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2001-05-28 - 11:10 a.m.
Ed: The first half of this is new.
The Project
Episode 5
(In which our young hero goes for a walk, bikes through Chicago, and visits Indiana and Michigan)
Carrie has called me back. I almost miss her call because the machine picks up after two rings and then I hear that it is her and I am too nervous to pick it up. I just let her talk into the answering machine and savor it, that I have actually gotten the girl to call me back! But yes, then there�s the matter of actually talking to her and arranging something, and that takes at least another day. But finally we go out for a walk one Friday afternoon.
Again, my legs are leading the way all on their own, because I can�t let my brain stop long enough to think about it. I am trying to make it all go perfectly, present myself just as I want to be presented, make this new me look exactly like the person she wants to know. I can be anything, believe in anything, just tell me what and I�ll do it.
She has convictions. She feels strongly about the lifting of the sanctions on Iraq. She feels strongly about the need for low-income housing in Uptown. She attends rallies on deforestation. She has been to Africa, to Nigeria, no less, and witnessed the problems of the world firsthand.
I tell her how I�ve always had a problems coming up with convictions, how there are so many things and how do you choose? It is so hard to know you�re doing any good in the world, to even just work on yourself and do no harm with your actions. You�ve got to boycott 90 percent of the companies out there, and how do you know even those companies are good? You�ve got to stop eating meat and sell your car and be like one of those strange religious types who hang in a basket from a tree, afraid of stepping on or disturbing the habitats of the slightest bug down there, even though you know that everything�s already fucked up anyway.
So I hype myself instead as someone who�s trying to make sense of the world, who wants to do good, wants to be a part of something, if only somebody would just show me the light (hint, hint). I want her to pour out her goodness, she must have so much of it, give it to me, because I am so needy, I need love, nobody has ever been able to love me enough, I always need more.
She is going on this bike ride, Chicago�s monthly Critical Mass ride. I could go on it, she tells me, even though I don�t have a bike. I could borrow her bike, her helmet. I try to gauge her, act all nonchalant, to see if she really wants me along, but I really want to go, so I say yes. She tells me they�ll be dressing all crazy, she and her housemates, wearing bright colors and flowers all over the place. So I�ll wear something bright, to make my little contribution to this bike ride, which I�m now thinking of as a parade filled with floats and people in costumes and things.
I go home and cook up some eggs and rifle through my closet to find something bright. I put on my splotchy tie dye T-shirt, and on top of that my hideous button-down shirt covered with Joan Miro abstract shapes, and on top of that and basically covering both those shirts, my black-and-yellow bumblebee sweater that never fails to attract attention, and then on top of that, my Beatles Magical Mystery Tour tie. I am dressed to impress to be sure.
I ride over to get set up with my bike and helmet, and Carrie has her outfit all set up to go, a nice flowered dress, and flowers all over her helmet and bike. She�s riding in the back half of a tandem bike, or �double bike� as I call it, punctuating my ignorance. And about ten of us ride on down there, whizzing down Broadway, in and out of traffic, me trying to keep up in the back, just one step ahead of the yellow traffic lights, or maybe even just missing them but I can�t worry about that because I don�t even know where we�re going.
We get down to where we�re going, which turns out to be the Daley Plaza downtown, and it�s swarming with bikers, none of whom are wearing bumblebee sweaters or Magical Mystery Tour ties. I break away from my group and take a look around the place. These people are real bikers with the sporting outfits to match, bikers who are really aggressive about it, have a chip on their shoulder against cars. They have to be that way because they�ve been pushed to the margins by the cars who don�t care about them, use their size to push them to the side, don�t see them as legitimate vehicles. So they fight back by going on these monthly rides, where hundreds of them take the streets so they can no longer be ignored or pushed around, where the gas-guzzling, road-hogging car will have to stop for them for once as they sneer.
