Hence, after leaving the westernmost territory of the United states, say, the Aleutian peninsula and its islands, I disembark at the tip of the Homer Spit, on the northern banks of the Kachemak Bay, Kenai. And so, as I'm actually getting out of the ferry-boat, making some turns, staring at the white summits all around... there I go, already advancing along some kind of walkway with small wooden houses(octagonal format), here and there, exhibiting a full range of Alaskan souvenirs, things like: miniature totem poles, carved ivory pieces, shiny paintings, muskox wool items (qivut), and further, some ice cream parlors with racks under their windows actually displaying a private collections of books into traveling... but, I pass all that kinda quickly, I surpass the marina... and then, there are some more houses made of slats, a lot of pickups actually parked on the front lots... some eateries, some pizza places, some restaurants specialized in salmon and octopus, some saloons, and then, some loose plots of land with camper-vans parked here and there, and, well, while still walking on the main road by the shore, at some point, on my left, I come to see a full row of closed down restaurants, apparently abandoned buildings, and there I go, already advancing through the back of these wooden constructions, constructions actually standing in the air, say, supported by high stilts that raise from the shore area around until its floors above, and so, trough those stilts I'm actually moving right now, gingerly, staring at the platforms above, slightly slanted... and, on the going, it happens that, eventually, I end up finding a half-finished bottle of tequila, laying right here in the middle of some pole branch... and well, after inspecting its content, I take a small sip from it, and in the meantime, even carrying it over to the shore further down, this is, there I go, already rolling over the pebbles by the water, and then, really on the shore, I'm actually pouring the bottle's content, yes, water against water, and while I do it, in the meanwhile, I even come to sight a small group of otters, afloat, bobbing on their backs while making some quaint grunts and growls... and, well, while they keep growling and growling, I sing to them, and then, there they are growling and growling even with more intensity, and so, as it goes, I shout something more at them while already coming back ashore... and say, once here, under the skewed terraces again, I clean my snikas, I repack my camping bag, and there I go, through the stilts and up, already coming back to the road, and so, right before I put my first feet on the pavement, there it is, this guy beckoning at me, over there, inside some kind of Jeep, smoke coming out of its exhaust... and so, as I come closer and closer to the scene, inside the said vehicle I come to see this bearded man with slanted but wide eyes, smiling at me, and while giving and receiving a first bump, he's already expressing “let's get out of here, from this world's end... let's get back to the civilization... ahah isn't it? What's your name and what you up to, I mean, where you wanna go?” he asks and me, well, have to answer something so, “my names' Shem and I'm actually on my way to California beach!”; I say, and “oh, California beach!”, he repeats, “that's something man! That's something...You dreaming high.... that's good, I mean, I can actually take you to Anchorage, the main city around here, and then, then you may rethink about your destinations...”; “oh, that's perfect man! That would be great! Thank you very much”, I say. And, therefore, while some kind of rap/reggae fusion music actually plays on the car stereo, I more and less explain about the places I have recently visited in the Aleutian peninsula... and then, I also get to know that he's actually coming from Seldovia, an ancestral village on the southern bank of this bay, a village actually inaccessible by road, only touchable by ferry, I got to know, “but I have been out of here” he says, “I have lived in Vancouver, in Seattle, and even visited New York and Toronto...”, he says, and then, as we get to the end of the spit, already going around in Homer town, while passing a lot of fishing tackle shops, some saloons, he explains, “I'm what we can call a third generation Kriol... I mean, my maternal grandfather was actually a Russian fisherman... a fisherman that moored here to never come back to his home lands, the elders say... and, my grandmother well, my grandma was in fact a Dena'ina, a native Athabaskan, and my paternal grandfather was actually a Alutiiq, from Kodiak island, not so far away from this bay, and then, my grandmother from this side was actually a Caribbean woman from Trinidad & Tobago, they say, I never got to meet her, but...” he explains as we hit the Sterling Highway, already advancing in the direction of Anchorage... Though, in the meanwhile, after a few seconds of silence, contemplatig the paisaje, the humid greenwishs, the Stitka Spruces Hemlocks, the Chokecherries on the sides