Royal Oak to Los Angeles, 1st 200 Miles

Time Date City Note Miles More
11:34 AM 3/10/2007 Royal Oak, Michigan My condominium 0.0

Starting Mileage on the Odometer: 87764. Didn't stop for an outbound oil change.

I am starting my journey here. It is okay to set out on a Saturday. I didn't leave town until later. But I had to deposit my last check from Teksystems, around 850 dollars. I had 250 dollars or so in my account. So I departed for Los Angeles, California with 1200 or so in my account. That is so totally ballsy. I knew that State Farm was planning on withdrawing 170 dollars for my automotive insurance and my life insurance Monday or Tuesday. That's what I had about automatic withdrawals. There's no way to reschedule them to keep cash on hand.

A woman named Jessica accepted my deposit, with no hold. I never wait for cash when I deposit a payroll check at Citizen's Bank. It is one of the benefits of having an open banks account. Jessica had married a man with a Finnish last name, or in some way, I ascertained she had connection to Finnish American culture. I shared with her about the Finnish-American center on 8 Mile Near Newburg Avenue in Farmington Hills. I added that the adjacent Lutheran Church held services in Finnish, or at least did around the time of the passing of my grandmother Corrine Aino. At the service, the minister read one of her poems, "Old Woman, Old Woman", which she had written in English and Finnish. He could not read the Finnish version. It included the line, "your husband asleep beneath the sod." I taught her to say "Hey Sisu," for Sisu means guts, fortitude and spirit. In the lobby, a family waited to see a banker. Or maybe it was the family of the banker putting in some Saturday hours. The girl was boisterous, stimulated, and her mom made her sit down in a plush, comforting chair and be quiet. I say stuff when manners dictate saying nothing: "She's a busy, stimulated child around money."

Time Date City Note Miles
12:01 PM 3/10/2007 Royal Oak, Michigan Royal Oak Ford 3.7

You can have Calcutta, give me Woodward Avenue.

I parked my truck among the unsold Ford 5000s, Focus and Explorers. I was greeted by a guy named Joe Saad in the lot. He was greeting and juggling many customers that day. He gave me the keys to a Ford 5000, which I knew was selling slowly. When I sold my Alero to buy my Green two-seater S-10, I took the amount offered for my sedan in a check, 2500 dollars, and I used it to pay down my condominium account fee. I was hoping to pull cash out of this deal, too. I drove the 5000 down Woodward, got on 696 going east, pulled onto I-75 going north and drove it all the way up to Rochester row. It handled like a champ. I knew I was going to be sleeping in my vehicle at least a few nights driving out to LA. A sedan has front passenger seats that fold almost flat, and that's a better posture for sleeping than sitting upright. If my profile doesn't show in the driver's side window, I less likely to be noticed by policemen with flashlights or targeted my men with worse intent. He didn't copy my driver's license, but I gave him my keys for his shop guy to drive it around and issue an appraisal. Maybe I should have drove it all the way up to Flint while I had it for free and for fun.

Joe came along for part of the test drive, up Woodward and back to the auto lot. He was fielding calls from a friend who had divorced his wife and was waffling on staying divorced from her. "All that man needs is a hooker," I offered. I wish I hadn't have said that. He divulged too much information. He knew a good 50 dollar hooker, a nice looking red head who once blew guys in a parking lot and saved her money to buy a car. Now, she drove herself on calls. How can a 50 dollar jouay exist in a town like Detroit, home of powerful, quick vice squads. There's no poorer fuck that a john in metropolitan Detroit. The city fathers cleaned-up the town nicely in the 1950s, and with the exception of John R and Woodward between 6 Mile and 8 Mile, it's rare to see a woman on the sidewalk. He offered me the number, and I didn't take it. But he kept talking the trash: "Yeah, I'll write you a big check with the deal, and you can buy yourself a top-notch girl. You gotta pay money for the best."

I wanted to hit the road in a new car, and I coming back from the test ride, I saw him finishing up a deal for a first time driver, folder for papers in one hand and keys in the other. I asked for that car in black. I was looking forward to a new car smell and a trunk to cram all my suitcases and items picked up on the road. He told his assistant, a young man who was preparing to attend theology school, to "wash up a black one, same model, and get ready to transfer plates." Joe went to finish up his deal with cute about to graduate from college woman. I asked a sales representative, who thought I was a new up, and he guided me to Joe's desk. Joe's assistant had left a bible on the front windowside corner of his desk. I was watching a black girl around 8 playing around a scooter, and the scooter fell over, thankfully not on her. The assistant drove my car to the front row of parking, where I could see it over Joe's shoulder as we dealed. I had enjoyed the transfer of the plates ceremony many times.

