Redemption in the Middle of Nowhere

Introduction

This started as a way to kill time on the bus. It ended as the work I’m most proud of to date. In between, it was an experiment combining the components of a journal, a novel, and a biography. As I write this introduction, I have yet to read it over. I don’t plan to until I type it up. I considered adding some “character” descriptions and cutting some small details, followed by polishing it up a bit, but I want it to stand on its own. Consider that the journal element of the story. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.

--Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

Where there is hope, there is opportunity, second (or third or fourth) chances.

When I got off the R8 at Market East, I had this uplifting spirit of hope hit me like the stench emanating from the city sewers. I don’t know where it came from, or how it got there, but I didn’t care because I had it. There’s something endearing about this painfully boring trek from Philly to State College. It’s always inspiring. It starts with the Greyhound station. Outside are hacks, bums, and cabbies, preying on the rubes that need rides or have spare change. Then you go inside. Boy, is that circus. Nobody is himself in a bus terminal. Everybody’s either in a weary state of euphoria or a weary state off the undead. There is nothing about bus rides that is fun, and everyone there knows it.

I needed a ticket for my ride, so I jumped behind an Asian stereotype and waited in line.

“You can go,” she said, as she stepped aside. She was reading a timetable of Philadelphia-New York buses. I was in no rush, but I accepted and stepped forward with a bright “Thank you” spouting from my newly hopeful mouth.

About two minutes later, the Asian woman muttered something and stepped back in front of me. No problem, I thought, as I had a good 40 minutes until my bus left.

Another couple minutes, and the lady again stepped aside, inviting me to butt ahead. Again, I thanked her kindly.

The terminal was seemingly crowded for a Friday afternoon. It’s always fun guessing where people are going, so more people would be good for the game. The young adults were easy—either going home for the weekend or visiting a friend—and many wear their school’s apparel. In case their parents forget what they look like, they’ll at least remember what college they attend. The elderly are also gimmes—mostly headed to Atlantic City for some wheeling and dealing. Scandalous! But I guess that’s all you can do when you’re retired. Drink and you pass out within an hour. Walk and be sore for a week. Complain about the weather—well, I guess they must like that, because they do it a lot.

So, the retired people gamble their money away because they don’t know what else to do with it. It’s funny, you work for 50 years just to make a living, and then you retire and just give it away. Maybe I just don’t understand gambling.

The Asian lady was apparently done with her timetable again, so she politely declared, “I go now,” and stepped back in front of me. No problem. Only third in line now, with 30 minutes to spare.

After she frustratingly argued with the clerk for 5 minutes, she took her ticket and stepped aside. Good thing I’d gotten there so early.

“What’s your name?” the clerk asked after I requested my ticket.

“Kevin,” I answered, waiting for the requisite “Last name?” It never came.

She handed me my change and ticket and I walked away, chuckling over the “Mr. Kevin” printed on my ticket.

“Oh, what gate is that?” I called back.

“Nine. It’s on your ticket envelope.”

Oh. Duh. I had some time to spare so I burned $1.75 on a Pepsi not worth its asking price. It took me about eight attempts to get my perfectly crisp dollar bills into the machine. I wonder if they just do that at random to keep counterfeiters honest. I half-expected a hidden camera crew to jump out and tell me I’d gotten Punk’d.

I sat down between two girls roughly my age and sipped my eighty-bajillion dollar soda. One after the other they left my side, replaced first by a guy in a pink tie-dye shirt with an army bag branded with “cannibus” on the side.

“Yo, do you have a cell?” the Dude said.

“Yeah,” I said, regretting it immediately.

“Do you think I could use it to call Lancaster?”

Lancaster is three counties over. I’m not against the distance, but the thought of giving my cell phone to a stranger puts me off, especially since I’m already so prone to losing personal items as it is.

“I could just give you some change for the pay phone.” I was already used to giving up spare change in that place anyway, so I figured giving up my only quarter voluntarily would be a moral victory.

“Well, I just need to call my friend and make sure he’s going to be there to pick me up when I arrive.” He went on to explain that he was three buck short for his ticket and offered to sell me a lighter to make up his deficit.

“It cost me 10 when I got it.”

“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

I had no idea how calling his friend on my phone would help if he didn’t even have a ticket to get there.

“Can you watch my stuff while I go try to find a phone?”

“Those bags?”

“Yeah, my pile,” he laughed.

“Sure.”

I felt it was the least I could do on the off-hand he was telling the truth.

In the meantime, the other vacant seat adjacent was filled by a redhead in her late 20s. She turned to me and asked, “How do you spell ‘accrediated’?”

“I’m not even sure that’s a word. Do you mean ‘accredited’?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hmm…it could be A-C-C-R-E-D-I-A-T-E-D.”

She wrote it down and made a phone call. It sounded like she was calling information. She didn’t even use my spelling, the ungrateful wench. I almost felt like reassuring her that I was a good speller. She had her conversation and then made another phone call…to an escort service?

