Center of Gravity

Eight years ago, July. A particularly hot summer. Two major things had just happened. One, I’d graduated from high school. I was headed to UCR (the one school that accepted me) and I was feeling pretty sore about it. Two, I’d just broken up with my girlfriend. It was bad. Like, cry into a pillow bad; don’t leave the house someone might see you bad. The worst part was, I was in the wrong. I’d been needlessly cruel, I’d lied, and I’d disappointed a lot of people.

So, it felt like really shit timing when my parents decided it was time for The Great American Road Trip: To Iowa and back with stops all along the way. They wanted to spend time as a family before I went to college, which is endearing now, but at the time was a major inconvenience. To spend a month away from the consequences of my actions, you’d think I’d be happy to go. And yet, I felt bitter to leave. It probably had something to do with control, the burgeoning realization that I’d rather sit in my own mess than be driven through someone else’s.

Not to say the road trip was a capital-m mess, it was fine all things considered, but it reeked of the typical happy-family agenda that I’d come to resent my parents for. Throughout my childhood they’d make these bids for family time, but they never knew what to do once we got there. It was always “how is school” and “what are you majoring in”, never “what’s on your mind” or “how are you feeling”. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Congeniality either, but still. Looking back, I appreciate that they tried their best, and I can’t say it didn’t have an effect. To this day, I instinctively grasp at a connection that never fully formed. Vestigial, perhaps, but in earnest. I’ll give them credit for that.

Anyways, I was in no place to enjoy a family road trip. I sulked the whole time, painting my teen angst on every highway and landmark in my way. I cringe just thinking about it, but I empathize too. Ask any 18-year-old. A breakup plus graduation? That’s basically the end of the goddamn world. That trip changed me forever. Maybe it’s because it happened at such a pivotal transition point in my life, maybe it’s because it was the first time I saw the horror show that was the American midwest; either way, it stuck with me. I find myself going back to it every time the sun is high and the days are long. Whenever I try to write about it though (and I’ve tried a few times), I scrap it, figuring I don’t have the juice. And so, it’s kicked around in my drafts. Until now.

This weekend I’m going to Iowa again. I’m catching a redeye to visit my great uncle who is more or less dying of kidney failure, which, funny enough, was part of the reason we went so many years ago. Apparently, you can spend a long time dying. Eight years or more. I’m not sure what to expect from Iowa now, but preparing for it got me thinking about Iowa back then. I’m finally ready to put it on paper.

Here’s what I remember.

The first thing you learn about driving across America is that it takes a long fucking time. We’d rented a car that started off spotless but eventually accumulated a fine layer of chip crumbs, eggshells, and tangerine oil. It’s actually really gross when you think about it, five people in a little metal capsule recycling farts and sweat and stale breath, metabolizing gas station snacks for hours without moving. Bonding time.

A lot of the drive was through fields. Wheat, corn, soy, an endless expanse of dusty yellow-green rows. When I wasn’t looking out the window, I read Little Women and Of Human Bondage, which, looking back now, is an insane back-to-back selection for books. Good reads, though, both of them. Naturally, I also spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. Cash crops are a great backdrop for dramatic out-the-window staring. My little sister told me it was “the saddest she’d ever seen me” which was a strong personal win. At that age, transmission is more important than communication.

I remember we stopped in Texas, a town called Amarillo. There was this enormous pop-up the size of a circus tent that materialized out of nowhere. One second it was open road with no skyline, the next, boom. There it was. Red, white, and blue stripes ran down the sides and a garland of triangle flags decorated a sign painted “WE SELL FIREWORKS”. Obviously, I demanded that we check it out.
Inside looked even bigger than outside. Several dozen plastic foldout tables bent under the weight of countless wooden crates, all filled to the brim with recreational explosives. I remember it being the first time that trip that I really opened my eyes, an electric tang of excitement on the tip of my tongue as I explored every product. Some of them were seriously illegal. Rockets the size of pringles cans, strings of cherry bombs with chinese labels, no sales tax, that kind of thing. I’m still not sure what about it got me so excited. I think it was being around so many things that could blow up. I spent half of my road trip allowance on a pack of M40’s, worth every damn penny. Mom said it was fine as long as I didn’t keep them in the trunk.