I remember when I bought my first car, I got the loan from the Michigan State Federal Credit Union. I paid about 215 a month for that 1988 Cavalier in blue. My grandfather Stanley drove me up to Auburn Hills to pick up the check. He helped me pull off the plates with a screwdriver, the kind that required a handtwist. I have bought a number of cars new: The Cavalier, my first wife's Saturn, my Barney-colored Saturn, my first wife's Golden with Sunroof Saturn, my Black Alero and my green S-10. And now I am unable to just drive up to an auto dealership and sign and drive. Joe came over and didn't even sit down most times, kept talking about his 50 dollar hooker, promising to give me the number. While waiting, I picked up the black leather bible and began reading Proverbs, trying to give Joe a signal to cool it. The car had tons of dealer incentives and rebates on it, and I accepted 4000 dollars for my trade, without having blue-booked it. The note from appraising had 4000 dollars marked in green felt tip. In a different ink, it noted a ding from a deer collision in rural Indiana and older brake pads.

I've also seen those 5000 on the lot for payments less than 200 dollars. The Ford company is going back to its Taurus nameplate. You could almost always count on a Silver Taurus being foisted upon one when renting a car from Hertz at an airport. It was the white-underwear of the rental car world. I do remember renting a sharp Golden Taurus from the Knoxville airport, and it made me so over-confident, I got a date with a women walking downhill into downtown Jonesbourough. She didn't board, but she did walk the rest of the way and met me on a bench before the historic restaurant where she was waiting tables. A painter from New York City getting instruction in Georgia had rented a room in one of Tennessee's oldest towns, and was waiting tables for dollars and change. And I was sitting on an old, weather-silvered bench, talking with her, letting the art student's taking black and white night time photos of historical buildings with flash and available light take pictures of us. But I was willing to cut any deal to get some running money and to have a new vehicle to drive across the country, breaking it in easy on the first 500 miles of what turned out to be a 3000 mile trip.

Joe took a credit app, and I gave the name of the employer who had offered me a job for starting Monday, 3/12. I didn't show up for that job. He had my social security number. He offered to finance it for 5 years, 500 dollars a month. That's a 30000 dollar contract on a heavily rebated car that had stickered at 24000. I was feeling that needy. Every time he left he added, "They're washing up your car right now." I went to go looking for the title in my glove compartment, but later, I couldn't find the essential document in my pigeonholes or my coffee-table. I couldn't get a check until the dealership got the title. "Oh, just drop it through the door, labeled the envelope Joe Saad.

I sat in the hot sun pouring through the plate glass and read Proverbs in earnest. I bought my truck over the Internet. I literally came into the Chevrolet dealership on Orchard Lake Road in the Bloomies to take delivery. I don't like to wait with my physical body in a place that isn't my own. At some point in time, my pride could have taken control, "Stop fucking with my, asshole," wouldn't have stopped this venal, car delivery machine in his place. He's heard it before and has become anesthetized to it. He's throwing out a perfectly nice woman out of his own because he's tired of her, although he was planning to have dinner in Greektown with her and her extended family that night. "Holy shit, that car you are washing must be pretty clean by now." I could have said. I did ask what was going on. He said I was late on my mortgage. "But don't worry. We'll get it all worked out." Well, I had made arrangements with Countrywide about that, but I didn't tell him that. I am still waiting to be assigned a negotiator, which makes me wonder if I'm in foreclosure with them or with the law firm hired by the condo association. I could call Gerry Segat to find out for sure.

He was standing in the alley between the auto shop and the dealership sales floor, talking with a sales buddy and smoking. I had made my way to the bathroom, and he caught me coming out. I had washed my hands, alas. "Hey, can you come back Monday? And bring evidence that your mortgage is up to date."
"I won't be here, Monday."
"Why?"
"Because I'm leaving."
And like the true sales person when the client doesn't buy and the prospect dies, he bolted past me, thanking me for my interest. When I got back to my car, I notice 8 tenths of a mile more on the odometer from test drives.