I am an imposter, a spy, I think as we circle around the Daley Plaza, between the Picasso sculpture and the memorial fountains, and take off on our route. I am the one person here who owns a car and not a bike. I�ve never even ridden a bike in Chicago. But maybe now I will take it up because it�s flat and there�s a nice breeze coming down, evaporating my sweat as the evening descends and the pedaling is easy. I can hide behind my crazy sweater and tie, and my absolute undefinedness as a person, become one of these people if I watch them closely enough and nobody would be the wiser.
So we ride along, me trying not to cling too closely to Carrie, chatting with her friends who all live in Uptown and who each come down to the critical mass ride, because they all love biking and believe in it. I get to talking with this girl Marnie, and we get to talking about life in Uptown.
I tell her where I live, which is this old apartment building on Lawrence. She knows which one I mean, in fact, she used to live right next door in a place owned by the same people. Rents have been shooting up over there, like they have in lots of other spots around Uptown, squeezing out some of the low-income people she and her friends try so hard to help. The beauty, the character of the neighborhood she has grown to love so much, all the poor families of immigrants from all over, Vietnam, Mexico, Ethiopia, who congregate here because it�s the only place they can afford, everything is changing, or is at least in danger of being changed, the chain stores could replace the local shops and the colorful immigrants replaced by the upwardly mobile young white people.
People like me.
Me, the one who has never seen a moment�s struggle like the people I live among, who moves into their neighborhood on a whim into an apartment lots of these struggling families can�t afford, my signature on that lease justifying that higher rent, giving the landlords the right to raise the rents still higher, until the whole neighborhood is just a bunch of yuppies and the Burger King and the Gap can finally take over the local shops.
Who drives around in his car, using up the Earth�s resources and clogging the roads and now deigns to champion the cause of bikers by dressing up crazy and riding amongst them, who has decided to quit his job because he doesn�t feel like working.
Who instead has worked a total of two of the past six weeks, and those in a cushy office job, who�s not really sweating it because he�s never been in any real danger of discomfort and is not likely to be any time in the future, who has decided to just mosey through life, stopping to smell the roses amongst all these struggling people just because he can.
�You can say what you want. You can�t offend me.�
Wait, that doesn�t sound right. I am trying a difficult maneuver of trying to ingratiate myself to this girl, make her think I�m on her side despite her best instincts, all while trying to keep pace with her among this throng of bikers as we wind north through Chicago.
�I mean, don�t be afraid of offending me,� I say.
�Well, I don�t think you�re a yuppie. Look what you�re wearing.�
My disguise is working. Just dress in outlandish clothes and you�ll throw anybody off the scent.
She goes on to tell me that really, it�s great that I�m getting involved, that if only everybody would come out of their shells then it�d be a much happier community.
Here among these people, though, I am still the aloof person, who�s afraid to commit to one idea or belief, unlike some of these people who seem so sure of themselves, in their conviction that bicycle = good and car = evil, that some of them sneer at the cars, kick the cars as they pass by, and at every intersection they block a few of them get off their bikes, loft them over their heads, and chant, �Bikes! Bikes! Bikes!�
Up ahead, at one of the biggest intersections yet, there�s some kind of commotion. I�ve arrived late to the scene, where it seems that there has been some sort of confrontation between a biker and a motorist, and a policeman is there taking hold of a biker and putting handcuffs on him. A few of us scratch our heads wondering just what happened, but then some people start chanting, �Let him go! Let him go!� and soon everyone is joining in. The policeman plays it like he doesn�t care about the throng of people shouting at him, just puts the man in his car and drives away and the crowd starts to disperse.
There�s one girl in the crowd who�s trying to catch everybody�s attention, telling everyone we should go down to the police station and protest this atrocity, and sure, I�m game if everyone else is. Nobody much is biting at the idea, they�re all starting to take off in the opposite direction, and she�s left shouting to a crowd that has turned away to follow their predetermined route. And I go off with the massive, because as much as I love a good protest scene, I�d much rather track down Carrie, who looks so nice with these flowers in her helmet, and I keep her in my sights most of the way home.
***
All this time I�ve been living I�ve also been writing what I live, not just in my black notebook but now also on my little web-diary on Diaryland, writing a story about my adventures the same time I have them, and my friends have been reading all about it. Now everything I do is being recorded and memorialized, and they have the chance of seeing themselves reflected through my interactions with them. It has suddenly, in the past day or so, become the big subject of conversations, which can of course be distracting, destroying the whole zen process of actually having an experience.
