EMAIL HIM

His Philosophy

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1. Immortal Lee County Killers, All Night, The Loners
Supersuckers Country Western Extravaganza, with Jessie Dayton

…Chapter 1…

Despite the fact that he would be broke next month, Michael Harrigan decided to rent a car and drive home. The bastard working the Greyhound Station in Durham had closed early, preventing Michael from buying a 7-day in advance fare, the only fare that’s worth the aggravation of being carted around half the country for twenty-four hours to make it to a town an eight-hour drive away. Michael had ridden the malt liquor of transportation up and down the East Coast and once across the country, and it never ceased to go down hard and give him a terrible hangover.

The cheapest place to rent a car was also in Durham, and Michael had to take three buses to get there from his apartment in Carrboro. He’d planned on taking the J from Main Street to East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, then hop on the 413 at 4:13 to Durham, then get the No. 1 to the mall where the car rental agency was.

It was Friday at the office. Michael had to leave an hour early to get to Durham before the rental agency closed. He let his boss know. It was okay with her. He finished up his work processing payments. It was tedious. He left without saying goodbye to anyone.

He was a minute late for the J, which was usually five minutes late, but on time that day, of course. It was only a mile and a half to East Franklin, so Michael started to jog. It was June and the sun was beating down. Sweat seeped through his work clothes. He made it in time.

Ray from the pizza joint was outside.

“You look hot, man. You want a drink or something?”
“No, man. That’s alright. I got a bus to catch.”
“I’ll get you some water.”

Ray got the water. Michael thanked him and drank it down. He felt like he was in a marathon to get home again and ray was one of the spectators, holding out a cup. The bus didn’t come.

Michael noticed the 413 on the other side of the street, picking up passengers in front of the record store. He quickly went through his bag to find the bus schedule. He was at the right stop according to the schedule.

Michael thought about it. It didn’t make sense to go inbound to Durham from the north side of Franklin Street. The schedule was wrong. He had missed his second bus.

Luckily there was a 413 arriving five minutes later. Maybe he’d still get the No. 1 in time. He crossed the street to the correct stop.

Five minutes later the next 413 came. A transvestite got off the bus along with some other passengers, mostly students. Michael got on. The only passengers left were three middle-aged black women. The driver was a stocky white man in his mid-thirties with a New Jersey accent. The driver spoke to the black women the whole way to Durham about the transvestite while Michael read a book. The driver from New Jersey was pleased as pudding that he had something in common with middle-aged, Southern black women: they all thought transvestites were creepy. It was a great day to be an American.

All the buses were waiting at the station in Durham. The drivers stood around and smoked and talked to each other while the passengers milled around looking for their bus. The No. 1 filled up. Michael and a methamphetamine addict where the only two white people on the bus. No one talked to each other because there were no transvestites around to talk about.

Michael got to where the building used to be that housed the car rental agency. The building was gone and a parking lot was in its place. Michael considered murdering some random person until he saw that the agency had moved only fifty yards away in an adjacent building.

He waited for a while inside the agency and a young Jamaican man came out from the back. The man entered Michael’s information into a computer. He couldn’t find the keys to the economy hatchback (or equivalent) Michael had reserved. Michael considered murdering the man until he decided to upgrade him to a full size for no extra charge.

The two got into a truck and the Jamaican man drove Michael up to a 2003 lime green Nissan Ultima with Florida plates. He felt almost ridiculous getting in the car. It had a color like it was driven by rich beach boys and Don Johnson wannabe businessmen with no taste. Michael got in and started the car. He winced as the AC blasted cold air into his face and the stereo cranked a rap station at maximum bass. Michael laughed out loud at the disparity between himself and this fancy vehicle, but he also felt vaguely important to be driving a car like this. He adjusted the climate and sound and quickly threw in a Ramones CD he had in his bag. The Ramones didn’t go with the car either.

But all that didn’t matter to Michael Harrigan. He had wheels. He was no longer a passenger, if for only a weekend. He was the Man. He could go wherever and do whatever the hell he wanted, for two days. He was In Control. The bastard from Greyhound was an angel from God, a bastard angel who closed early.

Michael was a Driver.

…Chapter 2…

Like an excited kid on Christmas Eve, Michael slept only two hours Friday night, tops. He had planned on leaving at 4:30am, Saturday morning. He lay awake in bed, looking at the clock. It was 3:50 and he’d been wide awake since 3:16. It would be pointless to try to go back to sleep. He got his things and began to load up the trunk of the 2003 lime green Nissan Ultima with Florida plates. He loaded his suitcase, suit, tackle box and fishing rod. The trunk was so big it appeared empty even with all of Michael’s things.

Anna woke up. Her eyes were puffy with sleep. Michael told her he was leaving early; that there was no point in trying to sleep until 4:30.

