay so this about the author) having no idea that the townfolk had sent Karma Bugs after him, settles down for a quiet night’s sleep. In fact he sleeps the whole night through, well except for waking up once to open the windows on account of the heat. And in so opening the windows he allowed the karma Bugs to find their way into his van.

Road trip man wakes the next morning very well rested, but with his face, arms, and neck swollen with bites from the Karma Bugs.

And that’s how a perfectly peaceful morning quickly turns into a frantic tearing apart of the van in search of the Calamine lotion. Ahhhhhh-thank goodness for lotion.

peace.

Snakes Bite

So I’ve been lying low ‘off the grid’ for a few days. There’s a group of church folk chasing me, because I sort of outed them on their local news.

So here’s what happened: I was spooning up the sloppiest breakfast burrito I’ve ever had, at this jaundice-colored roadside gas station/eatery. Between glasses of chocolate milk I overheard some locals talking about a snake ceremony at their church that evening. Yep, curiosity was picqued.

I lolly-gagged, waiting for them to leave so I could ask the gas pump attendant/waitress for directions to the church. She said they’re not keen on visitors at that church, but if I get there early and sit quietly in the back, I should be okay.

So I did. And they did (the snake act that is). It was pretty surreal and I was pretty far away, but they definitely had snakes. It was quiet enough to hear them rattling too.

After watching two grown men dance deadly snakes around their hands for ten minutes, I snuck out the back. I have a real fear of deadly snakes.

When I left the church, the local news was in the parking lot and they asked me a few questions about the snake handling. No problem right? Wrong!

As I watched myself on the evening news that night, I learned that the church had previous violations and clashes with the law, and apparently they were harboring the man who brought the snakes. I guess he went from city to city, state to state, bringing the snakes to that church sect. On the news they said the man is wanted on three counts of assault and one count of attempted murder.

The very next morning, after refueling the van, a few of the churchgoers spotted me and had some not so nice words to say about what they would do to me if they ever saw me again. So I high-tailed it out of dodge and went driving for the tall weeds.

peace.

Lucky

So sleeping on top of the van didn’t work out quite like I’d hoped. The roof isn’t exactly flat – there’s a few linear risers that protrude just enough to make it uncomfortable. Also – the roof feels like it’s caving in under the weight of my body. So I’ve still been sleeping inside the van.

For the past two nights I’ve slept in the backwoods of a farm here in northern Michigan. I’m traveling south (out of the state) tomorrow morning. I’m still not sure where I’m headed.

A bit about why I’m sleeping at a farm: I was driving around planning to just pull over into the woods at night and sleep, when I passed a man in a wheelchair by the side of the road. He was slumped over groping for a package just out of his reach. I stopped to help – and we got to talking. His name is Gerald, but everyone calls him ‘lucky.’

So I told him a bit about my story and what I’m doing driving around, and he offered to let me stay on the back of his property. I felt completely comfortable about staying there, that is until he told me why people call him lucky.

Years earlier he had been hit by a bus. In fact that’s how he came to be in the wheelchair. He had been crossing the street in the middle of town and bent over for something. Apparently the bus driver didn’t see him all hunched over and the bus proceeded forward. Gerald was taken to the hospital where they found in his still clenched right hand – a penny.

Gerald had stopped to pick up a lucky penny, and hence everyone now calls him lucky. Quite an odd way to get such a complimentary nick-name.

Well off to get a good night’s sleep – so I can head out before the rooster crow’s tomorrow.

peace.

Sleep Walking

Back on Michigan soil now, and the weather’s already much better than Virginia. I’m less excited about sleeping in the van tonight than I have been, since the whole time at Tom’s house I slept in this incredibly awesome bed. The mattresses are hand-made to respond to the body’s actions much like those foam beds. The great thing about these hand-made beds is that they are constructed out of 100% recycled materials. The down side is that there’s a six month waiting period for the mattresses. Oh and they’re a bit on the expensive side too.

You’ll all be happy to know we had no jokesters on our return flight. We also didn’t have any private workers on the plane, other than the pilot and his assistant (I learned there’s a whole hierarchy of positions before one becomes a co-pilot on these planes – our guy made it clear he was just an ‘assistant.’ I guess that means if our plane was falling out of the sky he would be qualified enough to ‘assist’ the pilot ininforming us that we’re about to crash.

Absolutely nothing spectacular happened over the past two days – no new breadcrumbs on Artie’s trail, no contact information or old address or picture or anything. Tom did say there were some more boxes he has put in storage and he invited me back out to look through them when he brings them home. Of course this time he will expect me to drive, so who knows – maybe I’ll head that way in my travels.

Enough about all of that, tonight I just want to think about finding a nice quiet spot to sleep beneath the stars. Ever since the trip began I’ve wanted to sleep on the van’s roof, and tonight’s the night. Let’s all pray I don’t rock in my sleep or sleep walk – it wouldn’t be fun waking up in the dirt.

