Chapter 1

Strings cut, bridges burnt

Driving down Interstate 40 after leaving LA was a bit of a non-scene. Desert and highway didn't change that much after Barstow. Modern highways are built to be safe and wide in America. Deserts were designed by God to be hostile and unforgiving for any who broke down out there. Highways had the occasional road-side phone and also Patrol coming along. Deserts had cacti, dust and not much else.

Herbert. That's me. There's about 5 or 6 variations of that name, but only one I would answer to. Comes from being raised in a family of 10. You had to pick an identity and stick with it, or drown in the uncertain melange of other lives around you. This is my life, at least as I recall it. 40+ years old and leaving the known for the formerly known in order to make some sense of my life. Not that I was confused. But what I had been doing didn't make sense anymore, so I was now driving from LA, away from the nonsensical, toward the sensible.

Barstow itself hadn't changed much since I had been there some 20 years ago.I had gone to Vegas to get married and found that Barstow was an interesting rest stop. I was the only one with a license,and so was the elected driver. We took off late after work - two couples in one car, both seeking an instant marriage and abbreviated honeymoon on the way back. We had essentially 48 hours to pull the whole thing off. So, with the late start and nerves keeping me up the night before, lack of sleep started taking its toll after midnight. Pulled over by a trooper, who noticed the car was weaving. So we stopped in Barstow for a couple of hours - they went in and had some food, I slept (but first my wife-to-be and I "made out" in the front seat, just short of having sex - which was forbidden as part of the Center.

A rise in the highway brought my attention back to the current, swerving the heavy loaded rental truck to stay between the lines. Topping the slight rise, I saw only the black parallel bars of highway stretching again into the darkening desert, the sun behind me along with a tail wind, pushing me ever home and away from Center forever.

Center had been something which promised answers to all my many questions about how the universe operated. They said that you just had to follow their exact path and keep studying the books and lectures of their founder. One day, in an ever-increasing but gentle gradient, you would know Truth and this hope kept you going - along with the required annual celebrations you were required to attend where the official PR was read out by executives. (These meetings were a bit annoying, since you had to interrupt all that you were doing, get dressed up, sit around with people you might or might not know, then go and get talked to while almost every time Rhino's name was mentioned you had to rise and clap to the 5-or-6-times-real-size enlarged photo of him with the spotlight on it.

Rhino wasn't his real name. But someone told me once that this fit him as he was only interested really in his research into anything that fascinated him, that nothing particularly got in his way, much like a charging rhino - he just went through it. Now I know that Rhino had stated several times in his youth that he was going to start the Center to make money, as it had some tax benefits. His attitude toward it was one which kept building its public and created more Center franchises and layered management as well as labyrinthine financial entities to channel/funnel the money around. Rhino was never stopped and always got what he wanted. Rhino died rich, alone.

Again, the highway brought me back to the Now. Darkness was so present that the traffic in the opposite direction was nearly all coming at me with their headlights on. I switched mine on and took another look at the gauges. Temp and Oil were fine, but gas was going faster than I thought. Checking the map through the dimming light didn't show the mountains which had risen to meet me and make my life more difficult. Gasoline was going faster than I thought. I had filled it up when I left, using part of the several hundred dollars the Center had given me as a parting benefit - so that they could say I was helped in making my transition to the outside world. It didn't take much to figure that those funds were really a small sum in actuality, since I was going to need most of it just to get this rental truck to my parent's home in the Midwest.

This truck was the smallest I could get that would hold all my stuff and was theoretically more gas efficient than a van or larger truck. However, with the load I had in it, I quickly found the mountains to prove it only capable of going about 40mph uphill. This was if I coasted downhill, getting upwards of 80-90mph in the valleys so that I'd be averaging about 50 between peak and dip. But if you call that coasting, I'd say it was more a thrill ride than anything else. Unknown roads, often with turns, and picking up as much speed as possible to make it over the next hill, while dodging traffic and passing in the fast lane all those who had been annoyed with you on the way up. It was always interestingly embarrassing to pass people two and three times, only to have them pass you back. But all those books I carried back with me was dead weight up and down hill. It never shifted back there, but took its toll on the gas budget.

I stopped in Needles, just across from the border into Arizona. I was looking to find a gas station, since all those going North to Vegas had gas well over $2.00 a gallon. I'd filled up at $1.87 in LA, which was a bit high for October. Eating a sandwich and drinking some of the protein-rich milk shake (I had made about a gallon of it to keep me going on the trip), I decided that I should press on, even though the gauge was dipping low into the red zone. Haunted by the lack of gas signs along the way, it was a constant worry of a poor decision to doom this trip from the outset. Finally at Kingman, I was able to find gas some 20 cents cheaper than LA.

Midnight had gone some thirty minutes earlier, arranging the new day with the darkness of her cloak. I put a light jacket on, though I had warmer clothing in the passenger-side seat of the truck. Standing there in the quiet night as the gas pump counter clicked away the gallons flowing into that tiny truck's tiny gas tank, I could see the vastness of the sky, some stars, though the brightness of the lights along the freeway made you stretch your eyes to peer something out of the gloom.