Closer to Iowa (Kansas, maybe), there was a butcher shop. This place was the real fucking deal. Huge slabs of meat cut however you wanted them, fresh burgers off the grill, not a plant in sight. The works. I remember they had a special sale for turducken, which, if you don’t know what that is, I’ll let you use your imagination because hey, I can’t do all the work. That year I was vegan, but stepping into that shop I decided right then to put that shit on hold.
After looking around some, the girls went back to the car and the butcher beckoned for me and my dad to come behind the counter into this back area real clandestine-like. He took us to the meat cooler where whole pigs hung like punching bags on hooks the size of my arm. Further back, another employee heaved red chunks into a grinder. He was wearing an apron that I had to assume was, at one point, white. It smelled gnarly. Our guy took us to the side, and pulled a frosted bottle off the shelf. Ice-cold whiskey. I wish I remembered the brand, but he called it “the good shit” and that’s all you really need to know. He poured us both a shot. Up to that point I’d had small glasses of wine, a beer or two, but this? This I consider my first drink. I remember it tasted good and felt great. Most of all, I remember wanting more. We went back to the car and never talked about it again.

By the time we got to Iowa we were all pretty sick of each other, so we were grateful to have a proper stopping point in lieu of all the motels and rest stops. My great uncle, turned out, was more alive than dead—reasonably so—and bugged the shit out of us for the whole stay. He was eager to share every nook and cranny of his bland midwestern existence, touring us in his ancient minivan to see such thrilling landmarks as the local post office, his old workplace, and… frankly I wish I could remember more of what he showed us if only to paint a full picture, but mostly I remember wanting to bail out the passenger door. At first, my mom was all “he’s lonely, he misses us, he just wants to share”. Three government buildings later, she was cussing him under her breath and sighing very loudly.

His house was cool, though. It was two stories with a wraparound porch and a spacious front and backyard. The grass was overgrown and the sky was clear. The architecture evoked a sense of lived-in Americana in a way that, for some reason, struck me at the time as more charming than dusty. I stayed in a cellar area with a TV that only showed three channels in black and white. The shelves were lined with old photo albums and wrestling trophies. I was particularly interested in the pictures, given the tangled family history. See, my great uncle lost his first wife to cancer. Years later, he remarried. His new bride was young. Like, really young. She was his flower girl at his first wedding. The age gap was something like 20 years.
Seeing those pictures, I felt a little bit better about my breakup situation. Not to say it was apples to apples, but something about the weirdness, the unspoken perversion of his whole deal, felt reassuring. I wondered how many mistakes it took for a man to end up married to his flower girl in the suburbs of Iowa. I crossed my fingers that I had plenty to go.

Later, we had a family dinner. As we sat down to eat, he had us hold hands. Then he began to pray. I thought I knew how to pray, but he sure showed me. He went on to thank God for everything he could think of. I’m pretty sure he went for like 10 minutes straight. It was hard not to laugh. When he finally finished, he served us steak and sweet corn. It was the best of either that I’d ever had up to then and, thinking about it now, the best ever since. The steak tasted like cow: savory, robust, grassy, strong. The corn was sweet enough to be a dessert, the kernels popping with a toothsome resistance totally absent from the corn you’d get on the coasts. For how good the food was, I forgave the 10-minute prayer and even the tour; if anything, they added to the experience. Praise be and amen.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I went outside to the porch and tried to see into the darkness of the untended backyard. There were fireflies. I thought I’d wallowed enough that trip to diffuse the twisted feeling in my gut, but there on that porch, it hit me for real. Let’s take stock: I’d ruined the place I’d called home, I was headed into a future where no one knew my name, and in the meantime, I was in Iowa. Fucking Iowa. I leaned against the railing and cried bitter tears. It hurt like hell.