I did drop in at Trader Joe's on Woodward during my test drive. A woman I will call Sherry once waitressed at a tea house in Corktown's north reach. When building a parking garage for the Motor City Casino, in the old Wonder bread bakery, the demolishers of historical buildings demolished the classic home that hosted Fiona's Tea House, and Sherry who lived in Woodbridge now took the bus up Woodward to work at Trader Joe's just north of Eleven Mile. Fiona looked at a classic house on Willis close to Woodward, bought it, and then moved her life to Florida after a romantic upset. The house had been for sale, and I was thinking of ways to buy it with someone else's money and put Sherry into my bed and into the tea and biscuit business again. At a party at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, she had flushed lobster red when I was selling her on the possibility: "Don't get me all excited for nothing." I checked out in Sherry's aisle and said, even though "I'll be out of town for 6 months, give me your email address and we'll start planning." I mislaid the email address, written on a scrap of paper she had at the register. I guess she was still woozy from bonking her head on a counter when bending over to stop her dog from pissing on a smaller dog. She made certain that her dog could play in the tea shop's backyard during working hours, and I agreed, although I don't know how to use the backyard as a tea garden if a dog is recreating himself there.

Time Date City Note Miles More
2:57 PM 3/10/2007 Royal Oak, Michigan Royal Oak Ford 4.5

Eleven + Woodward, my favorite historical road; it's not Christmas Eve on Woodward Avenue.

I drove home, and I napped for a few hours. I had to leave Saturday night and drive hard for Austin, Texas if I were to arrive 10:00 AM in the morning, Texas time, for a brunch date with that recruiter, who would then show me the plant. I never should have read the book "The Dice Man", which perhaps I bought at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco in Spring of 2005. Because I was setting off on the road with two offers of employment, and I could drive the same path until Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I put a few shirts into my suitcase, dirty, which had dirty clothes from my short one month programming assignment in Lansing, Michigan and a quick trip out to Los Angeles the weekend before. I put my bottle of "Next to Godliness" washing detergent from Trader Joe's in my truck bed. I have gotten along with my neighbors, although I am chronically behind on the condo fees. One fellow is a researcher for fund-raising, finding prospects for some recovery non-profit. He drives a tidy small Chevrolet and lives in one of the upstairs condos, which has a higher ceiling than mine. He had heard I had moved, but he saw that wasn't true. He told me that a guy had died in his building, to condo below his, and a court-proceedings posting had been taped to the deceased's door. He was already rolling in his Aero, and he wished me the best, had been glad to see me. Sometimes, two of his teen-aged sons got out of his Aero after he had moved in. He had paid 85000 for his condo, a 20000 dollar premium over what I had paid.

Mitch came home as soon as the fund-raiser had rolled away. I am still racking my brain for his name. I had visited his condo once to see what signal was broadcast by his wireless router. I had enjoyed using a Linksys router signal for free, but it wasn't his. His was secured by the Geek Squard, who charged about 250 dollars for the service.

Mitch had just hit the bricks. He was selling phone services to Greek speaking customers for one or two years, and he was making good money. He even joined the Lifetime gym and spa, a 40 - 50 dollar a month subscription. One day, all of the 700 employees were laid-off and escorted out of the building. He had a test for another job next week. He was missing flirtation with all the married women at work, but he didn't act on any flirtations. He was concerned that husbands from one or two of the ethnic groups could exact a violent retribution. He wore a Yasoo bracelet, and he owned a home in Greece left to him by his mother. His mother, he related, was swimming in the sea when a heart-attack struck her. She had sewn as a seamstress, taking work into her home. I swear I overheard a washer and drier making white noise above the ceiling, but Mitch dismissed it as shower noise.

I asked him to keep an eye on my place, and if a guy who looked like me tried to get it with a key, it was my father. Some one came to my door looking for me, and Mitch didn't give him any information. Mitch went inside, I loaded up my suitcase, my computer bag and my napsack full of bills and W-2s and other legal documents necessary for filling late taxes and documenting a forbearance from my mortgage company. And then I turned my key, and I headed down I-696 to I-275, avoiding driving through Detroit's concrete ditches, aiming to make the city of Toledo before dark.

Time Date City Note Miles More
7:35 PM 3/10/2007 Bowling Green, Ohio Rest Stop 150(?) WGTE:Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion.