My mind wandered to the time I had traveled north to Santa Barbara at night to deliver some event promotion to that Center franchise. I took a turn around a bend and suddenly saw an immense quiet explosion of small, distant lights in the sky. Took the next turn-off and under the highway onto a deserted parking lot next to the beach. Turned off the truck's lights and faced up to the dark sky. Millions of pin points stared back at me, sometime blinking back at me. I had for so long been cooped up in one of the Center's more interesting salvation attempts, which was essentially forced labor, reduced allowance and the worst living conditions they had. We also were supposed to do twice the usual amount of study and self-improvement drills, but had a much longer schedule and no time off. After a year of that, I "graduated" from the program - having proved to myself meanwhile that the whole thing hadn't been called for, but was persuaded to simply go along with it as the faster way of getting out. Now I stood, alone and with a borrowed truck, some days after this "ceremony" of the end of self-debasement, staring up at the endless heavens and marvelling that such still existed outside the Center.

I was happy for the first time in years. Happy for and by myself, not happy because I was supposed to be because I had achieved what someone else in the Center wanted me to, or happy because I had experienced a great meal or "good" movie which starred some celebrity who was part of the Center. Happiness was always another "now your supposed to" in my life. Things were scheduled and you attended and were happy when you were supposed to be, smiling politely and being cheerful.

Here, staring at the night sky which was illuminated only by the stars, I could see well enough through the ambient light to recognize the offshore oil rigs and hear the quiet lapping swoosh of the waves coming in to shore. A small breeze made the windbreaker I wore comfortable, the salty, fishy scent of it making me breathe deep and long to rid the last fumes of LA smog from my lungs.I was happy for no reason other than serendipity. What a thought - something which wasn't ordained by the On-High's at the Center or proscribed by the Great Rhino. A crack had formed in the foundation; the chaos was being let into the carefully built walls of what I had believed in for so long. Beauty has a way of melting the strictures of the heart.

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The gas nozzle clanked and the pump whined quietly that it should be shut off if I wasn't going to get anymore, mister. A few trigger clicks brought the total up to something approaching an even quarter-dollar and I put the hose back, careful not to drip any on me or something I would touch. Nothing like having to put up with gas fumes in that tiny truck cab for the next few hours.

I still had plenty of reserve going for myself, I was in need of no personal topping off. Crossing the wide concrete over to the cashier, I took stock of what I was doing. I could possibly make it in a couple of days if I stretched it out and pushed myself along with the truck. I'd like to see how much space I could put between myself and LA before I had to stop for physical reasons. After paying, I took the opportunity to use their facilities before I continued - following the sage parental advice drilled into my head through all those long vacations crammed into station wagons and campers.

The night sky was slightly overcast and the few stars I had seen before now were shrouded in thin clouds, occasionally peeking out, but mostly saying that they were going to bed, just turn out the rest of the lights before you come upstairs.

Door opened, closed. Truck started, mirrors and gauges checked - I was on the road again. Find the exit back to the Interstate. Still heading east on I-40, we'd have a sunrise to frown into in a few hours. But for now, I had some mountains to climb into in the dark - miles to go before I slept, miles I would drive, regardless of poet Frost.

The road soon became my enemy, twisting into darkness and forcing my bright and dim lights, depending on who was in the other lane. I was in the Kaibab National Forest and saw only the giant trees on both sides, standing as spiked and jagged spears waiting to strike the truck should I veer off. The truck was still working on it contest with gravity: 80-90 down, 40-30 up. But now the roads didn't tell me if someone was coming or whether I could get around that person before I had to slow up behind him, embarassed by sudden impotence of the 6 cylinder "thought-he-could" which had been installed in that Japanese truck factory.

I was in search of a roadside park where I could stop for the night, unwilling to have to manuever through these trees and roads in these dark and unknown mountains under this heavy load. The signs promised something ahead, some promise of rest from wrestling that weight through the mountain. At last, it was there, on the right. Oddly accentuated by street lamps and curving asphalt lanes, concrete curbs and parking areas, absent of life, only a few isolated vehicles here and there. October wasn't peak tourist traffic, but others like me still wandered in search of something, finding minimal companionship in these rare climes.

The temperature had dropped, outright nippy. Above, the skies had cleared, the stars now glaring at me about my waking them at 3 am - shouldn't I be in bed like any normal soul? That point I could concur with, as I quickly shut the door to keep the heat in the truck's narrow cab, something I wasn't really looking forward to experiencing as far as a night's sleep for the few hours of dark I had left. I was outside to stretch, to find the facilities and use them, to slow down after hours of motion so that I could rest in motionless, cramped sleep. The air was clean and clear, something I'd much heard of in Flagstaff. The trees were close now, friendly and comforting instead of threatening, protecting bulwarks and pillars against any attack, at least until the sun lit the sky again.

Chilled and stretched, I was now tired enough to sleep. Got back in quickly to take advantage of the warmth still remaining there, such as it was. Moving all the maps and stuff onto the passenger side floor, next to the cooler with my protein drinks, I unrolled the sleeping bag there and unzipped it, fileting it as a long fish. The extra jackets and other clothing I stuffed against the passenger door to act as some sort of pillow. Now that all the sharp objects were on the floorboards, the flat bunk seat became softer. Taking the sharper objects out of my pockets (the wallet could stay) and kicking off my shoes to quickly put them under the bedroll, I shrugged into the 5 foot width of that Toyota cab with my 6+ foot frame and somehow got into a shape which was more or less comfortable. Sleep took me only after a few thoughts of where I had left and a few more of where I was going drifted through my mind, slowly sinking into a few hours' peace.