Sleep eluded me that Saturday morning, no matter how much I tried to force it. But sleep is like a relationship, or I suppose, a wet watermelon seed, the more you force it, the further it slips away.
I casted aside my sleeping bag, which I admit had become something of a security blanket, and quietly made my way to the stairs. In the pitch black basement bedroom, I traced the walls with my fingers to find my way to the stairs. Avoiding the notorious creaky first step, I tiptoed up, ensuring not to disturb Thumper, who was soundly sleeping on her side of the room.
I left the house, and got into my ramshackle car with no destination in mind. I just needed to be going. To where, I didn’t care. The Kentucky road wound through bright autumn trees and that was enough.
I kept few things from the previous chapters of my life, among them, other than the old Honda Civic, was the Neil Young CD playing on the stereo.
“I woke up this mornin’ with love in mind,” he sang in his shaky voice.
Why is it that when I'm going through something, every song I hear seems to have lyrics written about it?
“What am I doing here? What am I doing here?” he sang.
I parked at a diner for breakfast. Although I’ve come here a few times to write, today, the allure was the nostalgia of travel that diners evoke. Typically, I’d write on my laptop, but I left it behind and grabbed an old trail journal from the passenger-side floor. Seeing a few blank pages in the back, I slipped it into my pocket and went inside.
A few months ago, I sat with my laptop in front of me and a waitress asked, “So do you come in here to do homework or are you a writer?”
I wanted to say writer, but until I write something worth publishing, or at least finish a book, that would have been presumptuous. "I just come in here to write,” I said.
"I knew you were a writer! I won the bet! I can't wait to rub it in her face," she laughed.
"Bet?"
"Another girl that works here, she said you were either a student or a serial killer."
"Oh," I said. “Wait, why did serial killer make the list?" Honestly, I was just happy to know I could still pass for a student, but I was curious.
"Well you know how people are these days," she said.
After travelling and witnessing nothing but kindness from strangers coast to coast, I felt I had a good gauge on how people were these days.
She returned with my food, but before turning away, she leaned in whispering, "I'm glad you're not a serial killer."
Was that flirting? I wondered. I’ve always struggled to understand those cues, but if it was, I figured I might be the first to get that particular pickup line.
“Me too," I said, matching her tone and blushing, obviously.
I took my usual spot at the counter, but the writer v. serial killer waitress wasn’t here. Another server took my order. She was slender with dyed hair as black as a raven and tanning-bed-orange skin. The tattoo circling her bicep was probably older than that other waitress. Her smile revealed a set of large crooked teeth and big gums, but it radiated warmth and kindness nonetheless. I ordered the breakfast special and a coffee, then turned to a fresh page in my journal.
I was engrossed in my own world when a man in a white-collar took the stool next to me. Given that it was the only vacant seat, he didn't have much of a choice. Did I really give off a serial killer vibe?
He set his phone on the counter, “I’ve never seen this place so busy," he said.
Glancing around, I noticed he was right, though the diner was always busy. The liveliness was part of why I liked it. Short order cooks were always lined up behind the counter, expertly flipping pancakes, eggs, and hash browns on sizzling griddles. Waitresses dashed about, bussing tables, topping off coffee mugs, and washing the perpetual influx of dirty dishes.
“I’m gonna need singles!” the woman at the counter yelled to anyone, her voice cutting through the ambient noise. For a moment, she got no response—just the symphony of frying food, animated conversations, and the clatter of cutlery on plates. After a brief pause, my waitress responded, “Just give me a sec to clean my hands, and I'll get some singles for you, hun.”
“I need that omelet plate smothered!” another waitress called out. The sizzle of food hitting the hot stove and the forceful spray of the dishwasher cleaning syrup residue from plates filled the air. The space behind the counter seemed almost too cramped for the bustling staff.
The busyness pulled me away from my thoughts. Perhaps that's the allure of a busy place—a welcome distraction from my inner dialogue.
“Hey, here comes my Bacon Man!” the raven-haired waitress said, flashing a big-toothed smile.
