Tag: roads
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The New Old Town

- by Typewriter Fox

It was a February tease of a premature Michigan spring. A dishonest one. Because like most things here in the land of misunderstood Mittened madness, it wasn’t really real anyway. Just another Clinton County night spent pretending to be human. But at least it was a night warm enough to finally melt away all the fucking snow. Erasing all the ice clinging stubbornly to this 517 speed dialed insanity. And teasing a springed hope from all the inconvenient mud. But somehow, things inside remained rigidly frozen. And that left me aching for a different kind of thaw. Instead, I was rewarded with only an unseasonably foggy West Clark Road. The one lined with all the damn deer. Those tragic creatures cursed with a stubborn stupidity compelling …

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Dirtbag Holiday

- by Typewriter Fox

Shake off the muck left from the night before. Crack open eyes matted with dirtbag gravel. Trace the line of a frayed power cord; unlock a sticky phone. What’s that fucking number again? Oh, yeah. A birthday. I should probably change that shit. Just so I don’t have to remember those digits anymore. It stopped being relevant over a year ago. It might be easier to use the print of a shaking finger. But biometrics rarely play nice with battered ramp hands. So I’m condemned to absorb yet another PIN. Without the security of any sort of receptive cushion to actually carry it. Splatter out plasticine texts. Because if I don’t respond quickly enough, people worry. And then wonder all day if I spent the night …

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Ramp Rats

- by Typewriter Fox

Gold and orange autumn canopies arched over broken Michigan asphalt. Reflective ocular cautions of migratory deer lined the road curving out past the grip of those unhealthy Clinton County mirages. Glaring glances peeked accusingly from the fields of brown corn recently broken in the harvest. And they constantly threatened unexpected collisions during the entirety of that wandering Tuesday night Airport Drive. It made me want to collapse into the want of someone. But that was just another 517 impossibility. And my heart fucking knew it. So I could only keep driving.  Pushing myself down past the awkward highway interchanges. And up around the curves where the numbered signs stop making sense. Because I was always taught that 69 should mean north and south. Not east and …

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Crossroads

- by Typewriter Fox

It isn’t often that life affords you the opportunity to stand at a literal crossroads. But there I was. A high-viz collar turned up against the darkness of Turner at my back. East Cesar E. Chavez stretching out beside me. Facing the curves of the planked river trail. The one skirting the spot where the fish are supposedly laddered around.   The song of water dancing over the dam filled the symphony of another Old Town night. And for once, I wanted to be safe in the sound of something. Because everything else has proven itself a whole lot of nothing. And the claustrophobic silence of that vacuum left a nervous fox drinking fidgeting. To the west, orange barrels lined the bridge. Their rigidly spaced regularity paced …

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October Exits

- by Typewriter Fox

It was right there. That exit out.  The one hooking right off of Old 27. Curving out to the promise of someplace new. Maybe somewhere better. Hopefully a place where the spooling engines don’t whine like temperamental metal bitches. And old hearts don’t get so easily broken. A single tug on the wheel; a simple moment of high-mile highway insanity.   Could it really be that simple?  The stink of airplanes chased me; every part of me itched to be clean. I found myself in need of a higher proof baptismal. And not just because of all the circulating infections. But because every broken man needs something numbing to which to pray in times of want. I had originally intended to behave. To be a good little …

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September Corn

- by Typewriter Fox

Sunday drunk in Dewitt. Again. Not exactly sure why that keeps fucking happening. Or what triggers the urge to consume liquid stupidity to the point that the voices actually dim. And the panic fades. Even if it’s just for a heartbeat of a Clinton County moment. I never intend for it to happen.   It just does. Because there I was again. Closing down the same Old Town haunts. Chatting up different ghosts, while pounding down the Sunday rounds. Embracing the A.B.V. of it all. Because there is fuck all else to do here in the Mittened wasteland. At least when there aren’t tin monsters to fight. And the last of lost weekend hours yawn in a 517 dial tone nothingness. Ripping raw down around Stoll Road. …

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A Harvest of Letters

- by Typewriter Fox

It was a road trip steeped in letters.  Reflective letters on highway signs. And stunted exit markers. Digital letters blinking on the dash; fictional letters winking inside my head. Letters carried inside a battered typewriter case. And in my back pocket.  Some were meant for outright dismissal. Especially the hypothetical ones. The ones yet to be written were better off being cheerfully ignored. Because words only seem to cause chaos these days. And I’m getting a little too old for those kinds of literary shenanigans. Other letters were destined for a final delivery. Into the embrace of the coal-barged currents of the mighty Ohio. The ones carefully bundled up in a bright red ribbon. Because they deserved a little recognition. And a cheery reward after having …

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Tuesday

- by Typewriter Fox

I didn’t intend to get accidentally whiskey-ginger drunk. On that claustrophobic Tuesday night. In the strip mall heart of fucking Dewitt, Michigan. But, it happened.   I tripped into those triples shortly after kicking a virginal 767 off the ramp. The one loaded with critical healthcare medicines and ridiculous consumer madness. Ten tons of overflow Amazons and random online acquisitions—not my best flight. But we still made it work. It was a weird drunk, too. Not the actual inebriation aspect. Because let’s be honest, that’s a familiar fading, here amongst the shuffling Q.D. Zombies. But I still learned some important lessons, teetering precariously on the edges of a barstool disaster. I discovered it is better to avoid anything passed the upside of West State Road. Because the …

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500 Mile Drive

- by Typewriter Fox

I still think about that drive. The tenacity of those Tennessee roadside concessions. The ones fueling those dirty dashboard confessions; the ones screaming at a Pigeon Ford quickly evaporating in a smoky rearview mirror. Because I never had the opportunity to properly explain myself. I just remember Knoxville coffee punching hard against softer insides. And how that burn helped to round out the sharpness of those elevated curves. And smooth the stark indignity of unused emergency runaway ramps. The ones scratched and clawed into an unnamed mountain’s downward slope. Cities were on fire then. It felt like the whole world, locked down and suffering, was about to collapse. Which I thought was fucking hilarious. Because I was tired of the abuse. And wanted to break free …

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Time

- by Typewriter Fox

Time is such a weird thing. And 18 months is the current manifestation of that peculiarity. It simultaneously seems like both a lifetime, and the blink of brown eyes crying in an Indiana kitchen. 547 some days. A whisper over 13,000 hours.   But even that isn’t a guarantee. Because I learned a long time ago to never trust the white-coated math. In a way, I guess it makes sense. Because even our arrival times are imprecise. So why should our departure dates be any different? Born into broken water, we leave amongst the tears of others. Adhering to some imprecise system. One based on patterns I’m not sure my pickled monkey brain will ever comprehend. Because I can barely be trusted unsupervised with a tube of …

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