of the road... sirens are actually bursting through the car speakers now, some kind of rolled up beats turning into intrincate melodies with a lot of echoes... I mean, in the meanwhile we are actually passing Anchor point, Ninilchik, Clam Gulch, Kasilof, Soldotna, Sterling, Cooper Landing, and then already entering some marshlands, where three or four or five wide streams flow into the Turnagain arm of sea, and so, here in the middle of this greenness, this flooded meadows, we get to some kind of crossroad with some sort of wooden signboards actually pointing to the right, saying “Whittier Cruise and ferry Terminal”, “Portage lake”, “Prince William Sound”, and thus, as we slow down, almost coming to a stop, my driver actually says “I guess this can be a shortcut for you... I can actually drop you here, if you wish...” he adds, “I mean, the Whittier Terminals is not so far from here afteralls...”; “hum, have you been there?”; “certainly!”; “but”, I start, “to where are these boats leaving that Terminal heading to, actually?” I ask, and he quickly replies, “I have heard that is possible to take a ferry from there to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and even to the north part of the Washington state... do you wanna try it? I can actually take you until Portage, a ghost town that was supposedly destroyed in the sixties earthquake... have you hear about it?”; “no!” I say, and so, when we actually get there, onthe alleged site of the Portage ghost town, the only thing we manage see around is actually a couple of state cottages, and so, as we keep advancing in the direction of the Portage Valley Recreation Area, at some point, we would get inside some kind of tunnel, actually the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, and then, when we come to reach the other side of the tunnel, we are already on the begging of the Whittier town, and so, after the Cruise Ship Terminal comes the parking lot of the more humble Ferry Terminal, and therefore, I'm dropped there, and there I stay some hours, actually turning around, collecting money to buy the ticket for the next ferry to Valdez, and so, as I manage to do it, there I go, sailing through the Passage canal, advancing in between the Perry and the Esther islands, and then, after going across the Prince William Sound, eventually, we would reach the Valdez harbor, and there, consequently, I would mount another ferry that by its turn would take me to the Alexander Archipelago, and then, after passing on the side of the Haida Gwaii islands, I would hear stories about its people, like this one about a certain Raven god that have supposedly discovered the first humans inside some kind of clam-shells on the beach... and thus, after sleeping over this legends, on the next morning we would already be reaching the Vancouver Island, more precisely, Victoria, its main city actually located on the southern part of the island, and so, once there, I would just take another smaller ferry to Port Angels, just on the other side of the Salish sea, already on the Washington department of the United States. And so, as I'm actually getting out of this small town, Port Angels, I would get my first ride with some kind of traveling salesman that would take me first to Aberdeen, and then to Astoria, and it happens that, during the night, as I leave the city in the direction of the Atlantic coast, I would walk more than ten kilometers from the Smith Point to Sunset beach, and then, as I'm coming back to the road, I'm not trying to hitchhike, I'm just walking, making some figures from time to time, things like, flapping wings, wriggling, aiming to the sky, or just, jumping to the sides, this while singing songs of redemption to myself... and, as it goes, there are already cars honking at me, mainly the ones taking shortcuts towards the beach, and I, say, I'm also waving back to some of them, as they pass by, just because... And then, it’s really night and I see myself actually speeding up the pace, like, in a hurry to get somewhere… and, well, as I advance, I'm actually looking up at the stars, say, wondering if that is Orion, or Taurus, or the Canis Major, or the Canis Minor… or, I don’t know… but one can imagine… and then, I see, or imagine, some shadows twirling around my head, inside or outside I’m not sure… like, some sort of meta-morphological monster made of some certain unfinished assumptions, but, I keep going faster and faster, until that, I get in a state of trance, forgetting everything, even who I’m and what I am doing here... And then, I don’t know how much time after, I become aware of a great lighting behind me, but I don't want to look back, I prefer to wait for it to get closer… and so, quickly, there it comes, a big lorry approaching very slowly, and, as it passes by on my side I can already see the driver on the window making signs with his hands, signs I really don't want to understand but... in while, the big thing stops by, a bit further, and as it stops the passenger door is opened… but no one comes out, so, I