I turned to the entrance to see who she was talking about. The Bacon Man was an elderly liver-spotted gentleman, hunched slightly as he shuffled into the diner. Upon hearing her greeting, a contagious smile spread across his face, as if suddenly remembering he was alive.
The somewhat flirtatious way the waitress spoke to him made her seem more like a caregiver than a waitress, important in ways that nobody, except the Bacon Man, will ever know.
“Does anyone here take orders?” the white-collared man asked.
The dish washer turned off the sprayer and picked up a towel to dry her hands, “Sorry sir, what can I get for ya? “
“How about you get me one of those things with the pictures of food on it,” he said. I supposed the word “menu” wasn’t condescending enough. “I want to point at what I want, so you don’t get it wrong.”
Ugh, what a jackass, I thought.
He wagged a thumb toward me and said, “This guy asked me if I brought any sandwiches.”
He chuckled, but rather than return the laugh I met the dish washer’s gaze and said, “I’m not in a hurry. Take your time."
His laugh faded into an awkward silence. While I usually avoid being impolite, I didn’t appreciate being pulled onto his team like that. Typically, a pang of guilt would accompany any sort of rudeness on my part, but this time, I searched around myself for that emotion and it wasn’t there. It kind of felt good.
I went back into my journal. When the dish washer left with the man’s order, he turned to me and said something that I couldn't hear from inside my introverted bubble.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I said I’ve never seen it this busy in here,” he said again.
“Yeah, that’s the problem when you’re in the service industry,” I said. “The busier you get, the harder it is to keep people happy. So it’s like, the harder you have to work, the less you’ll be appreciated.”
He never said another word to me, or anybody.
“You need more coffee, babe?” the waitress asked. I said yes and slid my cup forward. She filled it and moved on to someone else. She never stopped moving, but she never seemed stressed either. Rather, she had the face of someone who just learned some really great news.
“I need double hash browns!”
“Coming through!”
She glided through the crowded kitchen toward a family who had just walked in. As she passed, she stopped at the stove to flip something with a silver spatula for an overworked cook. She tore off a long piece of brown paper towel from a roll to clean up a spill for the dish washer.
“These waffles need re-baked!”
“I still need an order of poached!”
I imagined how good it would feel, after the long day ahead of her, when she finally got to fall into her pillow and go to sleep, but I have a feeling her day of work doesn’t end after her shift.
When she finally made it to the new customer’s table, I couldn’t hear her over the sounds of the busy diner, but I could see that she was making their little boy laugh.
A few coins clinked onto the counter next to me. The white-collared man left his tip and stood up to pay his check. The waitress returned as he made his way for the door and yelled, “Thanks babe, you have a great day!”
The dish washer walked behind her and tucked one of those long pieces of brown paper towel into the back of her shirt collar like a cape, as though she needed any help to look like a superhero.
Her attitude was truly infectious. It reminded me why I loved traveling: the world outside is so much bigger than the confines of my own head. Rising from my stool, in a better mood than when I’d first sat down. I went to pay the check.
Next to the register was a white donation bucket with a photo taped to the side. Huddled close together to fit in the picture's frame was an attractive young woman with her husband and three small children. While the infant stared confusedly at the photographer, the older kids seemed to be saying, "Cheeeeese!"
“Did you hear about that on the news?” the waitress said. I shook my head and handed her my check.
“She worked here.” I panned down to the words 'Memorial Donations' printed under the photo.
“She was killed three days ago in a car accident,” she said.
I looked back at the photo and stared at the young smiling father with his three beautiful children. I imagined what his face must look like today. Suddenly, my problems and depression seemed embarrassingly petty and small.
Tears coated my eyes, I’m incapable of stopping them, so I avoided eye contact.
“That'll be nine-eleven,” the waitress said, as though pressing the point just a little bit further.
I felt a sense of gratefulness returning to my car, a mindset that made me appreciate that I still had my life and the freedom to spend it how I wanted.
I started the engine and shifted to reverse. The Neil Young song came back on the stereo.
“I’ve seen love make a fool of a man. He tried to make a loser win,” he sang about me in his shaky voice. “But I’ve got nothing to lose I can’t get back again.”