FYI – I’m planning to visit the world’s greatest family (uh, that’s mine in case you didn’t get it – duh!) in a couple weeks, so I need to plan a good 2-3 week round trip destination. Any ideas?

peace.

Free Chemical Peels

Ok, I’m officialy rady to get the hell out of Virginia, no offense to Virginians, but the weather’s gotta be better back in Michigan. This heavy rainy stuff (It’s so unlike the rain in Michigan I don’t even want to call it rain) – it’s like a state-wide wet chemical peel.

Anywho – I’ve been inside most of the time checking through box after box of Mary’s papers. So far I feel like the guys combing the desert in ‘Spaceballs’ – I ain’t found sh*t. Not a word about Artie anywhere. I did find out that old man Moskowitz made more trips to the hospital through the years than many doctors do. Apparently everything was wrong with him.

I also found a couple nifty pocket steno pads that had the prices Mary paid for apparently everything in her life. Corn 7 cans for a dollar in 1972 oh boy! glad she wrote all this down.

I also found a bunch of photos of ??? They’re all b&w – groups of younger women. Tom recognizes some of them as Mary, but with nothing written on their backs we have no idea who the others are. It’s sort of odd that we didn’t find one picture with a man in it. Not one! Sort of odd me thinks.

What else did I find – well I found out that if I sit for more than ten minutes in an awkward position I won’t be able to stand for several minutes & as a bonus I get to feel tingles throughout my legs. I also found out that Mary had a huge collection of ashtrays, although Tom doesn’t think she or old man Moskowitz smoked. I’m begininng to wonder about Mary’s mental health status.

There’s really nothing to report – no funny anecdotes, no car chases, no stunt men, nothing. Although my eyes are burning like crazy from focusing on so many pieces of paper. I’m hoping to be back in Michigan in the next day or so, depending on when we can get the private jet. I had to promise Tom that there’d be no more antics.

No animals were hurt in the writing of this blog.

peace.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I can’t say much right now, but I just took a private jet to Virginia. Funny how quickly everything can change. I’ll be here a few days helping Tom look through some of his mom’s (Mary) old papers for any clue about where Artie might be.

I’m pretty sure this flight has been funded by our tax dollars, and a little hint for those who may find themsleves in a similar situation – be wary of your humor as the workers on these private planes have no sense of funny. A little joke about being a mile high and needing my stuff back, and the next thing you know I’ve lost all privileges.

Oh – I didn’t mention my stuff yet. Ok, here it goes:

Tom let me know that before boarding the plane I’d have to empty my pockets into a plastic container (which they would keep until we landed). Unfortunately (for them) he told me this as we were gassing up the car enroute to the hangar.

So I decided to play a little joke on them. I had almost $23 on me, so I bought two energy drinks, a box of magnum condom’s, and almost a hundred red hot fireballs. We had about a thirty minute drive and here’s how it went down: I drank the two energy drinks, opened all the condoms from their individual packaging, then began unwrapping the fireballs and putting them inside the condoms. Then I knotted the condoms and dispersed them into the various pockets about me.

In retrospect it really wasn’t that creative, but it’s all I could come up with at the time. The two ladies whom I had to hand everything to spent about ten minutes trying to figure out what was happening. I thought it’d just be a funny joke, but let’s just say they weren’t laughing. Tom was pissed.

I never did get all my stuff back. Anyway I’m hoping to get some good info while here and perhaps start again on the trail to find Artie.

peace.

Protecting the Innocent

Now is probably the most appropriate time to discuss something I’ve been lumbering over since I began this journey: changing names of those involved in the story. In case you’ve ever wondered all the names are changed from their originals. The naive child in me didn’t want to do this for the sake of honesty and all that is good, but the adult in me decided to protect them.

Also – I really didn’t want to tick someone off and have them sue me and take the $78.31 I have in my savings account.

I mention this now after having met Mary’s son Tom. He happens to work in a position that is very visable – he is in politics. I don’t want to say too much and give him away, so I’ll just say this: I’m not someone who stays very current with the nation’s politics, and I recognized him. So there you go – let your mind have fun picturing whomever you’d like.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to what happened.

Tom, Joyce, and I spent all afternoon talking (I took mad notes – of which I haven’t looked through yet, so I hope I don’t jumble what I’m about to tell you). Tom and Joyce spoke for a while sharing stories and such, then Tom sort of interrogated (maybe poor choice of word) me. He wanted to know why I was involved with his family at all. I’m not sure if he believed me when I told him about the letter, but he stayed and talked for several hours.

Earlier this year he received a phone call from a storage rental unit that had been prepaid for many years. It had boxes and boxes of his mother’s (Mary) Stuff, mostly letters and papers. He had all the boxes moved to his house and began looking through some old medical papers. BOMBSHELL ALERT, Please be seated. Here it is – Apparently Old man Moskowitz was sterile. That means he isn’t Tom’s father. Then we all talked about who the other men that Mary’s mom prostituted her out to might’ve been (they talked – I listened). After I made us all some coffee there was this moment of silence where we all just sort of looked at each other and I’m not sure who said it first, but we all questioned what if Artie’s is Tom’s father?