Once I’d wrung everything out, I went back inside. I had a glass of cold water and just sat for a minute. In that neighborhood there was no ambient streetlight, just the pale blue of the moon that cast the room ghostly. Everything in that house was ancient. The tablecloth, the picture frames, the grandfather clock. Spotless, sure, but covered in a sheen of age. I thought then that you can’t clean off time.

At some point, I heard footsteps, and my older sister came into the room. Shit, she said, you scared me what the hell are you doing here? And I looked at her a long time before telling her that I couldn’t sleep. We hadn’t talked all trip, or really, all year. We were going through a rough patch. While I’d spent senior year setting fires and generally making a fool of myself, we’d drifted further and further apart. Sometimes, I’d learned, the person you trust most can be the hardest to open up to. My sister was the one person that might get what I was going through, but I felt preemptively judged for my failings, so I kept my mouth shut. It’s not that I didn’t think I deserved vulnerability or forgiveness; it’s that I didn’t even know those were options to begin with.
She asked if I was okay, and every version of the truth rushed through my head before I decided on a lie that I can’t remember. I said goodnight and went back to the cellar. I regretted not asking why she was up too.

Later—much later—we’d reconcile. We’d talk about what happened, we’d become best pals again, we’d figure it out. She’s probably reading this right now. See? Family values. Maybe my parents were onto something. Or, maybe we just grew up. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The ride back west was faster. On the way home we stopped in New Mexico, my favorite of our stops. We stayed in a stony desert home with a modern staircase and a huge coffee table with books on birds and cacti. We did a puzzle, my mom made fried eggs. I started texting friends again, testing the waters.
I remember one night there was a plaza where a live band played music. I wanted to dance, but chose not to because my parents were watching. I had a facade to keep up after all, but I nodded my head to the beat. Those last nights in the desert, color started to creep back in. Everything was a bright shade of orange, red, turquoise, green. The midwest was an altered state of consciousness and coming back was like waking up, but I got the sense that I wasn’t returning to the same world I’d left. I wasn’t sure how, exactly. I just knew.

I wish there was a clean conclusion to this story, an “I got home and I learned to be a better man” moment, but if I’m being honest, that would only come much later, in pieces and out of order. Turns out, that summer was the first in a series of mistakes that technically hasn’t ended, that can’t be ended, that can only be slowed through exhaustive effort and self-awareness (and the errant 10-minute prayer).
Then again, maybe that’s part of the whole problem, seeing bad decisions as mistakes. If I ever ended up in middle-of-nowhere Iowa dying of kidney failure, I’d like to think it’s a fate I chose rather than one dealt to me by dumb luck. Life is short; you only get so many decisions. Better to make every one with your chest. As for my great uncle? Well, I’m entitled to my opinion. He can make his choices, I can make mine.

While writing this, I reached into the depths of my photo archives to see if there was any supporting evidence to document that fever dream of a trip. I found two photos from one of our last stops headed back: Arizona, the Grand Canyon.

The first picture is the thumbnail for this post. Me, one arm resting on my sister’s shoulder, the other stuck out giving a thumbs down. I’m squinting, tongue out: wry, amused dissatisfaction. My sister is turned away, holding up a peace sign. She knew the picture was being taken but, for reasons of her own, she didn’t face the camera with me. Together, faced apart. The canyon stretches endless behind us. Part of the lens is covered with a finger.

The second picture is just me. When I saw it, the memory hit all at once: propped up on my hands in a push-up position, head hanging over the ledge. My mom was yelling at me to back away; I stayed there for as long as I could until my little sister grabbed my ankle and pleaded for me to stop. I wanted to see what it looked like right before you fell. I remember the hot stone under my palms, the wind roaring in my ears, the way pebbles would tumble so far down they’d disappear. I don’t remember when we got home.

But I remember the edge, and everything that comes after.

The long way down.