“Do you want some coffee?”
“No. I’m wide awake. I’ll get some at a gas station down the road when I start to get tired.”
“Okay, well, be careful. I’ll miss you.”

Here he was, finally. Lighting out with four tires beneath him in a brand new car he could never afford, the next eight hours at his command. He could stop at some local tavern up around Beckley, WV and lose a fight to some mean hillbilly drunk on shine if he wanted to. He could turn left somewhere and drive all the way to the Pacific if he wanted to. He’d never do it though. Actions like that would invite unnecessary bourdon, especially for a lover of Solitude.

He took off down Highway 54 at 4:09.

Fifty-four was dark as hell. It took Michael a few minutes to figure out the high beams. He saw deer on the side of the road which made him a bit nervous, but that didn’t affect his great feeling about being free for the next eight hours – Alone and In Control.

He had the window down all the way like he liked it. It was cool outside. It would help Michael stay awake. But he liked it that way anyway. It took a while to get rid of the itch to put the window back up; he was used to being a passenger and having to compromise to make everyone else in the car comfortable.

Michael put in Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak. He cranked it and it didn’t matter. The Boys are Back in Town. Like always when Michael heard that song, he thought of his older brother and leather jackets and Sheridan, and he wanted a beer and a slice of good pizza and a hit off a bad joint.

A light caught the corner of Michael’s eye. It was from the southern sky, behind a steep hill on the side of the highway. It was too early for the sunrise. The 2003 lime green Nissan Ultima with Florida plates rounded the bend and there was the full moon glowing in a weird haze like a werewolf movie and Michael smiled and at the top of his lungs belted out a couple of “Fuck Yeah!!”s and he turned up Thin Lizzy even louder on the stereo.

He got onto I-40 around Greensboro and after passing a gaggle of semis got another good view of the moon and howled like Wolfman Jack and sang along as the two guitars belted out one of the best harmonies in rock ‘n’ roll. “Hangin’ down at Dino’s!”

And no one was there to tell him to shut the fuck up.

Michael didn’t get a good view of the sunrise, which he always enjoyed much more than sunsets because it was always cool and quiet and the only people around were too tired to infringe on your Solitude anyway. The sun upped around Mount Airy near the Virginia border where Michael knew you could get some great views of the mountains rolling around heaven. A valley appeared around the bend on 74E/77N toward the east with Pilot Mountain, resembling a woman’s nipple, in the distance along with some adjacent mountains and green farmland in the foothills where somebody was probably growing sweet wine grapes. Michael rubber-necked while maneuvering his lime green vehicle from Florida around the windy bends through the majesty of Appalachia in the cool fog of the early morning. He came over another hill and got look at the highway winding into the mountains ahead

Michael had Born to Run on the stereo; it reminded him more of his old neighborhood than some kind of soundtrack to a road flick. Rustbelt songs poured out of Springsteen’s soul about getting the hell out of your damned town, but a town you love nonetheless, and the blues on you from having to leave the pizza parlors and barber shops and old cemeteries and streets your older brother fought on, lined with dive bars and their WWII vet patrons who regarded your granddad as legendary and bought you a beer for it even if you weren’t of age. You can’t get enough money to buy respect like that anywhere else but home, where you got respect just for being related to great men.

By this time he was up in the western tip of Virginia and the force was indeed with him, and just as those soft, nirvanic piano and sax breaks in the middle of “Jungleland” came on he hit a thick patch of fog along the winding mountain route. The visibility couldn’t have been more than thirty yards but Michael didn’t slow down. The mist wetted his left arm propped up on the open window. Then the fog seemed to part and settle along patches of mountain on either side of the highway and it looked as though the sky descended unto the earth. This is truly Heaven, he thought, because what else could it be, when music and sky and road and mountains and water and air and the mood of Michael Harrigan harmonize so perfectly?

The road curved left and right, and Michael sailed along and melted into it All, balanced at eighty miles per hour.

Michael stopped twice during the trip for coffee and refueling and bathroom. He got through the speed traps on US-19 in West Virginia where the local cops collected their scenic and wildlife fund by slowing the traffic from 75 to 50 in a short span.

When he was finally nearing home, around Carnegie, he put on Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and everything felt very familiar. The scenery was a perfect visual for the album, like a weird episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Coltrane played the trees and the old brick mill-worker houses on the hills and the factories and Michael looked out at it all. He took his exit off of I-79 and a right onto the windy road to Crafton, and passed the restaurants, passed the cut-rate motels, passed the gas stations, over the Thornburg Bridge and up Steuben Street and Coltrane played it all and the drums rolled with the wheels of the 2003 lime green Nissan Ultima with Florida plates.