I go to South Bend, Indiana where my friends Eric and Carolyn live. They�ve been reading about my latest adventures on the web, and they�re anxious to see the new me, and I�m jumping at every new opportunity for adventure I can, so I head out.
South Bend is a mess of a town, a suburban prairie-land that has grown up too quickly with Wal-Mart, Target taking over the old farmlands. There are empty spaces here and there, but they have been reserved by the machine.
We stop at a this burrito place for lunch, a place that looks like it could have been a doctor�s office two days ago, and sit down to eat, listening to the soothing sounds of Rush�s Tom Sawyer in the background. Since I have been writing about my experiences as they happen, and posting them onto the web just as fast, they already know everything I�ve been doing, everything I�ve been thinking. Which is great because I�ve never been able to communicate very well through speaking so they are getting a clearer picture of me, but it also makes it more difficult to come up with things to talk about. The only things left to talk about are those mundane details that didn�t make it onto my diary. I start to tell them about my bike trip yesterday, but then decide I�ll just let them read about it in my diary.
Instead, the conversation increasingly turns to Diaryland. Eric, who has been pushing for creative projects for years, is clearly pumped. He starts joking that they want a good write-up, and I joke that I�ll blast them, and suddenly the implication is clear that yes, I will write about all this in my diary, in fact everything I do might be done to write about it in my diary.
We go for a drive to Michigan to watch a comedy show. I�m trying my best to play it cool, act natural, but I suddenly feel that I have become not only the person they have known for years, but also this new explorer whose personality is painted in broad strokes on my diary. I am the person who has random adventures and writes about them, and I must bring some of that personality out here. I take out my yo-yo and start yo-yoing, mostly because it was in my pocket but maybe also because it seems appropriate for my character to be yo-yoing at this particular time.
We wander through the town, stopping at the local convenience store, where some kids are hanging around outside.
�Cool, a yo-yo,� one kid says. �Do a trick.�
I tell the kid I can�t that the core is made out of wood and too rough so I can�t make it sleep, so I hand it over to him. They each give it a shot, and one kid makes it sleep, and I am proud of myself because I have fulfilled my role as magical wanderer, I have interacted with the local color for a moment, and then we leave them to go ride their bikes and get into the mischief that 14-year-olds get into, and we go off and see our show.
Everything I do these days is material, and I must always be in character, and everything around me must be a symbol or a sign. A dollar bill goes blowing by for me to save, and this is a sign. I find a blue six-sided die on the ground just as I am considering the random possibilities of life, and this is a sign. And today, Eric is raising this little self-conscious game to the next level, noting the signs so frequently that their meaninglessness becomes apparent. There is a road sign bearing his last name that we pass on each trip to Michigan. He anticipates it and then announces its arrival, calling it an auspicious sign.
After our trip to Michigan, we go for a walk around the lakes of Notre Dame. The place is filled with religious icons, the most overpowering symbols of all. At one spot in the woods are three statues � one of Jesus on the cross, flanked by Mary and Mary Magdalene, we think. There�s �Touchdown Jesus,� a huge mural of Christ that is visible from the football stadium in the distance. This is the spot in the story, Eric suggests, that I reflect on my religious upbringing and come to terms with it, reflect on what�s wrong or right about it. He has infiltrated my story and is fiddling with the knobs.
We scramble out onto their favorite tree, which hangs silently over the lake under the slivered moon. A few random people try to wander by. Sitting out on this tree reminds me of� Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The raft, meandering down the Mississippi River with only trees on either side. I am Huck, Carolyn is Jim, only a white, female, pregnant Jim. The symbolism� perhaps I can equate Huck�s 19th century raft journey to my own aimless 21st century journey. Perhaps I could tie in the Rush song �Tom Sawyer� from the burrito place? No, no, no. I need to slap myself out of this.
