I’m now leaving Dutch Harbour (Alaska), one of the westernmost points in the US, and so, as I wander about the harbor, I get to meet this guy, Liam, “but you can call me Noah, or James, or Oliver, as you want..”, and then, “what are you doing here”, he asks, “oh, nothing,” I say, “bout to leave now”; “oh, and where are you intending to go?”; “there” I say, while pointing some green mountains on the eastern side of the port, and so, “I will company you” he says, and there we go, thus, still at the harbor, as we pass several groups of fishermen carrying around big sacks of blue mussels we begin some kind of chat about the Dutch Harbour fishing facilities, and then, “the Red King Crab…” he says, “one of the bigger crabs in the world, can reach a carapace width up to eleven inches, and a leg span of almost two meters, and it can weigh almost three kilos, and… “do they live close to the Aleutian islands?”; I ask, “Not really boy, its habitat is mainly around the Kamchatka Peninsula, a peninsula belonging to Russia… yet, the Blue King Crab, can be found on American waters, mainly around the St. Lawrence and St. Matthew Islands, the Pribilof, and the Diomedes, islands located in the middle of the Bering Strait, close to Siberia…” And then, after explaining a bit about the Pribilof islands, Saint Paul and Saint George, he begins talking about the Diomedes again “Big Diomede belongs Russia, and Little Diomede is ours, sometimes called Tomorrow and Yesterday Islands, because they are separated by different time zones, this is, Big Diomede is almost a day ahead of Little Diomede, despite one being just about two miles away from the other'', he says, and then, as we get to some kind of square, at the end of the port, a couple of yellow school buses are parked here, waiting for tourists or so, I notice, and, once more, he explains me, “those are buses heading to the Orca inlet, on the east side of the Prince William Sound.. I mean, people want to go there, just because there was a big oil spill there… so they want to see those dark paisajes whatsoever…” Further, as we advance, we will pass some kind of provincial cafés with wooden fences on the front, and so, as we pass by one of them, my mate even greets the lady at the door, “her name is Monica, she is my auntie and also, she is a bitch”, he says and I just nod my head, smiling bit, and then, as a continuation of this talk, my guide even tells me that his great-grandfather was a real Russian Eskimo, “but Eskimo, is a term that people don’t like over here”, he says “coz it refers to several sorts of people, the ones from Siberia, the ones from North Pole, and the ones from Alaska… so, it’s to put all of them in the same bag, the Yupik, the Iñupiat, the 2 Chukchi etc.” And so, at this point, to justify his brunette skin, he also confides that his mother is actually from Caribbean origin, “but now she lives in Europe with some motherfucker”, And then, we are already leaving the inhabited area, I mean, there are almost no buildings here, just a couple of warehouses with grayish containers on the lot and some broken piers made of wood and moss. This is, the warehouses look semi-rotten, and the accesses to it are actually covered with weeds and piles of shellfish hulls, and then, after some more walking through those desolated mountains, as we get to a sign saying “Tsunami evacuation area”, I spot some kind of building in semi-ruin, a building with that kind of roofs, more like a small arabesque palace. And so, there we go, as we approach it, we can already see more of those strange crosses with three bars, the lowest one kinda slanted, and I wonder what that means, but, instead of explain me about that cosses, as we go round this building, my mate tells me about a movie that was shot here, a movie with vampires and a post-office man that was a cannibal. “Actually the postman ate the orthodox priest from this church,” he says “and then, the Alaskan natives, the ones with slanted eyes, would become vampires… so, they would come out during the night, looking for people with no slanted eyes, etc”. and as he says this, we are already on the back of the church, trying to go inside, and then, as the devil rub the eye, a group of cigarette boats quickly arrives down there, on the muddy beach, and in a hurry, we see some guys jumping off the boats, and then, they beggin unlodin some kind of boxes, and here they come, uphill, crying these same mysterious boxes, and then, quickly, my colleague goes down, to meet one of the guys at middleground, and as they proch, I also notice that most of them actually have the face covered with that kind of coif automobile pilots also wear inside their helmets, and so, as it goes, my mate is already calling me to follow him, and there we go, by the mud beach where the boats are parked, and so, with haste, we also begin helping them to unload that merchandise, and carrying it up into this orthodox church in ruins, and so, after the job done, my mate makes a sign, and there we go, both mounting now on one of those cigarette boats, and then, while already tearing through the waves, I get to know that now, we are actually going through the Kreditzins group of islands, this is, Aiktak, Avatanak, Derbin, Kaligagan Rootok, Round, Tigalda, and Ugamak, all uninhabited, they tell me. And then, the inhabited ones will come, this is, on the next days we will make more stops at False Pass, Cold Bay, King Cove, Sand point, Chignik, Port Lions, Kodiak, Seldovia… and finally, we reach the Nuka Island, an unpopulated island that lies just off the southeastern corner of