understand, that is an invitation… and there I go, running for it, and so, as I look at the driver now, he also stares at me, this is, the chauffeur, a man with a toad smile and muscular shoulders, quickly invites me to get in, and so, while I climbing up, he already wants to know what I have in this plastic bag I’m taking with me. “Stones” I say while already installing myself on the big seat, and, “What purpose?”, he insists, “Nothing… it’s just stones I collected along the road”, “Hum, OK, and where are you willing to go?”, he asks, “There” I say, while pointing forward to the road, and, as I do it, he glimpses from me to the road and from the road to me with half-closed eyes and a tricky smile, this, while demanding “So… haven't you gotten a proper destination?”, “hum, actually no, I just want to go south”, “South, south, but where and why?”, he asks, “It’s… that, I want to go to the desert… that’s it!”, “Hum, ok, the desert dream… not the first one… ok ok, let’s go!” And then, already rolling, he insists, by putting his hand inside my bag of stones, and so, after shuffling it a bit, he even picks up a couple of them, this, while smiling, smirking at it, and then, after analyzing them briefly, he puts them back inside the same bag. Further, as it goes, he tells now about all kings of mads he have been picking on the road through the times… this is, he tells me of several young’s escaping from their family, also willing to go south, to the desert… he tells me about lost souls looking for something totally different… he tells me of criminal ones, pretending to be the avengers of God, and he also tells me about a dude he picked some weeks ago, a dude that, instead of speaking, only grunted... “the mad offered me some strange drugs he had in a bag like yours, that’s why I wanted to see your plastic bag… but instead of trying his drugs, I grabbed him and fucked him in the ass, just because he looked so much like Tom Cruise… yes the fucker!” And so, now I don't know if he is joking, or just trying to scare me, but one thing is real, his smile is mischievous, that I can see. “But above all, I enjoy helping the lost souls'' he says, “that's why I picked you up tonight…” And as he says these things he is already messing up with the auto-radio, so, we are listening to some news now, politics, smithereens of it, advertisements, some country music, then a guy laughing, a girl whining, some kind of lottery, more advertisements, an ex combatant of the Arabian wars talking about his nightmares, more lottery, the private life of sportsman, more country music like “Welcome to the jungle... we've got fun and games… We got everything you want honey, we know the names…”, and then I’m looking through the window on my side, trying to detect the kind of specters that can be there in that small strip of jungle, between the highway and the sea coast… And, at some point, the chauffeur stops with the zapping on the radio, and there is no talking between us now, so, a heavy sort of silence follows, and his face gets very serious, I can see, a couple of lines appearing on his forehead, lines I haven’t seen before, moving up and down… and like this we follow, in silence, just looking at the road, and I don't know how much time passes… Then, after having been going over the embers… at some point, I see his hand scratching under the seat, and from there he picks up what looks like a black bible and… a pistol, yes he shows both things to me and tells me to choose one of the objects and I, look at him and say nothing. “Go ahead!” he insists, and after a while I point my eyes to the bible, “Pick it!” he says, while he puts down the pistol between his legs. “Open it where you want, choose a page, and start reading a text from your choice…” he says “but read it well, do not babble… if you wanna pass to the next level, o’right!?” And me, now, already with this big black book in my hands, here I go, defoliating it carefully… and the chauffeur, now, smoking non stop... with some impatience... then without more delay, I start "When any man from the Israel house…” and here, his face already gaining some contentment “or any foreign, residing among you... offer a burnt offering or a sacrifice and do not bring it to the entrance of the assembly place so it can be offered to Jeho-vah... this same man have to be cut off from our people…and... so, if you are a Jeow by name... and you are proud of your God, and you know his wills and you approve his good things, as you are verbally instructed by the law... and you are equally persuaded that you are a guide of the blind... a light for them in the darkness... one who corrects the unreasonable, instructor of the little ones... and having the structure of knowledge and truth in the law... to you will come the very glory of Lebanon, the juniper, the ash and the cypress…” and here, we can see, the chauffeur holding that gun again, pointing it out of his side window into the dark forest and I, making as ignoring, just continue the reading, so “In order to adorn the place