Chapter 4

Flagstaff - one day out from LA

Waking in the cramped rental truck cab was interesting. While a bit out of sorts - disoriented after a manner - I wasn't all that tired. Some background exhilaration was tugging at the edges of my consciousness. 6:22am - about 3 hours of sleep. A State Park outside Flagstaff Arizona.

I had done it, I was long gone. Home was a couple days away and a few hundred miles, several tanks of gas.

Getting on my shoes was a feat, since I could hardly move in that cab, but didn't want to stick my feet outside with nothing on but socks. Moisture clouded the windows, but nothing as bad as I thought it would be. Somehow I twisted around and got back verticle, then extended my feet out into the rest of the cab after I wadded up my bedroll and moved some of the boxes back on the seat so that I could get one foot shod, then the other.

Now, vertical again, what to do first. Obviously, my bladder said, I have some urgent needs. So I got my jacket and hat handy, as it was definately cold outside. Make sure I have the keys. One, two, three - push, shrug into coat, quickly shut the door so it was still mostly warm when I got back. Didn't want to burn gas warming it up while I visited the facilities.

The park was beautiful. The walk helped me wake up. Tall pines with their needles carpeting a rocky ground, all neatly framed with curbs and nice asphault (an oxymoron for any farmer's son) in the best style I was used to in all that California living. The sun was trying to stream through the arms of these towering giants, but was held back through their cousins on the east flank of that mountain. Birds were chirping - real birds. (The only bird around the Center besides pidgeons was a mockingbird - really.)

Shoes scrunched on the gravel path as I walked around and visited the displays they had up in the kiosk there. Cooling off, I started seeing that I needed to get something to eat and hit the road. But first, I had to warm up that cab and engine.

So I returned and brought the engine to life. Turned the heater up through the defrost grills to clear the window. Taking stock as I sipped my protein shake, I put my roadside office back together on the passenger side and folded my jacket to get it out of the way, along with my hat. This brought the map to view and the log I had started in the back of a smallish sketch journal. Rough calculations showed that I was going to be filling up the tank every 2 1/2 hours or 200 miles, if the gas mileage held up. Small tank on a small truck - that fit.

Map showed that I was just about halfway across Arizona, with my route through I-40 still the best way to get there. Still was debating about what to do with Oklahoma, since they had a toll road north into Missouri - which would be more direct, but I wan't particularly enthralled about toll roads. For now, I needed to find another gas station and get moving. The longer I drove daily, the faster I'd be back home.

Windows were clear now, defogged. I turned down the heater fan as it was pretty warmed up. Took a last sip of the protein shake and put it back in the cooler. Not much left to the two plastic jugs I had started with. I'd see how that went, along with the other scraps I'd had along. Probably try some sandwiches along the way. No real need to get into those fast-food joints, better value in a poor-boy sandwich, particularly if I could find a market close to a gas station. Priority was getting home quickly, but cheaply.

Set the belt, checked the mirrors. All gauges were fine, normal - except gas. I'd already checked out all the tires when I was out, so we were ready to hit the road. Backed it up slowly and made my way around the curved driveway back to the road. No traffic on the road. The truck smoothly turned and made its way starting down that mountain I had wrestled with in darkness a few hours before.

The sun streamed in and tickled me intermittently as I rode the highway in and out of the tree shade, up and down and around, ever slowly coming down that mountain - all the time looking for some fuel to swell that tank again. Finally a familiar Circle K logo showed up. It took some time to work out how to actually enter that island of concrete in a sea of trees, shrubs and greenery. Had to go almost a half-mile and back after I missed the turnout.

Circle K was an interesting site to see, since it was a regional brand, something I'd first seen while working for the Center near Indio. More or less the same as a "7-11", it was still a reminder of what I had been and where I had been. That Indio Circle K was typical of the area, since it was clean inside despite the insistent dust which was so common to desert areas. We went past it when we went out to do film shoots in the local area. As well, we often went near that route in travelling to the various berthing buildings to and from the main site, which held the studio. Seemed like a real treat to get out and buy some cheap soft drink and do something besides filmwork, Center studies and working 10 hour days every day of the week.

That was the first of my Bovine Rehab Program assignments. They had this electronic box which they did their programming with. If there were a certain reaction while you were connected to it, then you could be sent to this BR Program, which meant you were restricted to base, had to study 5 hours a day and work the rest doing the hardest work they needed done, all the while getting the worst food and berthing they had. Pay was one-quarter the normal allowance - and only authorized people were supposed to spend it for you. Great stuff. Slavery in fact, but of course, since it was voluntary they danced around this with the authorities. Later this came up in law suits over and over, making them change this program. But the benefit of it was to give you an acid bath to really reflect on what your priorities were in life. Got out of that one by some board which gave me some equivocal judgement, saying that while I had the electronic reaction, I didn't "dramatize it" - meaning if I was restricted from certain jobs and didn't get my pay back, though went back to regular allowance (about $20.00 per week at that point) and could move back into the "normal" dorms for single individuals. Men in one dorm, women in another.

That place had a thing about people leaving without authorization. If they caught you trying to leave, they'd bring you back and put you under 24-hour watch while they put you on that electronic device and did menial labor, again under watch. Finally, you made some sort of public "change of heart" where you asked permission to be part of the group again. Most of the people who left like this once ended up finally doing it successfully later on. Like the "Great Escape" with Steve McQueen.