the Kenai Peninsula, I get to know. And so, here, we unload our merchandise, again in a hurry, this is, there are already other boats here waiting for us, bigger ones, and then, as the cigarette boats come back to where they came from, I follow in one of this recreational boats also operated by some demi-eskimos, this is, they even give me some drinks aboard, and when I wake up we are already going through the Alexander group of islands, this is, we pass the Baranof and the Kuiu and the Coronation and the Heceta and the Lulu and the Suemez islands, and then we reach the Haida Gwaii archipelago, that is already part of Canada, and from the Haida Gwaii we pass to the Vancouver Island where we disembark. And then, somehow, I manage to arrive in Vancouver city, and as I get in this city, I remember that actually, this is the homeland of David Townsend, the singer of the band Strapping Young Lad, a progressive metal band I used to listen to. And then, already leaving this city, I get caught by a Scottish-Italian-Irish plumber man that takes me to Surrey, and from Surrey to the border with the United States I get caught by two sisters coming from visiting their mother on the Canadian side, they take me to Seattle, and as we get to the city, one of them explains that “some people are really uptight about the nuances of each neighborhood in this city… they might argue that they live in Phinney Ridge – not Greenlake. Well, they’re pretty damn close together… Phinney Ridge sits along a long ridge whose slopes provide its residents with great views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains on the west and Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains on the east. Located in northwest Seattle, this neighborhood is primarily residential. 3 Homes tend to be on the larger side and sit on larger properties. Phinney Ridge is bordered on the north by Greenwood, on the east by Northgate and Green Lake, on the south by Fremont, and on the west by Ballard and Whittier Heights. Columbia City is inhabited by wanna-be artists. Beacon Hill is middle class families and polyamorous group homes. Seward Park – older Jewish couples. Rainier Beach – The ‘cultural’ part of Seattle, with barred windows. Some people just call that area Renton. Mercer Island – The rich and the richer, like Microsoft millionaires. Georgetown – Beards and the girls who love guys with beards. Tattoos and bicycle gangs. Capitol Hill – Hipsters and the LGBT capital. First Hill/Central District – A bleed of people between Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill. International District – Fresh off the boat Asians. Downtown – People don’t live here and if someone does, they’re probably corporately sponsored and travel a lot for work. Pioneer Square – Junkies and a few random people. Madison Park – We don’t see these people, their money has built them an invisible wall of solitude. Queen Anne – Wealthy families and single white girls. South Lake Union – Brogrammers from Amazon. Ballard – Aging hipsters who now have real jobs and are considering a family. Fremont – Just graduated college and still trying to balance partying every night with working 9-5. Wallingford – Hippies. University District – College kids, street kids, etc. Sandpoint – Slightly less rich people hide here. Ravenna – Where the recently graduated with jobs go who don’t feel the need to keep the party alive. Greenlake – Young families 4 and empty nesters. Greenwood – Perpetually single, and increasingly more socially awkward individuals. Northgate – faraway, inhabited by the scum… incapable of affording anything closer…” and then, already out of the city, after passing Portland, it’s night and I’m walking by the highway, not trying to hitchhike now, just walking, making some figures here and there, from time to time, 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 on the right side, and I… also waving back to some of them, as they pass by, as if… And then, it’s really night and I see myself speeding up the pace, like, if I would be in a hurry to get somewhere… and so, as I advance, I look up at the stars and I wonder if that is Orion, or is Taurus, or the Canis Major, the Canis Minor… or, I don’t know… but I 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 mythological 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… you gotten’t 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 4 picking on the road through the times… this is, he tells me of several youngs 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, 5 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 Rahab, 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 interveins “You 5 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 inneself... 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 Rahab, 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 creatures wandering through the highway, about this or that traffic inspection, and they drink wine, beer and laugh with stupid jokes about other kind of harlots and Solomons, 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 imagens 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 cames by, and asks me something, but I do not anwer, 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, now, as I pass through, 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 6 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 maladjust 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 say bye bye to this tedious man, and there I go, running through the sonoran desert.
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