Around the World in Ninety Days

In the last three months I have driven twenty-five thousand miles within six states—Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York—as an AutoPilot, which is just a fancy term for a vehicle deliverer.

It’s been a dramatic lifestyle change, to say the least. Mostly because I was unemployed for several months prior, which had been a big change, too.

It’s a fickle thing, isn’t it? Unemployment.

At first it was nice. I spent many hot summer days exploring the idyllic neighborhoods near me. People at work. Houses dark and empty, yards green and lush. Cars periodically passing by. Everything seemed artificial, like a movie set. The occasional retiree walking their dog. Light breeze under a heavy sun. It was maddeningly glorious.

In town, I browsed storefronts and waterfronts, and I found it to be quite strange. Once operating under a nine to five, I was used to seeing suits and ties and Friday T-shirts. But now I was seeing families wearing witch hats and an increased presence of sweaty tour guides. Outside dining was rampant with teenagers. Shops had open doors with heavy foot traffic. Plants, gems, comic books; witchcraft, spell books, magic.

On my trips home I stopped by the liquor store and bought six-packs of beer and spent long drunken afternoons with the windows open, gazing at a cemetery behind our building that teemed with tourists—little witch ants, the lot of them.

Time slots were blocked off with video games and laundry and books. No responsibilities. Late mornings, late nights. Sunken cushions and a steady buzz.

And it was glorious indeed.

But after a while, feelings of inadequacy started brimming. Plus, after my savings ran out my girlfriend became really generous (I owe her the world). So I figured it was time to start pitching in.

In the next few days I applied to hundreds of jobs, ranging from a clothes presser at a dry cleaners to an account executive at a real estate consulting company.

No dice, though. The remainder of September I received a mixture of personalized and automated emails informing me of my rejection.

Naturally, I became desperate and decided to venture into outdoor laboring, something I was vehemently against after having developed a literal allergy to heat. But it was something I knew how to do and did well, and the pay would be good.

However, when October rolled around, I received an unexpected phone call on a Thursday morning.

“This is So-and-so with Sweetie Boy Transportation,” the voice said.

I couldn’t recall the company, but after a few back-and-forths of niceties I suddenly remembered: pink and blue logo, flashy website, stencil of a baby’s face.

So-and-so conducted a brief phone interview, which resulted in an orientation the following Thursday.

Two weeks later I officially started transporting cars and trucks and vans across New England. And I couldn’t have started at a better time.

I have witnessed a New England autumn at its peak. Remnants of an Indian summer overtaken by leaves the color of the sun, with golden trees towering above interstates and afternoon suns spraying light onto the asphalt.

Contrasted against the bursting backdrop, I have seen pink objects, only to learn that, as I drive closer, they are infantile animals, with their skin somehow stripped, exposing raw flesh. Their naked complexions resemble premature fetuses—leathery and red. Some of them look peaceful, though, like they’re in a deep sleep. But it’s the ones with their guts blown out of their bodies that sadden me most. Such horrific, senseless deaths.

Sometimes these animals will join me in the car, although they’ll be alive and eight-legged, or winged, or worse—both! Once on a rainy three-hour trip from northern Massachusetts to southern New York a spider crawled out of an AC vent and lay atop the knob and watched me as I drove. I named him Charles.

Many times it has rained and rained. Sometimes in torrents, sometimes in drizzles. But whatever the intensity, it is always frightening. If I find myself in the middle of a rainstorm, my knuckles will become white and the speedometer will decrease rapidly.

Once in November I departed a sunny Massachusetts and entered a snowy Connecticut. It was out of nowhere. Flurries of powder slanted against the windshield of a Fiat. But it passed as quickly as it fell. Soon I entered New York and the bloom returned.

I can now say I have driven across four states in four short hours: Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.

During these repetitious drives, which stretch for hundreds of miles, it is hard to forget what one sees.

Sleazy motels with faded paint and rotting wood. Shopping centers, some impressive, some scary and deserted. Grainy downtowns situated outside metropolises.

Gas stations and truck stops, all with puddles of piss and men vigorously shaking their arms at urinals and skipping the sink—these men wear trucker caps and sport heavy mustaches and look perpetually sweaty.