At some point in every drive where one doesn't know time of return, one begins thinking thoughts like, "What the hell am I doing on the road? Why am I not sleeping in my own bed, comfortable even though I never wash the sheets?" I could find a McJob in Detroit, and perhaps file bankruptcy just to stay in the bigger easy of De-twa, the narrows. I have written 5:52 PM, writing quickly as I pilot the car. "The Lord is my light, my light and my salvation. Of whom should I be afraid?" In a blue flair pen just giving out I have written, "Traveling 2 the Sp Snd". I have pledged to give up abbreviation, and I see why the pledge is a good idea again. I think we sang that song at Evergreen Lutheran Church, where Jim and Matt attended and invited me to transfer my status as a confirmed Lutheran to this failing church. One woman from Flint drove all the way south to Southfield to attend with her husband and her two young children. The church didn't have too many more children to make up Sunday school classes. She stood up one day in her pew during open sharing and she declared that, "this church was an emergency room for people wounded my life." Or did we chant this song at the Episcopal session led by a minister named Harry, who also offered therapy as a licensed psychologist. His service for ten - twenty people a Sunday offered meditation in a circle, marching chant and Reiki energy work. I remembered a painful elbow after a bicycle crash on southbound Woodward, just south of Woodward, in the town of Berkeley. I wore an elbow "holster" for a few days, but the orthopedic surgeon didn't suggest any other treatment. I didn't experience too much more pain after a session of energy work in the holy of holies platform behind the altar, before the cross.


Time Date City Note Miles
8:57 PM 3/10/2007 Wapakoneta, Ohio East Truck Stop 184.2

Not the 1st Gas Stop, but it was unwise to not have bought gas here.

I have eaten Hershey Chocolate bars once or twice a week since this stop. The bars have a stimulating effect and digest easily and keep hunger off for hours. I bought a four-pack of Red Bull, a pack of Camels and the candy. Is it candy if I'm eating it for a meal, like I'll eat Milk-Duds because they're packed with lecithin? The trucker, and I did have his name, was talking like a friend to the woman at the raised counter. I think the two had talked before. I asked him for directions to Austin, and he knew them pretty well, even advising me to take the 75 into Dallas and then pick up the I-35 south there. It's a different 75 from the one that drives south to Florida, maybe a state route that spans two states. In my notes, I described him as "the man who gave directions, here for the duration." He was overnighting in his rig on the tarmac before the truck stop. He had picked up a Whirlpool load and was bound for St. Louis when he woke up. I thanked him for his directions, shaking his hand. The woman didn't have matches to give, gave some explanation about matches as a hazard around gasoline pumps, so I blew another dollar or two on a blue bic lighter, now in a cupholder in my truck. My station tuned to 95.1 out of Fort Wayne, Indiana entertained me, a woman with a rock-and-roll nostaglia show, and it wasn't 50s music. She was doing a great job. I was triple-stimulated, and I was hoping to drive off the drowsies and power-nods until the wee hours of the morning.

I got into my truck, opened up the chocolate and ate a few sections. I drank down the first Red Bull, and I carefully packed the empty can back into the shopping bag. I was already living among my luggage and I didn't want to be living among my trash. It's hard to get rid of trash in ones vehicle when one is miles away from ones under-the-sink trash can and far from a dumpster where it is okay to dump trash, dumping privileges. When I was rolling, I rolled down a window and lit up the first Camel. Smoking a cigarette helps me hear the call to adventure. I've never finished a pack of smokes in my life, but I've smoked one cigarette daily since I left home. I bought a pack of smokes in Port Huron not too long ago, drove across the Blue Water Bridge to roll dice at the Port Edward Charity Casino, and I enjoyed two or three in the outdoor smoking patio talking with punters, girl and boy. It's a caged in area with park benches, chest high cocktail tables, ash trays, and propane-fueled beergarten heaters. I was talking to a poker player, a young man from Michigan holding his own at the tables. When I left the smoking area, I sought out the poker pit boss, and I asked him if I could give the guy the 17 cigarettes left in my pack. The pit boss was cordial and encouraging; I tapped the young poker player on his left shoulder, dropped the pack on green felt and declared, "I've never smoked a full pack of smokes in my life." I mooch one cigarette from everyone, from exotic dancers outside Studio 4 in Windsor, from my roomies Billy and Craig, from the counter girl at Milk. I sometimes even offer a dollar. I have a pack of Demauriers going stale on my Microwave oven. My daughter scolds me when she sees butts in my ashtray, but I tell her not to worry. I've never smoked a twenty cigarettes from a pack in my life. It's nice to have a pack of Camels when standing at bar's corner in elbow room to share with new mates and women I wish to be my mate.