Thomas R. T. Wilson – ‘Tom,’ it at least makes one wonder. Although it’s probably more likely that Mary named her son after Artie, but still one wonders.

Around 6p Tom’s driver reminded him of some meeting or commitment, an off they went. I stayed at Joyce’s for a little while longer and then off to bed in the woods.

In case I haven’t mentioned it as of yet – the woods can be a scary place to this here a-dult. There’s a few spots where I’ve pulled the van off the road and parked, only to find myself lost upon waking up. Once I spent an hour and a half getting lost and re-lost, over and over. All the two tracks look the same when they don’t have specific landmarks. I finally deicided to cut up my red t-shirt into strips and hand them on branches overhanging the by-ways as I tried them. As you can tell – it eventually worked.

Until tomorrow – May the wind whisper your name on the hearts of others,

peace.

When Hair-do’s Become Chastity Belts

Just when you think it’s safe to begin forgetting about what started this whole traveling gig – SURPRISE!

I met with Joyce today and we looked through the few items she found, mostly pictures of her and Mary when they were little . Those fake colored rosy-cheeked pictures freak me out. I’m not sure why, but it makes me think of Little House on The Prairie. Anyway I got to se what Mary looked like as she entered her teen years. Let’s just say no matter how cute teenage girls may have been back then, their hairdo’s must’ve worked like chastity belts.

It was great putting a face to Mary, and she and Joyce look like they could’ve been sisters rather than cousins. After meeting with Joyce for about two hours, she casually mentioned that someone named Tom was coming to visit her tomorrow. WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

She wasn’t, and apparently tomorrow I get to meet Mary’s son Tom. All that detective research work I’ve been doing is finally paying off. Yeah right. As you can probably imagine I’m as excited as a porcupine in balloon popping contest. I can’t believe, though that she told me almost en passant. I feel like such a pawn (Sorry – I couldn’t resist).

So sing away Annie “The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be Tom.”

I haven’t been able to fall asleep so I’m up hawking invisible internet beams outside the local library. I love libraries!

P. S. – Have you hugged your plant today. O Cactus!, My Cactus! OUCH!

peace.

I’m Not Dead Yet

I think I’ll go for a walk.

Ok this is where I go completely off my rocker and shout at the weather, or at least wave my fists at the sky. there’s definitely a fine art to sleeping in a van through a massive rain storm (think – flash flood; think – waterfalls; think – high school drinking fountain). Not sure how that last one got in there.

I don’t think it rained once when I was home for those few days, but welcome back to the road. Ok, all in all a bit of rain and a few restless nights of sleep-wake-sleep-wake-sleep-wake-get out of bed and wonder if I slept at all, is a small price to pay for the freedom of the open road.

With the first half of July long gone, my summer is coming to a quicker close than expected. I will be taking classes this fall, so I’ll be off the road in four weeks. (Although I only have classes two days a week, and consecutive days at that, so I may be on the road through the remainder of the year.)

Tomorrow I meet with Joyce, so perhaps that will put the necessary pep back in my ilogical step.

peace.

False Advertising

Right now I feel like a scumy corporate ad agency. I said I was hiting the road this morning, but I’m writing from my couch. The reason for the delay is simple: I still haven’t slept. I was up all night doing some necessary editing, preping, and submitting of my poetry.

So tomorrow morning I’m off and my current plans are to spend about a week driving around Michigan, visiting some sites of poetic interest. I’m also hoping to visit some used book stores to search for books of Michigan poetry. I’m especially hoping to find some chapbooks of poets I’ve never heard of.

Also I spoke with Joyce and she received a few items in the mail from her auntie that we’re going to look over. I’ll probably get there Wednesday so stay tuned.

Side Notes: I watched Freedom Writers while home and it’s the first movie I’ve cried at in a long time – a must see feel good movie based on a real life everyday hero. Just how contagious can one person’s hope for others’ become? Watch this movie and see how you feel inside, and remember you’re sitting on your couch far away from the true story. I also watched a documentary called The One Percent about the growing disparity of wealth in America and it was interesting, but mediocre at best. The movie’s creator (wealthy descendent of Johnson & Johnson founder I believe) tried to let on that he really wanted to fix the problem of this disparity, but even when he portrayed himself asking the ‘tough questions,’ he was really asking them for show in neutered places like his home. The movie played more like a “I want to be perceived as caring” vesus “I’m not going to accept things are the way they are no matter the consequences.” Don’t waste your time with it – if the kid wasn’t a wealthy descendent this wouldn’t have made it out of Blockbuster’s 49 cents bin.

POETRY – I received my first rejection letter.

Time to get a good night’s – make that a good two-night’s sleep.

peace.