Chapter 32: Snapshots of Absurdity
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Columbus, Ohio (2,497 miles)
June 22, 1987
I can’t believe I used to live here.
I pass my old Dublin house with a twinge of embarrassment; I shake my
head sadly at the “growth” that frantically replaces cool greenery with
hot traffic jams; I watch with horror as old friends deteriorate. They
do, you know, and it’s agonizing: from the perspective of movement,
midwestern stasis is a slow death, leprosy of the intellect. This city
is so ordinary that it is a favorite test market of mainstream
consumerism—and a suitable subject for social commentary (I wish I
could draw sweeping observations about life in America from, say, the
reality of Crested Butte... but alas... I can’t).
It’s a grim and muggy place, Columbus in the summer. I ooze from task
to task, sticky and torpid, easily understanding why few people smile.
The sun is lost in thick haze—yellow over the city, burning white above
the Jack Nicklaus Freeway and the endless sameness of suburbia.
Snarling traffic clots the city’s arteries, fighting slowly through a
thick plaque of shopping centers, too-narrow roads, and construction
projects. The pressure rises. For the first time since the last time I
was here, a driver gives me the finger for no apparent reason. Shirt
sweatstuck, hair in a wet mat, a relentless sense of suffocation. This was my last hometown?
Columbus hasn’t changed all that much, I don’t suppose, but my
perceptions have. Columbus won’t change until a federal task force
orders an investigation into the underlying causes of intellectual
torpor and selects central Ohio as the ideal test case. Until then, it
will follow a single cancer-like ethic: blind growth for its own sake
at the expense of any and all nearby organisms. Asphalt angiogenesis...
a choking of human spirit... a widespread, misguided self-chemotherapy
of addictive adulterants and chemical time bombs. But hey—it’s a great
corporate environment.
Lest this all sound too grim, I should hasten to add that the visit has
had its positive components. Old friends remain steady anchors in my
life—helping with business on one level and perspective on another.
There are exceptional people in Columbus, including many I haven’t met.
But those aside, my human observations are as depressing as are those
of the town itself... and upon reflection, I suspect that I’m not
talking about anything particularly unique to Buckeye country.
It’s easy for me to be misled by whiz-bang technology, the exuberance
of travel, the stunning briskness of Colorado mountaintops, and the
magic of special people. That’s a seductive blend—a heady and addicting
cocktail of zeniths and beginnings—and it’s the very essence of this
journey. Everything is always wonderful when change is in the air...
and in a selfish personal sense, I have no complaints that can’t be
fixed with a little old-fashioned discipline and some keyboard time.
But my dismay is more global than that—not just frustration with all
these days spent hauling my old stuff from garage to garage. What
happened to the national giddiness of springtime and the certainty of a
happy future (or any kind of
future, for that matter)? Take the sexual arena: once a kinky hotbed of
playfulness and bliss, it is now about as much fun as an office
building with a broken air conditioner. Maggie and I made a pilgrimage
last week to the bar where we met, laughing our way past the dress-code
enforcer, holding hands and drawing shocked stares with our obvious
sexuality and her breezy pink beach coverup. The conservative horny
young white jocks gawked or giggled; the nerds glanced at her legs
furtively; the cleancut blacks speculated seriously about us without a
trace of jive; the girls, dolled up in proper surface-sexy midwest
foo-foo style, looked Maggie up and down with obvious disapproval. Eye
contact, when it happened, was hollow and emotionless. This is a playground? Are we that different?
Of course, singles bars are under siege these days. It’s as if we’ve
all been playing a great game of sexual musical chairs... and suddenly
the stereo broke. Those with partners find themselves in a de facto
marriage; those without are in a state of panic. It’s easy to be cocky
with Maggie at my side, because I finally found more or less what I’ve
been looking for—but our open affection (a sort of fairy tale
luminosity) spawns not the delighted arousal of yesteryear but instead
a sort of anger. We’re pedaling upstream against a frightening torrent
of guilt, AIDS paranoia, hollow dreams, and even, fer chrissake,
religion.
Ah, speaking of dreams: have they gone the way of passion, too? I have
plenty, a whole lifetime worth—and so do many of the unusual people
we’ve been drawn to during this last year. But around here... it’s as
if dreams have become a luxury, bits of fluff better replaced by the
slick realities of VCR, MTV, BMW, and 123. I look at the young in this
town of some 60,000 college students and shudder, for the future
majority is a bland lot. Life has imitated art once again: we’ve sired
a generation of Vanna Whites. (By the way, I’m selling the van o’
brown—but that’s another story.)
Gawd, I’m starting to sound like an old fogey. “What’s wrong with kids
today is that they never learned how to play...”
Columbus hasn’t been the only bit of culture shock since I last
wrote... we’ve had all sorts of strange adventures between Calf Creek
and Cowtown. Here—have a stack of snapshots:
Have you ever played Bessie Bingo?
They do it in Vandalia, Illinois,
and the results are published in the local paper right up front with
Contragate and local politics. A field is divided into grid squares,
you see, which are numbered and sold to the players. Then... a cow is
turned loose and the crowd waits expectantly to see where the patties
will fall. I can imagine the cheering, jostling people, urging poor
confused Bessie this way and that, shouting “go, baby, go!” when she’s
standing over a good spot.