—===—
“Hey Red, do you remember that day on the Long Trail when we hiked into Brandon, Vermont?” Red had called to talk about backpacking again, a kind of weekly therapy for being back in the real world. “I was thinking about that today. We woke up freezing in that cabin and then it rained on us all day.”
“It rained almost every day on that trip, dude,” he said.
“True, that rain was relentless. I don't think we had two days in a row without rain on that trip," I said. "We hiked seventeen miles of muddy trail to the road then decided to hitch to the McDonald's in Brandon, so we could be warm and dry for a change.”
“Except, nobody picked us up,” he said.
“Yeah, so we ended up road-walking nine more miles to town," I said. "And then by the time we got to the McDonald’s they were just about ready to close. There wasn't even enough time to get dry before we were forced back outside to walk up and down the road to find a place to sleep. On the outskirts, there was that strip of trees cut out of a hillside for a row of power lines, so we climbed up there to setup camp."
“Yeah, I remember that," he said.
"That was kind of a shitty day," I said.
"It was kind of shitty wasn't it,” he said, but I could hear his smile.
“I'm mentioning it because when I thought about it today, I got very nostalgic. I miss it," I said. "Even the shitty days, I miss. So, as sort of an experiment, I thought about some really great days before backpacking. Memories of childhood, of trips, of friends. Memories of laughing so hard that the room goes silent because nobody can catch their breath. You know those laughs?” I said.
“Of course, yeah. I know those laughs,” he said.
“By every measurement, those were great days. But they didn't give me the same feeling. I guess I’d call the feeling homesickness, but I've never actually felt homesick before.”
“So you’re saying the worst day on the trail is better than the best day off the trail?” he said, summing it up much more succinctly.
“Exactly, but it's more than that," I said. "I even feel nostalgic for that night we slept on the front porch of that restaurant in Manchester Center to get out of the pouring rain. You were like, 'Hey, the sign says they don’t open for breakfast! I guarantee nobody will come in before ten!'”
"Yeah," he laughed, "And they didn't, did they?"
“No, but that was a shitty night too. I felt weird about unpacking my gear and getting into my sleeping bag, because I wanted to be able to make a run for it if I had to,” I said. “God, I froze my ass off that night. I think I got about two hours of sleep.”
"Nah, we were fine," he said. "If anybody saw us, they would have just told us to leave."
"Yeah, my attitude about things like that changed eventually," I said. "By the time we slept on that Big Lots loading dock in Morrisville, I wasn't too worried about getting caught. Actually, I slept like a baby that night."
And on the conversation went for hours. It became instantly clear that Red was suffering from the same sort of homesickness.
The phone calls became more frequent and soon the conversations went from reminiscing about past hikes to planning the next.
That Monday, my boss pulled me aside to ask which direction I wanted to take my career in Information Technology. A lot of life’s little problems could be avoided if we just told the truth. I’m convinced of that. And the longer you live, the more evidence of this you drag around with you, but I still didn’t tell him the truth.
The truth was in a phrase I had been repeating in my head all day, but I couldn't say it. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say it. I had to make something else up, and soon, before the silence became awkward. Think, think, think.
I'm sure to him and most people it's a straightforward question, but for me it was like a girlfriend you're not really in love with asking, "where is this relationship going?"
I didn’t want a career in Information Technology. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a career in anything. It was just all I knew.
The company sold pre-paid credit cards. When you got right down to it, we provided a conduit for drug dealers and pimps to transfer money. The company complied with the law, but it was a self-regulated industry. I asked one of our security experts how much business the company would lose if all illegal activity stopped. She glared at me over the top of her glasses like I said the most naïve thing imaginable.
“There would be no company without illegal activity,” she said.
Hmm, which direction did I want to take my career in Information Technology? He just had to ask. I went with a calculated lie. Despite all the accumulated evidence to the contrary, sometimes it's better to tell a lie, because that phrase that had been repeating in my head all day. The phrase perched at the tip of my tongue was, “I can't wait to be homeless again.”