And on a much smaller scale: lone shoes, askew and untied, on the side of the road, along with woolen sacks and tattered gloves, and rising above a canopy, a crenelated spire.

On these long drives there’s not much to do except think. A lot.

I’ll think about how once upon a time I could eat a sleeve of Peeps in one sitting, and now I can’t even eat two cookies without getting a stomachache. I’ll think about the interesting trajectory of Cary Elwe’s acting career and how perfect The Princess Bride is. Sabres, magic, true love…

…hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die…

…the fact that I watched three seasons of Criminal Minds and didn’t realize Jason Gideon was played by Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya…

…Derek Shepherd’s death. The marriage of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton and the surprising fact that they own a candy shop in New York with Paul and Julie Rudd. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. The also (and arguably more) interesting trajectory of Kevin Bacon’s acting career…

…the different ways to air quote. Catching whiffs of blackened chicken and maple syrup (what a cruel olfactory trick!). How I wish I loved Stephen King as much as other people do; the eventual decline in his writing quality…

…Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Jonathan Brandis. The eerie existence of the “27 Club…”

…I know this because Tyler knows this…

…Memphis. The scintillating fictional life of Will Savage. Sixties, seventies. How I wish I stepped over the threshold from the seventies into the eighties! That 70’s Show theme song (I sometimes break out into song; it is the only one I know by heart)…

…the cadence of names involving ‘Will’—Will Savage, Will Bettelheim, Will Salas, Will Stoneman, Will Smith, Will Ferrell, Will Poulter, Willem Dafoe…

…insufferable Internet personas. Fictional rescue missions. Kidnapping documentaries and my brief obsessional stint with abduction cases when I was eighteen, and to this day I can still name a few: Elizabeth Smart, missing for nine months and rescued; Steven Stayner, missing for seven years and rescued, but died years later in a motorcycle accident, only twenty-four; Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years and rescued; and the one we all know, Jaycee Dugard, missing for eighteen years and rescued…

…phantom limb, brain surgery, The Vampire Diaries. The circumstances surrounding River Phoenix’s death. Leslie Burke. The unfortunate cancelation of The Society. How I should like to acquire a passport and travel to the Caribbean. Cruise ships and David Foster Wallace and this little room on the third floor of Old Main…

…the fatal flaw…

…how I long for adolescence. Time travel, Minutemen. Will I ever get lost at sea? Turning twenty-five very soon. Shirley Temple, Shirley Jackson. Victoria Pedretti…

…the regrettable absence of resort-style pools in Massachusetts. How unlucky I am; how lucky I am…

And sometimes these long drives contain such sights that quiet my mind.

Lands upon lands of undisturbed snow. Empty trees white-veined. And leaves once a bright orange now lay on the ground, browned and fragile.

Another bursting backdrop: the Appalachian Mountains eclipsed by fog that descends and swallows the earth. Driving through the haze, I can never shake the feeling that something is going to start galloping alongside me.

Along these mountainous ranges are roadside cliffs caked with blue ice, and bordering these cliffs are mounds of plowed snow the color of coffee.

And cutting through it all: long interstates bleached white with salt.

Sometimes the GPS will direct me through small towns that are roiled with jutting cemeteries and peeling barns and $2.99/gal gas, and surprisingly there are never any lines.

Merging back onto my original route, it feels like I have left a world light years from our own, and I am reminded of this when I see mangled pieces of tires and burning, upturned cars and pixelated messages of suicidal discouragement.

And it doesn’t stop there. The most heartbreaking sights of all are the crosses I see. Hammered into the ground and inscribed with names of the dead. Seeing these crosses, I can’t help but think, What if I’m next?

Though I encounter excessive morbidity everyday on the road, I am able to find momentary relief. Sometimes I’ll see deer lying in fields, their necks craning up to the sun. I’ll see schools’ marquee letter signs indicating calendar dates for holiday breaks.

And other times I’ll see such human experiences: a family stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire; a preacher holding a bible up to the sky; hundreds of turn signals; people being afraid to merge.