of my sanctuary, I will have to glorify the place of my feet…” and here “bang-bang” the chauffeur shoots the sky again and again, and so, I stop reading for a while, frightened, but soon, he tells me to continue the reading, and I have to obey, “...So, why do you make the earthly man equal to the fish of the sea, equal to the creeping things over which no one dominates... you see that men ought to be declared righteous by works and not only by faith... in the same way... was not also Rehab, the harlot, declared righteous by her works... after having received with hospitality the messengers and sent them off through another way… just as the breathless body is dead, faith without works is also dead... and the priest will have to return on the seventh day and see, if... the plague has spread on the walls of the house… and that stones have to be removed from the wall, and have to be carried out of the city, and have to be cast into an unclean place... and the walls of the house will have to be scraped on the insides…” And here the chauffeur intervenes “You see!? Do not forget this one! If you ever have family problems in your house, send the walls down in order to clean all the shit that may be spread around… don't forget about that!” And then, I have to continue “The spirit of the Lord Jeh Ovah is upon me... since Jeh Ovah anointed me to proclaim good news to the meek... he sent me to take care of the brokenhearted... he sent me to proclaim liberty to those who were taken captive and open the eyes from the prisoners of their inner-self... he sent me to proclaim the year of goodwill and the day of vengeance… “You see… God does not sleep, he wants vengeance!” the enigmatic driver says now, while waving his gun around, and I have to continue the haphazard reading… “So, in order to comfort all that mourn for Zion... give them a covering for the head instead of ashes... oil of exultation instead of mourning... give them a robe of praise to cover the despondent spirits... and they will have to rebuild the places so much devastated... they will have to erect the more desolate places of the old times, and the devastated cities have to be renewed from generation to generation…” I say “Exactly my boy! Exactly! From generation to generation!” exalts the driver. And I continue the reading “Solomon should have forty thousand horse stalls for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, and these servants should provide food for the king Solomon, and every one should come on his table ... each one in his month... and nothing should be missed... the offerings plus the barley and the straw for the horses ... and the food for the steeds… all should be brought according to his commission... and God will continue to give Solomon wisdom and understanding to a very great extent , as well as broadness of heart... just like the sand that borders by the sea...” and here I stop. “Heil heil Solomon! Heil heil Rehab, the harlot! Hail hail the horses and the steeds of Solomon!” says the chauffeur rapturous while putting down his gun, and then reaffirming “Heil hail Soloman! Let's stop for eating now… Heil heil, let’s stop for a while… Hail, hail Salomon… I'll pay you for lunch my boy coz I very much enjoyed your reading!” And thus I escaped from the hands of this satirical man, whom I was already painting as some sort of serial killer, and so, I do not know if I was just lucky, or if it was the gospels that helped me, anyway, everything I just read should have some meaning, maybe this is some kind of message, not for me or for the driver, but for you, who knows!! And so, once at the restaurant, the driver goes and installs himself on the bar, side by side with other lorry drivers, they share their stories about the road, about other kind 0f creatures wandering through the surrounding highways, about this or that traffic inspection, and they drink wine, beer and laugh with stupid jokes about other kind of harlots and Solomon’s, and I, I go away from them and install myself in another room, where there is no one, just a TV talking to the walls, and I look at it, without really paying attention to the content, thinking about something, maybe thinking about the corcels of Solomon… and then at some point, a guy in a bow tie and a blue suit appears swinging on the screen, and there are huge images of the brain on his back, and suddenly, now, the guy starts a speech about the "Vagus Nerve" that goes more and less like this: “Human beings have an autonomic nervous system that is actually comprised of three separate subsystems… the parasympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system… And so, there I stay, looking at that, but not really paying attention… and then, the waiter comes by and asks me something, but I do not answer, I just stand up, and then there I go wandering through the gambling area, watching the old fashion arcade games, still thinking about this thing, the vagus nervous system, which, they say, may be affecting the connection between the heart and the brain and then