The bright sun shining and the tank full of gas brought me back to reality again. I'd finally been one of those to leave. And now I was free to take a fresh breath of air and keep driving. That old exhileration took hold again, I began whistling an old folk tune - "I'm on my way to Canaan land." The lyrics were awful repetitive, but the tune could be marvelously variated to make some interesting passages. Once I had paid the cashier, I whistled quietly again to myself (others were now filling their tanks) and got back into the truck, pulled out and, pausing to check traffic, was on the road again - east to freedom.

Coming out of the mountains, the land again became flat, just as it had across California. Roadsigns loomed and then whipped by. Nothing much happening on the roads, no animals on that desert. Shortly, I went through Winslow. All one-story buildings with a double lane highway going right through town. Those Eagles' lyrics rolled through my head as I smiled, suddenly getting more significance from that meaning, "Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona; it's such a fine sight to see..." There I was, taking it eeaaazy, just like the song. Flying down the road with only my past behind me and my future in front of me. Yet Winslow was a flat nothing. Blink and miss it, like the small towns in Missouri I was heading to. I just had to stop and take it in. This song was their claim to fame and not a single roadsign tribute to it. So I paused, paid my moment of silence in tribute to Winslow, the Eagles, and myself, then hit that road again.

Then came Holbrook and the rolling prarie-like land I'd seen in Kansas. I started seeing long tubes of rock over to my right. Some were 20-30 foot long and 4 foot across. These became more and more frequent, until a roadsign explained it. "Petrified Forest National Park." Great. Never would of thunk it, before. Some signs with dinosaurs on them, telling people to stop and eat, buy souvenirs in our giftshop. These zipped by - I had no time for that. New Mexico ahead.

Stopped in Gallup for gas. 12.655 gallons @ $1.659. Made 188.5 miles. Better than Kingman to Flagstaff, where I got 12.340 gallons for $1.69 and made 156.3 miles on it, pulling the deadweight rental truck throught those mountains. Best mileage had seemed to be from LA to Kingman, where I got about 208.3 miles from 14.26 gallons. But that was flat land with a tail wind (and they only "felt" better; downhill is always better mileage). Weather was supposed to be nice ahead, but I was driving into some precipitation ahead. I hadn't worked up detailed weather reports for all the areas I was driving through in my preparations, spending more time on finding everything and getting them packed, getting the truck secured and staying out of everyone's way.

Leaving had been interesting. As I had worked around their system all those years, that turning the same rules back to fit my own use actually allowed me to work in some privacy and free from any particular worry. You see, you weren't supposed to tell anyone you were leaving. As well, I had placed myself under the Security force and these were really my only contact for some time. The various Human Resources people couldn't get me a job, as they really didn't want to talk with me - again, their fear was more motivating than actually helping people - which was the ostensible reason the Center existed. More intentional hypocrisy. They were there to make money from selling hope to people. Salve their fears with hope of confidence - tie the albatross around their neck as a yoke to wear in making their way through life, always travelling up that one "Path" of individual salvation.

Anyway, I was packing my truck in daylight, moving all my stuff out of storage and into a rental truck right under everyone's nose. Smiled and nodded to everyone. Moved the truck into the parking lot and waited for daylight. Meanwhile, I mixed my protein drinks and stored them in the cab. As I was renting that truck by the day, I was committed to leaving the next morning. Slept and rose for breakfast, then simply walked out to the truck and drove off about 9am, right when the security watches were changing and the public was dribbling in for services. It was an hour before they noticed I was gone.

By Gallup, it had been raining. Through Albuquerque, I was stuck in a massive jam on the freeway, spending an hour and a half crawling through a few miles of roadway while I kept checking on the gas needle. For all the thinking I did then, I can't recall much that I went over. Checked and re-checked the gas, sipped on my smoothie. In such a scene, you never know what caused it. I saw the locals making their short cuts via access roads, but I stuck to the main road and just settled down to waiting and taking the conservative route, following the blinking lights and patrolmen as they detoured me to the safest route. By the time I got to the accident site, any injured had been removed and the cars themselves towed. Only the tape remained along with the traffic. The traffic was moving faster than the wind was moving the tape, but not by much.

Passed the Continental Divide, a single small sign by the side of the road.

Kept on the road through Albuqueque. I'd studied it out on that long stretch waiting for the traffic to sort out. Saw that my gas would make it through, since I didn't want to navigate the various on and off ramps to get gas in there, as well I knew that gas would be cheaper outside metropolitan areas.

Finally coasted into Clives Corners, New Mexico. 13.763 gallons at 1.599, making 194.6 out of that last tankfull. Noted the time - 3:50 in the afternoon. So I'd be in Texas by the rush hour, such as it was out here. I'd left LA right in the middle of their rush hour slot (it lasted from 3:30 to almost 7pm in that town - not just a single hour). But there were no wide open spaces in LA.

The more I drove, the more I relaxed. Tenseness had been dripping off my shoulders, dissipating through the truck cab and dripping onto the tarmac rolling below endlessly. The more I drove, the more at peace I found myself. Home was just over the horizon, Home and Freedom.