August 30, 2012 scottcjones 0Comment

On a subzero February morning I packed up my car in the pre-dawn dark, said goodbye to my parents, then got on the road. My plan was to drive south to the township of Yonkers, just north of New York City, where my womanizing college friend Phillip was currently living. I’d spend the night at Phillip’s place, he and I would go see the Letterman show together at Radio City Music Hall, and I’d finally be able to get my first look as this mind-blowing, Paula-destroying metropolis that everybody had been crowing about all these years. The next day I’d get back on the road and drive the estimated 15 or so hours to Chicago where I’d move in with three terrific-looking women, and search for a job and an apartment. I kept repeating Sam’s words to myself like a mantra: “All you need to do is get here.” So that’s what I was going to do: get there.

I felt expansive. I was a young man at the start of a great journey. I was confident that I was about to have many incredible adventures. I’d purchased a notebook at the drugstore the previous day and had written the words “A GREAT JOURNEY” on the front cover. I inspected the title for a few moments, found it unsatisfactory, then went ahead and added the words “BOOK 1.”

It wasn’t every day that your oldest son heads off on a great journey, so I’d anticipated a modest bon voyage ceremony of some kind that morning from my parents, something that might involve a misty-eyed speech from the two of them, or maybe a bottle of champagne being cracked across the hull of my 1989 Subaru. What I got was this: a tight hug from my mom, a firm handshake and $20 from my dad, and a porch light that was out before I’d exited the driveway.

I stopped at a gas station, the last one before the New York State Thruway, the four-lane toll road that runs parallel with the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Albany, then veers south to New York City. My hands were so numb from the cold that I could barely unscrew the gas cap. I didn’t know what I’d find at the other end of the Thruway, and I didn’t know what I’d find in Chicago. Maybe I wouldn’t make it out there. I probably wouldn’t make it. Paula hadn’t made it in New York, and she was as savvy and ambitious as anyone I’d known. Why should I assume that I’d fare any better in Chicago?

A small, miserly winter sun poked over the horizon. A flock of black birds lifted off from a nearby onion field. Everything began to seem ominous to me. As I topped off the tank, I realized this: good or bad, win or lose, I’d never forgive myself unless, at the very least, I gave it a shot. As frightening as the unknown was, the still more terrifying fate was going back the way I came and beginning my slow transformation into one of those curious adults who was content to live at home. We already had a couple of those types around town—hollow-eyed men with girlish potbellies and untucked shirts who’d grocery shop with their mothers on weeknights. We certainly didn’t need another one.

One of my prized possessions as a boy was a small book about outer space. I spent hours studying the book’s photographs of rocket ships taking off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the vast plumes of smoke billowing in their wake. I stared into the steely, gray eyes of the NASA astronauts who were peering out from their glass-bubble helmets. These were men who were glad to ride inside those exploding rocket ships. These were men who were thrilled to be sent into space even though they were well aware of the fact that there was a pretty good chance they’d never come back. Even as a boy, I recognized two things in those eyes: sheer joy coupled with more than a little madness.

I paid for my gas, then got back behind the wheel. I switched on the radio. The local station was playing an old song by a band named America. The chorus of the song rang out inside the cramped cockpit of the Subaru: “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain.” The frost-bitten horizon lay ahead of me. I adjusted the rearview mirror, noticing my eyes. There was joy there—plenty of joy—but I wondered if there was enough madness. I hit the gas, heading towards the Thruway onramp, ready to find out.

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