We leave the tree and go walking in search of a bathroom. I am letting myself get lost in thought, enjoying the feel of my feet swishing against the dirt path. Swishing? Or is it shuffling?
�Dave, you notice you�re shuffling your feet?� Carolyn says.
�Yeah. I was just � enjoying the feel of the dirt,� I say.
�He�s trying out different verbs! �My feet shuffled along the dirt path.� He�s living his Diaryland entry!�
Quit it! I�m trying to have a moment here!
We go into a campus building and I am left alone. I can play this game. I can create my own symbols, my own auspicious signs. I find a vending machine. I will buy something symbolic here, something that will make perfect sense for the moment I am creating. I scan the items � Skittles? An energy drink?
One vending machine has all sorts of random items for sale. I almost settle on the Hi-Liter � perhaps I can use it to highlight important moments somehow. Eric comes by, attuned to the game. He suggests the Chap Stick. Then we see the computer disc. I take out my crinkled dollar, unfold the corners (This is a moment I have already relived and recorded, on audiotape with Eric, by the time of this writing � I have decided, after all, that it will be an �important moment�) and press number 17 (perhaps the significance of the number will reveal itself in the future. The disc comes rolling out of its coil and clammers down to the bottom of the vending machine. I pick it out with its label from among the candy crumbs and wrapper bits and take out my pen. I write on the label, �Dave�s First Book (No Pressure)� and slap the label on the disc, and throw the disc into my pocket, and now the die is cast.
Now I am living not only my Diaryland entry but also my first book, but what I really need to be living is my life. Nothing can be done just for the fun of it. We play Boggle, then search for the significance of the words. And if I can�t discover the significance of the Boggle words, I will write about the futility of searching for meaning in the random, about the impossibility of the hero trying to notice the foreshadowing of his own story, to be participant, observer and director all at once. I have to step back, stop this self-reflexive crap that turns my life into a hall of mirrors where everything is self-created and meaningless. I must restore the illusion.
So we go home, and we eventually go to sleep, and we wake up the next morning and go to Ganges, Michigan, a place that Eric has been hyping for years as a haven for peace and meditation. In those years, Ganges has grown ever more splendid in my mind, turned into a peaceful little village with canals and a Buddhist temple on every corner, where everybody walks around in robes or just naked, and they spend most of their time sitting under a tree and becoming enlightened.
That�s not quite how it turns out. We drive up this little path toward the Interfaith chapel, the center of the action, past an unused concession stand. We walk out to the Labyrinth, pass the little donation box and begin our walk. It�s a dandelioned path with tufts of grass on either side, and we must follow its twists and turns until we eventually reach the center, where stands a flag bearing the image of the Earth and this is, perhaps, another symbol. Another knock-you-on-the-head symbol, crying out to you, �Have an experience! Have an experience!� but fortunately we are smart enough to realize that the purpose of this walk is to realize its purposelessness, despite the prize of the flag at the end, that the real goal is just noticing your footsteps and the grass and the air.
We come out of the Labyrinth and we peek in on some meditation huts, where there is a rocking chair and some picture albums and some statues and I look around for the sign that says, �Have an experience here.�
Then we go for a walk in the woods, a nice touch for such a meditative place, only with every other step one must read one of the dozens of inspirational quotes that are nailed to the trees. Some are faded and some are falling off the trees, and you don�t even have a chance to digest one sign before you come up to the next, and they all seem to be saying something to the tune of, �Have an experience on your walk in the woods!� We sit down at a bench. I joke that the only sign that means anything to me here is the one that is sitting upside-down, fallen from the tree, which I have not read yet. Because maybe I can make this one my auspicious sign.
Eric picks up the sign and it reads �Poison Ivy � Stay on the Path.� And of course we all laugh, because this was funny, but also because maybe it is an auspicious sign, the first honest-to-goodness real sign we�ve seen all weekend. Maybe it�s telling me to stay on the path, and not go wandering off, knocking on false doors, searching for things beyond that will just foul me up. And don�t go looking for inspiration from the signs that other people have nailed on the trees, just keep on the path and you�ll find it in your own good time.
Other parts of this story:
