Solemn Wave Goodbye

Forests gradually shed their density, making way for a different kind of production than the mechanistic manufacture we found in Detroit. As the trees folded away, out came fields of newborn crops, sprouting up in their neatly tucked tilled lines of ripe soil. Justin and I had left the highways and were riding west along the asphalt backstreets invisible to our map. The road bent northward and began winding about, and to our dismay the pavement dissipated into gravel. Afternoon heat was setting on and we stopped to decide if we were lost. I was happy enough still. The temperature continued to climb, but our ride led us along in shelter beneath tunnels of trees. Simple country cabins named by their hand-painted house numbers punctuated the roadsides. For backyard pools there were instead lakes, round and still like flip-top mirrors reflecting a placid blue face.

We followed the gravel road until it spilled onto a two-lane highway. Seeking an escape from the tickling sun, we both sat down in the shade of some roadside trees. I watched the occasional traffic go by. Motorcycles puttered through frequently enough to indicate a town wasn't too far off. Justin looked worn. Draining the last sips of his water supply he said that his knee was being a bother and asked me if I minded staying a while longer. Shaded from the heat, we sat mostly silent for twenty or thirty minutes, absorbing a midday solace.

Stopped to take some photographs as the sun bent behind a tiled horizon of clouds. Laying out a radial hand, the sun's bright fingers climbed through the sky overhead. Justin sat down and made some phone calls home and I went across the street to wait. When he'd finished we kept on, but again after just a couple more miles he pulled off and sat down in a patch of grass by the entrance gate to a neighborhood. I brought my bike up over the curb, laid it down beside his, and sat down to wait for him to rest up.

Justin rubbed his knee and then stared down at the grass, pulling at a few blades with his fingers. “Alright. So, there's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and I think it's time to tell you,” he started.

“You gonna quit?” I asked. He looked up into my eyes to gauge my expression.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, lowering his eyes and again pulling out blades of grass. “I've been thinking about it, and I just feel really content with how far I've gone. I mean not a lot of people can really say that they've done what I've done already on this trip, you know?”

“What about your knee? Is it really bad?”

“Yeah. That's part of it, too, but I didn't want to keep complaining about it.”

A car pulled out of the neighborhood entrance and stopped by the curb next to us. A lady got out carrying two sports drinks in her hands and came up to us, “I drove past you two a little ways back and thought to myself 'I bet they could use a cold drink!'”

Smiling brightly she handed us the drinks and then asked where we were both from and where we were going. So many people had asked us these same questions before. The response had nearly become an involuntary recitation, but this time was different. First I told her what we had planned to do when we began the trip and then Justin went on saying to her what he'd just told me. I realized that she was the only person who would ever receive this answer. She'd stumbled into the middle of a situation that held more significance to us than any other since we'd pedaled away from our front doors.

Justin had already figured everything out. We stopped the next day in Jackson, which he knew had both a bus station and a shipping company. In the late afternoon we checked into a cheap hotel room on the outskirts of town. At the desk the lady told us the first floor was full so we unloaded our bikes and pulled everything up the stairs to our room the room in the corner of one of the buildings. Immediately we flopped onto our beds and turned on the TV. Justin walked across the room to the air conditioner and turned the dial to its coldest setting, then took a shower before we began to list every way we needed to celebrate before finally parting ways.

Both of us had been looking forward to being in the heart of Chicago for our first taste of deep-dish pizza, but we found there was a restaurant serving it about five miles away from the hotel. On our bikes, freed now from the weight of our bags, we rushed through the streets as the day began to cool. In the dimly lit restaurant we waited a few minutes before we were seated at a little round table and ordered the four-topping stuffed pizza and beers. Half an hour later when it was cooked and delivered to us, we were overwhelmed with cheese-drenched, golden-baked goodness, more than either of us could ever have hoped for. It was like swimming in savoriness.

A belly full of half a pizza and two beers each made the return ride more difficult, but back in the room we were splayed on our beds again. Justin began making calls to his family to decide what his bus ticket's destination should read. He said he didn't want to return to South Carolina, but his family elsewhere couldn't pick him up if he were arriving in two days. His plans were getting frustrated and so was he.

There were some cigars in our bags that had been designated for smoking at the high summits of each mountain pass we crossed in our adventure. With two of them and a lighter we went downstairs and stepped outside, seeing an orange sun fall toward western America beyond the tips of the pine trees. A group of people were sitting outside their rooms nearby in plastic chairs, drinking, and making a bunch of noise. I sat down on the parking lot curb and lit my cigar, and passed the lighter to Justin. The yellow lamps around the parking lot sprung to life, calling on the company of every gnat and moth to bounce about their tungsten faces. I watched as they gathered and flitted about, trying to imagine the chilly air of an alpine peak. Someone behind us began yelling at his kid.

Justin pressed the end of his just lit cigar into the asphalt. “I don't want to smoke this here. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna go back upstairs. This is just wrong,” he sighed as he stood up, sounding a little disgusted. I soon put mine out and followed his path up.

I awoke, my head resting on a soft pillow, staring up at the white popcorn ceiling from a mattress covered by blanket and sheet after uninterrupted sleep. I didn't want to move. Checkout would be at eleven. Eventually we went out to the lobby for breakfast and got a few bowls of cereal. We were alone in the room and I switched the TV over to cartoons, and then went over to make myself a waffle.

Justin's available time was shrinking. Later he called Michelle, a cousin in Ohio, in a last effort to see if she could get him from the bus station in Akron. She was working until the late afternoon, but said it might just be easier if she drove to Jackson to pick him up with her dad's truck. With these words all of Justin's worries washed away.

After we'd gotten all our things together and triple-checked the room for any left behinds, we returned the room keys and rode downtown to a combined ice cream and donut shop to wait out the evening. Hours passed and outside the sunlight began to fade. With my eyes on the dimming clouds behind the window, I wondered whether I should leave. There was no hotel room for me to return to and we were in a city with no place to camp. As I began to gather my things, Justin saw Michelle drive into the parking lot. He grabbed his phone off the table, jumped up from his chair with an excited smile across his face and rushed outside to greet her. I followed him out.

In four hours Michelle had covered the last couple of weeks of our ride. Justin became effusive with joy at her sight. He was ready to go home. They talked a while and I listened, feeling a little outcast. It already felt like our paths had diverged. Justin peeled all the bags from his bicycle, put them in the rear seats of the truck, and then we loaded both bicycles into the truck bed. Michelle said she'd drive me west of town so I didn't have to search out a place to camp in the dark.

Her engine started with a rumble and we sped off into the street toward the last bits of sun. Beside an open field that lay behind an industrial park we came to a stop and unloaded my bike. Justin and Michelle got out and we exchanged hugs. There wasn't much to say to each other but a simple goodbye for now and a genuine wish of good luck in our separate ways. The time that we had spent traveling through eastern America hadn't been cut short. It had been happily completed. There was nothing to add or take away.

Michelle returned to the truck. Justin raised his hand in a solemn wave and then turned away, stepping into the passenger side door and shutting it behind him. The engine started back up and I watched them drive away slowly down the street and turn.

I pulled my bike into the tall grass and set up my tent. The field waved in the gently rolling wind. I rolled a cigarette and watched the gray sheet of clouds forming above. Only my journey laid ahead.

View trip album #2 on my Facebook.