Chapter 11

I called around outside of the gas station. There was a garage on the side of the place, but it was closed. Gas stations hardly employ mechanics anymore, which sucks. A couple headed to Des Moines with their son stopped for a while and looked for garages on their GPS. Damn nice of them. Turned out there was nothing open. I drove across the street, stressed that there was no belt on my alternator. I parked, and came face to face with this dude walking out of one of the 3 hotels. This one looked cheap. But he was closing up for the night, and then I looked around and the windows boarded up and the overall slum-like appearance of the place and realized it was a no-go either way. Up the street at Super 8, it cost me 82 dollars plus tax for a room, because they charged me extra for my dogs. I had no fucking choice. I brought my dogs, my bike, guitar and a few other things upstairs and sat on the bed. I left a message to the towing company/garage 7 miles west in Williamsburg, checked my email and ordered from a pizza joint across the street. Downstairs I let the dogs run and do their business. Chintan, the clerk at the hotel stood outside with two women from Montana, and they smoked and watched Chico piss on every plant in the garden. One of the women, the mother of the other one, asked about my trailer. She bought a book from me and we talked about Montana. Inside, Chintan bought a copy, and I was thinking this place might not be so awful, but it is. It's awful. Expensive rooms and no personality to this town. I caught up on my internet porn then watched The Lost Boys.

It was good to be in the bed with the air conditioner and the movie blasting, my dogs sleeping on either side of me, my thoughts forced miles away from the van and the money it's going to take to get it repaired. I called my niece in Peoria and told her I was going to be a day or 2 late.


In the morning I called the garage, and they came and got the van. It was hot outside and I was burned out. It never fucking ends. The tow truck driver stops at a gas station so I can get some coffee. I sip it, the windshield blurs, and I'm at the garage, and the belt is fixed, but I notice a huge crack in the radiator. I call another mechanic over and he laughs,
"Need a radiator, dude. Oh, and your heads might be shot if it ran really hot for a while."
He lit a cigarette, smiled at me and walked off. I stared at the engine.

Back inside they called around for a radiator. Can't get delivered until the next day. I feel my bank account being wiped clean. Between the room and everything else, I'm going to get to Illinois broke off my ass, which is something I want to avoid at all costs. But I have these books to sell, and they're worth every fucking penny they cost. I think it was the owner's wife at the garage who gave me lift to the hotel. I had my camera in my pocket the whole time, but the stress of the repair bill coming out shined the garage at the moment. I give her a book for the lift.

The night goes by like the last night. Cable TV, AC, the web, emails, phone calls and trips outside with the pups. I call the garage. It'll be ready in the morning. I pay for another day. Out front I watch the storm move in, and I see some long haired dude in black loading a truck with Washington plates, like I have. I walk over and shake his hand. He's on tour with his band, Ayria, so I shot them. I checked out the link just now. It's kind of like light industry meets Romeo Void. Not my style musically, but they can make music, and I think it's fucking great they're on the road making it happen. Next stop for them is Milwaukee. I can't really imagine what it takes to be in a band. As a writer, I have enough problems dealing with myself. They seemed like a cool trio.


The storm came. There's something almost charming about the rain in Portland, or I think there is compared to the rain out here. Out here it's fatter and heavier and you don't walk around in it.

Back upstairs I sit here behind the computer. I'm bored as shit, so I'm going to upload some random photos from the tour.

Chapter 10

I walked Phillips in downtown Sioux Falls one last time and took photos. The 4th of July was spent in the clubhouse and backyard in Wakonda, where we watched fireworks and talked about crimes after dark in the small towns around the southern parts. One in particular tugged at me, the murder of a young woman who was left to die in a ditch. I wasn't drinking that night, because I had to drive 2 states the next day.

I was sitting in the hotel this morning in Iowa, thinking about how I never mentioned seeing Mt. Rushmore here on Book Meets Road. I meant to write about it, about the weird feeling I got when I saw it, like this feeling of pride, and it challenged my perceptions of how I feel about the states. During all of my time going back and forth across the country, I had never seen Rushmore, because I had either taken 80 across or it was dark when I took 90.
But driving up the road that goes to Mt. Rushmore, you don't see anything until you round a certain curve, then you see Washington's head staring off into space, and it's fucking trippy. For me it was a big deal because I had never noticed the work involved. I sat there in the van just inside of the security gate, which I had to exit because there are no dogs allowed, and I looked up at the mountain and thought about exactly how much work was there, the hours and days blending to months blending to years. I talked with the security guard for a minute. I wondered about his job. I mean, high echelon meets low echelon. But driving away from the monument, I thought that if I absolutely had to be a fucking security guard, I'd work at a place like Rushmore. There or the AVI awards.


.


The downtown library was closed, but I stopped off at Zambroz and they took two books off me, as well as some people I bumped into along the way.





One thing about this tour that I like is that it forces me to be more outward around people. When it comes to my writing I like to keep it to a minimum. When it comes to selling your writing and the writing of others for a living, it can't be so private. The trick is to talk about the product side of the work, not the mechanics and other such bullshit. I've found that people want to buy books from a writer, which is fine with me. And it's given me the chance to meet some good people. Michael Hay and the Sioux Falls crew come to mind. Another bonus about doing the tour is the chain of small towns, the rawness of them, the total separation from rush hour.

I spent a few days in total driving the fields and towns along the small state routes. It's weird to me that in one town everyone knows everyone else, knows their business, their weaknesses, their day to day life in detail. It would drive me insane, but after a while I'd probably get used to it, then it would be weird to be in a city where nobody says shit to each other...









I drove into Iowa, bound for Illinois, to see my family. Been 5 years since I've been to Peoria, and my sister and the girls are in town from Phoenix. I was driving thinking about how my lucky number is 16, how I was born in Peoria, grew up in Phoenix, and lived in Portland. P is the 16th letter in the alphabet. I was thinking about the number 16, and how I'd peaked in the fourth grade. Soccer number 16, homeroom number 16, my birthday falls on the 16th in the fall, and I had won a ping pong tournament there that summer. I was thinking about how it was kind of lame that I had my best year in the fourth grade, but then I laughed a bit at the thought, when my van let out a snap and the dogs and I were covered in white smoke. The needle was buried on the hot side. I pulled into a gas station off exit 220 and popped the hood. It was Sunday at 7 pm, and the only thing I could see was a hotel and a strip mall. I walked inside the station and asked for a phone book.

Chapter 9

I sat in Queen City Bakery and did a long audio interview with Ted Heeren, easily one of the most likable people I have met, and also a local radio evolutionary. The layout of the bakery shocked me a bit when I first walked in, as I was used to the small cafes and diners of rural South Dakota. Screen doors and flies and sweat, dog bowls and bare feet and good fried food. But it's the working of dials. I met Greg Veerman through Mark Roush back in Portland. Greg introduced me to Ted and a week later we're talking about radio, literature and corn country. The day before, I sold a title each to the Vermillion Public Library, which is always the highest form of marketing for me. There is something so goddamn holy about a library carrying your novel. It is surreal and bright to the core.












I drove through the center of Sioux Falls in the daylight, to a cell store to get my phone fixed, when I noticed a couple on a BMX cruiser, pedaling up Louise Avenue. She sat on his handlebars above his number plate, they had the same hair, cigs dangling in tandem, and they weaved up and down the cubes and around patches of glass and plants. I was immediately brought back to the desert of Phoenix, to the slow and long burn of summer there without a car. It felt good to be where I was, period. But I think owning a BMX cruiser with a number plate and pedaling up the hot sidewalk with a stoner betty on my handlebars would feel pretty fucking good, too.