That June was hot. It had been a dry spring, even in Seattle, and the summer was gearing up to be the hottest on record for the Pacific Northwest. It was to be a summer of heat stroke and wildfires, but none of us knew that yet. Most of us were happy. Our freshman year of college was over, and we were free to return home with our newfound knowledge and change everything in time for classes to begin again in the fall.
I did not share my compatriot’s enthusiasm. I had broken up with my girlfriend not a week before, and my world had lost its foundation. For the two years that we dated, she had become my true north. She was my reference point. She was the center of my world. Without her, I didn’t know which way was up anymore. I was drifting through an ocean of chaos, and I’d just thrown out my anchor.
That year, I drove myself back home from school. I was driving the car that used to be mine. My older brother had left it with me in Seattle when he visited for a weekend a little while previous. The squat little Dodge Stratus was a little worse for wear. The CD player worked when it felt like it; the back left door refused to open from the inside, and most importantly, the A/C had been dead for at least a year.
Driving I-5 from Seattle to central Oregon is a kind of mystical ritual for me. I’ve seen the drive from every possible location within a vehicle. Backs of school busses, front-seats of vans, and back seats of little four-door sedans, overcrowded with carpooling collegiates.
I-5, in my mind, is almost more like a river than a road. It starts way up north, at the border with Canada, and flows down past the cascades, like a smooth high mountain spring. It hits its very first set of rapids in downtown Seattle, where the waterway gets clogged with traffic. But, for all of central and southern Washington the river flows steadily on. Then comes Portland Falls, where cars may find themselves sliding off to various tributaries like I-84, 205, or the Sunset Highway. In the Willamette Valley, the highway conforms to its surroundings and becomes like the many winding rivers that cut their way through the grass-seed farms and one-horse towns. As the river flows into southern Oregon, it enters the dessert and becomes the only place for miles where man or machine can find the fluids they need. It snakes its way over the mountains into California, where the river begins to show the dirty signs of its long path. As the river approaches LA, it begins to muddy and the flow slows to a lazy crawl. By the time it hits the City of Men ironically named for Angels, the river has widened and, like all great rivers when they reach the ocean, filled with dirt, mud, and pollution.
I was only driving to central Oregon, where I grew up. I get off the river right about the time that it enters the dessert. You wouldn’t know it that year though. Before I left Seattle city limits the heat was so bad that I was tempted to take off my shirt, even with the windows down. Before I entered Tacoma, I had. I hadn’t slept much the night before, what with packing, saying goodbye and natural insomnia that comes from girlfriend withdrawal. To counterbalance the sleep deprivation, I had done as any good Seattlite would and consumed an inappropriate amount of coffee.
The drive was supposed to be pensive and calming, a time when I could come to terms with my new life without Her, when I could set the world straight, or at least set myself straight in the world. But, the heat, the sleep deprivation, and the caffeine overdose ruined any chance of that.
Between Seattle and Kelso, I listened to a mix CD that a friend had given to me just before school ended. During
Flesh Canoe, by The Animal Collective, the CD player decided to give out. I sat in silence for a few minutes, hoping that it would kick back in again, but it didn’t. I reached down to turn on the radio, but decided against it. The wind rushing through the car felt like an appropriate enough soundtrack, so I drove on.
It was a little weird, driving with no shirt on, all the windows down. I could feel myself starting to develop a sunburn, but I didn’t stop. The coffee was starting to wear off, but instead of crashing, I could feel myself drifting into this weird kind of trance. I drove without thinking. I don’t remember crossing the State border, but I remember seeing the huge “Made in Oregon” sign on the other side of the Willamette.
I pulled over at a truck stop just outside of Portland. My mind felt about as responsive as my legs. Inside the blessed, air-conditioned thrift-mega-store, I stood in front of the wall of beverages. My rational self told me to get a Gatorade, something to hydrate me, a water even. But, my lizard brain wanted more caffeine, so I got a bottled Starbucks Coffee drink.