Yep, everybody needs a little excitement now and then. Even Kansas is
changing its style—they’re finally applying a little public-relations
expertise to the state’s long-standing image of “flat and boring.”
Now... Kansas is America’s Central
Park... the land of Ah’s!
A day after the Calf Creek episode, we stopped in Durango,
Colorado—seeking sleep. The guy at the hostel said, “What? You gotta be
kidding, man—there’s two thousand cyclists in town tonight!” Further
investigation revealed the existence of a tent city at Fort Lewis
College, the inauguration of a 6-day cycling extravaganza from Durango
to Denver (the “Ride the Rockies” tour, sponsored by the Denver Post).
Naturally, we had to join them for a day...
Pitching camp on the periphery of the crowd, we slid into the
group-ride culture. It’s a strange phenomenon—a sort of mini-city of
healthy people who coalesce out of nowhere, meander together for a few
hundred miles, then evaporate into a puff of memories and sunburn.
Holding hands, peering out over the moonlit acres of ripstop, Maggie
and I spoke quietly of the allure of movement—a longing that brings
people together even while scattering them to the winds. Suddenly...
there was a flicker of activity in the dark landscape of domes and
pyramids. Two naked young men scampered among the tents, darting around
bicycles and leaping over guy lines, visiting friends in another nylon
neighborhood. There was a brief exchange of words and muted giggles...
then they streaked back home. Ever notice how people run differently
when they’re naked?
Ah yes, and the ride. What a teaser: one day of pedaling though
Colorado beauty while dreading the drive east. While Maggie piloted the
van, I climbed two passes above 10,000 feet—50 hard miles—riding with a
string of cyclists as far as I could see in both directions. The faster
ones passed in a steady stream, each asking a question (“Hey, can ya
pick up the game on that?”) or offering a comment (“If you see any
Iraqi jets, go ahead and shoot ‘em down”). I had fine fantasies of
future traffic jams, the smells of sweat and pine replacing those of
mouldering hydrocarbons...
The Fourth of July found us in Lake City, visiting old friend Jim
Mitchell. Somehow, we ended up riding in the parade.
This is an odd place. Fishing is the raison d’etre; the town is a haven
for sportsmen and refugees of Texas heat (“Zitburnyerlahts?” asked one
man impenetrably, gesturing at a solar panel). Lake City is far removed
from mainstream Colorado life—yet it’s nestled snugly at the confluence
of Henson Creek and the Gunnison’s Lake Fork like the quintessential
mountain town of everyone’s fantasies.
But a 4th of July parade with a trout theme? Floats built like red,
white, and blue fish swam down the main street, blaring Americana music
through overdriven speakers. Old men waddled along in well-worn waders;
kids wore fins. And through it all pedaled the Winnebiko and the Winnebikette, their pilots waving
and tooting horns like visiting dignitaries.
Night fireworks started grass blazes on the mountainside, and the crowd
cheered. We climbed Uncompahgre and joined the 2.7-mile-high club. And
then, reluctantly, we crawled back into the van for a 1,600-mile
marathon drive, nonstop, across the Land of Ah’s to the midwest.
I only fell asleep at the wheel once.
As soon as we reached Columbus, the urge to leave struck hard. The
feeling took many forms, none more offensive than my brush with local
government.
Blue lights in the mirror. My gut quailed like that deeply familiar
doctor’s-office feeling from childhood, and I looked around guiltily.
(We ARE conditioned, aren’t we?) I pulled over and stepped out to meet
him—remembering my 6’4” height and the supposed psychological advantage
of talking to a policeman face-to-face.
“Get back in the van!” he barked.
I did as I was told and handed over my driver’s license, while the cop
called in his position and my vanity plate (WORDY, of course). Then he
appeared at my window, a ticket already partly written. “Too fast?” I
asked, scanning the road for a speed limit sign.
“License plate’s expired.”
“I’ve been out of state. The van’s been parked out west--”
“That’s not my problem—it’s your responsibility.”
The ticket was $44; the renewal, $60. I struggled to grasp the
relationship between the crime and the punishment, to understand how
the color of a sticker could matter in any sense other than the purely
aesthetic. Apparently, anything enforceable or traceable is, by
government definition, a source of revenue.
You’ll be happy to know that the Wondrous
Winnebiko is going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records next
year—as “the highest high-tech bike in the world.” This curiously
worded distinction is a spinoff of a video we did last week.
The TV show is The Amazing World of
Guinness Records, which begins in the fall. After a marathon of
telephone tag (itself worthy of distinction) we managed a rendezvous in
Akron—in the thick of the national juggling conference. Things of all
descriptions parabolized through the air: one fellow juggled a running
chain saw and two tomatoes; another managed to keep three 16-pound
bowling balls afloat. While waiting for the crew, I began tossing baby
socks filled with popcorn... getting advice from the professionals.
Nothing can make you feel more clumsy than learning to juggle amidst
thousands of accomplished court jesters.
In time, I got the hang of it, and now spend odd moments defying
gravity and dreaming of the big time—of riding along with Maggie,
juggling bananas and tire pumps between us while speed-typing a humor
column and threading our way through a maze of broken glass.
Well. This is it. A fragmented time makes for a fragmented tale—but the
bikes are packed and we’re out of this hot place in the morning.
Columbus has come through once again, succeeding where Palo Alto
failed: it rekindled the urge to leave.
Movement, my perennial substitute for solutions, is again my way of
life...