Wow, I was sitting next to a call girl, I thought. I pondered asking her what she charged, but I didn’t let my overactive curiosity get the better of me. I blushed and clumsily played with my empty Pepsi bottle as she described her, uh, “qualifications.” The people you find in Philadelphia.

I’d decided it was time to get in line, so I found the Dude sitting outside and informed him so. He seemed unaffected that his pile was now unattended, so I shrugged and walked away.

I got on the bus and had a conversation with a guy from Johnstown whose name I did not know. We talked about lots of stuff in the fairly short period of time—colleges, the shore, Greyhound, and so on. Friendly guy.

Just before our first stop, a baby on the bus started crying. Combined with my sudden and unexpected hunger, my hope turned to pessimism rapidly. Nothing made me sour like an un-quelled hunger.

What the hell makes babies’ lungs and throats so enduring? If I had a throat like this baby, the world would be in trouble. I turned around to give a quick I’m-not-trying-to-give-a-dirty-look glance and discovered the answer to my rhetorical question. The baby had enough beads in her hair to keep a Girl Scout busy for a week. I’d be crying inconsolably too if my mother made me get a hairdo that ridiculous.

We pulled out of the second station with a few new passengers and I slipped on my headphones, hoping the White Stripes would be able to drown out the primal scream therapy session in the back. A job well done by Jack and Meg. The crying faded underneath an attack of distorted guitars and pounding drums. My hunger became of secondary importance to my brain as it was busy processing the music as well as coming up with plans for the weekend at my old stomping grounds.

The bus had entered the Middle of Nowhere, population 1950s America. This is where the “Unions for Kerry” stickers turned to “Sportsmen for Bush” ones, and suits turned to flannel and jeans. I imagined the grey and puke green silos were shiny silver skyscrapers. Then I sighed and went to sleep, my forehead on the seat in front or me.

I had one of those dreams where you’re only half-asleep so you’re kind of wandering through your subconscious. I could hear Van Morrison coming through my headphones but I was definitely asleep. My mind flipped through random image after image like it was going through my memory’s photo album. It was like looking through a Viewfinder.

I woke up on the outskirts of Harrisburg, a town that is surely only famous because it is a state capital. I guess being a state capital in a state with two metropolitan areas earns you nice buildings and a minor-league baseball team. The actual downtown looks like you’d expect—Benjamin Franklin meets Andrew Carnegie. Faux-colonial plus faux-industrial. One step up from the middle of nowhere, it looks like it’s stuck in the 1970s. The bus terminal is to Philly’s as Harrisburg is to Philadelphia. There’s really no better way to describe it.

After I satisfied my longing stomach with some snack food, I grabbed a seat and waited out the layover. A girl I recognized from the first stop asked if she could sit next to me. I, being the virulent young man that I am, excused her crappy band t-shirt and said, “Sure,” in the coolest way possible.

We chatted for a few minutes, and in that span I again excused her for saying, “I am gonna get drunk,” and “I’m a senior in high school,” until she followed that with “I’m visiting my boyfriend.” The wearing down with my intrigue coincided with the announcement that my bus was boarding. I bid my farewell and walked away wondering if my understated charm had any effect on her foolish senior-in-high-school-with-a-boyfriend-in-college force field.

The bus hit a wall of traffic that presumably shouldn’t exist in the Middle of Nowhere, but hey, sometimes people with “W ‘04” bumper stickers don’t bother pulling onto the shoulder when they get into a fender bender. It happens.

My hope for the weekend began to dwindle when I realized that I wouldn’t be attending a party that night, since despite being good friends, my roommate and I had fairly little in common. He was very religious; I was borderline atheist. He didn’t drink at all; I would love nothing more than to get blasted on a Friday night at what amounted to a high-prestige party school, especially after the week I’d had.

For a four-day week, it was very stressful. With my first classes done, the fall semester was really getting revved up. Since I attended a branch campus full of commuters, however, “revved up” is like moped “revved up,” not Harley-Davidson “revved up.”

No the real bear that week was my part-time job. Waking up at 3 AM and loading packages onto trucks for four to five hours is no easy task. This holds especially true when you’re forced to do five hours’ work in three hours’ time twice in one week.

Come Friday morning, there was nothing left to do but have some Pop-Tarts, masturbate, and go to sleep. Unfortunately, the last of those had to be cut short after 10 minutes when I realized I had to pack, shower, and catch a train in one hour. And to think, I didn’t understand why people said “Not enough hours in the day” until I got a part-time job to complement my full-time student course lad.

As we continued to hurtle through the Middle of Nowhere, we passed the spot where my car once broke down. The hills of Central Pennsylvania are a dangerous place for a ten-year old car. They ate my SUV (without functioning four-wheel drive) alive. I was topping out at 45 in a 55 MPH zone. But I am a stubborn if not foolish lad, and I forged on until I was stuck 30 miles from anywhere of note. Not only that, but it being the day before Thanksgiving and all, no nearby auto mechanic was too eager to become Dr. Frankenstein for a couple days.