On my way out, I passed by an old, fat man sitting on a picnic bench, smoking a cigarette that looked to be at least as old as he was.
“Damn, son. It’s hot.” He said. His experience of the heat could only have been amplified by the red flannel shirt, and brown Carhart jeans. From all appearances, the only place heat was being released from this old trucker was the ruby dome that was the top of his head.
“Hot as hell.” I said, nodding and walking on.
“Boy,” He called after me. “You ain’t seen hell yet.”
I turned around and looked at him, confused and a little angry. I was in hell. I was alone. I had lost everything. How could he say anything about me? He didn’t know anything about me. I hadn’t slept a full night in weeks. I wanted to put the pieces of my life back together, but I could barely even find my own feet. I was in hell.
I fumbled over my own mouth. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t figure out what.
Smoke curled in front of his face and seemed to hang around his head like some mockery of a halo. He seemed to get some amusement out of getting a rise out of me.
He kept talking. “You ain’t seen hell yet. But, it’s only a matter of time.” He started laughing a hideous dry laugh that squeaked at irregular intervals.
“Yeah?” I said, wanting to walk away but needing the last word. “Well I’ll see you there.” I turned and headed back to the car.
“You already have, boy.” He continued that ridiculous laugh. “You already have.”
I wasn’t in my right mind when I got out of the car. By the time I got back in, I hardly knew who I was anymore. I sat in the driver’s seat, my hand on the ignition. I watched the truckers milling around the gas station, a bunch of sweaty, hideously gigantic or scrawny men. Each one of them glistening in the dry heat of the Oregon summer like clumps of grease in a frying pan. I sat like that for a few minutes, until, without thinking, I turned the car back on, and drove off.
I pulled back onto the freeway, and soon enough I was back in the trance. The caffeine provided the energy my body needed to keep from throwing me into the median, but my mind was long gone. Every now and then, I’d pass a grass fire on the side of the road, started by some spark from an 18 wheeler.
I was just about 15 minutes outside of Albany when the CD Player started to work again. Flesh Canoe picked up right where it left off, and my meandering mind found a surreal path to follow in the music. I’ve never taken recreational drugs, so I don’t know what the experience is like, but I feel like I got pretty close in the car, listening to that song.
Reality seemed to have suddenly turned rebellious. It was like I wasn’t moving, rather, everything was moving around me. The car was the only solid stable thing in the world, and I clung onto it for dear life. I wasn’t afraid so much as altered. I didn’t trust my senses, I didn’t trust my actions. For a moment I thought about turning the music off, but I was afraid that if I let my hands leave the steering wheel, it might disappear. Instead I drove deeper down the rabbit hole.
I came over a small hill, and suddenly the road was filled with smoke. I instinctively rolled up my windows, and the steering wheel was still in my other hand, thank God. I was slightly dazed, and confused by the presence of smoke. Then I saw the source.
In the slow lane on I-5, there was a flatbed truck loaded up with hay, and that hay was burning. It must have just started when I came up over the hill, because the truck hadn’t come to a stop yet. I slowed down as I approached it, keeping a lane between me and the inferno. I could feel the heat on my chest, and I began to sweat. It was like being in an oven.
The music kept playing. I saw everything in slow motion. Black flecks of burned hay danced through the blue sky like so many demonic ballerinas. Hungry tongues licked towards me, inviting me to join in the dance. Even though the windows were up, I could hear the roar of the blaze playing surreal harmony to the music. The back of the truck threw clouds of smoke into the air. Thick, black stuff that smelled terrible and tasted worse. Even with the windows down, I had to grab for my T-shirt to cover my face.
I was past the truck in seconds, but it might as well have been days. When I was about ¼ of a mile away from the flames, I rolled down the windows and pulled over. I got out of the car and stood on the gravel embankment along the roadway. I stared backwards up the highway. I could see the heat coming off the truck. The driver jumped out the second he brought it to a halt and ran down the road. I assume he was trying to escape the heat.
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