triggering indolence and autism… and so, still thinking about this, I come back to the bar, where all the truck drivers are installed now, still talking about shit, and me, as I pass through, I'm actually putting the palm of my hand against the mouth, making this sound like the Indians do in westerns movies, and so, then, they tell me to stop it, but, I do not stop, and so, as I continue with this, some of them are getting really irritated and even try to chase me, and then, I have to escape from that room… and then, there I ho across this big saloon with very old coca-cola posters, still being persecuted by this fat pigs, and so, to get rid of them I even have to put in practice some kind of acrobatic steps, and then, there I go, jumping out through an open window, advancing through the parking where dozens of trucks are parked, and me wondering in the middle of them, looking for a way out, and then, finally, I manage to come back to the highway… and so, first, I get a lift in this old sidecar motorcycle, and its driver, an ex member from the hell’s angels, actually takes me until close to San Francisco, and along the way we will listen to rockabilly classics like Ace Andres / Hasil Adkins / Amazing Royal Crown / Smokey Joe Baugh / Tommy Blake / Eddie Bond / Bonnie Lou / Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers / Cigar Store Indians / The Everly Brothers / Rosie Flores / Dale Hawkins Chris Isaak / Heavy Trash / Jackslacks / Buddy Knox / Brenda Lee / Roy Orbison etc. And then, as I get out from Los Angeles, I get a ride with this guy driving some sort of Jeep, actually an ex-history teacher on his way to exile, he tells me that “by looking at your attire (dirty t-shirt, long shorts made of ragged jeans, and fucked up sneakers) I can already read your life pan, this is… I recognize your gestures, and I may know why you wander… because, it happened the same with me long time ago…” and here, as I listen this I just nod my head, and then, he continues like this, “so, this is, since the jeans… the fashion has not stopped to promote the original clothing of the working class… the army and sports... like… bib pants, napkins, parkas, the sailor jacket, the jogging style... peasant skirts... the frivolous identifying with the serious and the functional... and in doing so, adopting an explicit parody style... so, while imitating utilitarian clothes, fashion mismatch its points of reference, and then, the solemnity dissipates and the forms lose what they could have of lustrous or studied… thus, fashion and its exterior ceased to be radically opposed... and so, in parallel with the trend, everywhere visible, of opposition's refusal... fashion today belongs to the sloppy, to the relaxed... the new must seem used and the studied must look spontaneous... and the most sophisticated fashion nowadays imitates and parodies the natural… and so, what is the natural nowadays!?” he asks, and then, I’m almost sleeping, this is, there I go, already falling inside this recurrent dream of mine, with the sky falling over the desert, and me running through the sandbanks, but while rolling on the dunes, I’m still hearing my driver, going on his speech about… "When there is no longer any military or police monopoly, and when, therefore, insecurity is a constant… Individual violence and aggression will become a vital necessity... and, under the action of central organs, the physical force will establish a daily security... that is where the use of individual violence proves to be exceptional and the extreme and unbridled impulsiveness of men is no longer necessary or useful or even possible… and also, nowadays, education is a machine neutralized by the school apathy, made of dispersed attention and jaunty skepticism about knowledge... and all this that I have just expressed, could be just… some kind of… black humor... because nowadays… for example... the sense of humor of the media, no longer tries to ridicule the logic... report or satirize the mistakes… The humor nowadays fills a factual function... It is not bad no more to confess personal problems... to show our own weaknesses... unravel the loneliness that we feel… nevertheless, the important now is to express all this in a second degree... through modernist hyperboles… and when I say modernist I mean… disruptions are becoming increasingly rare, and the truth is that nowadays, the impression of déjà vu prevails over novelty, the new changes in society are monotonous, we no longer have the impression of living in a revolutionary period... there is a trend fall in creativity rate of the vanguards, which on the other hand… coincides with the very difficult affirmation of anyone being truly vanguardist... and so, the fashion of “isms” have passed, thus, the noisy manifestations of other times are no more appreciated…” and so, as he says this things I sleep, and then, as we get to the border with Mexico, I just get out of the car and there I go, running free, through the sonoran desert.
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