My two friends and I were then stranded in the quaint hamlet of Duncannon, Pennsylvania. How quaint? When we asked where we could hang out until a parent picked us up, we were directed to a pizza place featuring not one, but two arcade games. Except for a single employee, we were alone, basking in the warmth of a Mega-Touch screen.

For all the flak I give the Middle of Nowhere, it really is a beautiful place. It reminds me a bit of Ireland. Until you get to the omnipresent orange construction signs surrounded by mounds of dirt and dump trucks, that is.

I took off my hat and messed around with my hair. For a guy who loves having shaggy hair so much, I sure hate having shaggy hair.

***

The bus finally pulled in after what seemed like days. Today was one of those days where you feel like the beginning was actually yesterday it was so long ago. My trip back started great. You know the whole “My roommate and I have nothing in common” thing? Couldn’t be more wrong. As soon as I sat down to eat my college dining hall food-with-a-dose-of-laxative, we hit it off—cracking jokes left and right, cracking up. It was like I’d never left.

But something was different—not about Josh, about Penn State. It was like returning home, being reborn. The girls even seemed hotter. Maybe I was so out of it before that I didn’t notice. I mentioned this to Josh.

“You know how they say, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’?” Josh asked. “I think it’s actually supposed to be ‘Absence makes the girls grow hotter.’” I agreed.

Whether it was the two glasses of Mountain Dew or the elation from being back in Happy Valley, I was bouncing off the walls. This led to a downright rollicking hangout with Josh and all my freshman-year floor-mates at Qdoba. It was fan-fucking-tastic.

I left Qdoba even crazier than before. Josh and I began our quest to buy me a Penn State t-shirt that I could wear to the game. We ran into my old editor, Megan McKenna, on College Ave.

“Hey Kevin!” she said.

“Hey!” I said.

Josh hadn’t noticed I stopped, so I caught up quickly just as I heard Megan say, “What’s up?” My back was already turned at the time and I kept walking. I hadn’t meant to be rude. I always liked Megan. But thinking about it later made me think about how rude it was and how sorry I was. Then I got to thinking about how I’d pretend not to see acquaintances of mine just to avoid awkward small talk.

My God, I thought. I really am a jerk. Before I though it was a social anxiety thing, but judging from how I’d gone from my happy-go-lucky attitude to avoiding a mildly awkward situation in no time flat, it was an act of utter rudeness. My friends were right when they got angry at my stupid jackass antics. It’s not an act; that’s who I really am. I need to fix that, fast. I’m glad I realize this now and that I’m willing to make the conscious change in my demeanor.

Of course, at the end of the block, I went to click my heels, messed up the timing, landed awkwardly, and then tripped stepping off the curb. Instant karma’s going to get you.

Josh and I laughed it off as I jokingly blamed him for tripping me. We continued our quest for a t-shirt. My loopy phase continued through shopping, and we headed to Josh’s buddy’s for a movie. I made plans with Alex and left after a half hour. Alex and I hung out for a bit, walking around downtown State College and near some frats. Walking past a backyard kegger, we had a short exchange with some tipsy vixens. Alex correctly pointed out that one of the girls took kindly to me before we went our separate ways.

“Yeah, but I’m not really in the mood. You have to be in the mood.” Me and my excuses. “I mean, I came up this weekend to see friends, so I’m not going to let that get in the way.” Okay, plausible.

Later, Alex met up with his fellow over-21ers at a bar. Jenn, who I’d talked to earlier, must have gone to a bar because she never called me back. I was still waiting on Murph’s call.

I headed back to Josh’s dorm. When I was just about there, Jon called me. “We’re just going to a small apartment and I don’t even know if we can get in,” he explained. The blow-off. Subtly delivered, but message sent. Gotcha, Jon.

“Okay, well I’m going to meet up with you guys before the game tomorrow,” I reminded him. Jon told me they planned on leaving around 9. Fine by me. I told him about Jenn’s tailgate. Didn’t seem too excited.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said dejectedly.

I overslept my alarm, like usual. Alarm clocks are my mortal enemy. I’ve got the AM-PM mix-up, the mysterious shut-off, the low volume, and the rare but fatal Daylight Savings Time Massacre.

I scrambled through my head to find a solution to my early morning problem. Shower or no shower? No shower, apply deodorant generously. Should I bother trying to get across campus in 15 minutes? No way, José. So I called Alex, Murph, and Alex again, and headed to the computer lab to pass the time before I met Alex for breakfast.

We dined on omelettes (mine with too much Tabasco sauce) as I poured down a couple more glasses of Mountain Dew. Yes, I have a problem. I’m just now recalling that I had two more with dinner and requested the glorious beverage as a secondary choice to water at the football game.

We rolled out of the dining commons en route to Beaver Stadium. I decided to phone Jenn on the way there, but she had yet to leave her apartment, so I made the executive decision to forge onward to the land of Nittany Lion football.

Alex and I pulled a fast one and got junior seats in spite of my Frosh/Soph ticket. We then upgraded quickly as a seating mishap caused Alex to have his spot stolen behind his back. The kind usher named Melanie gave us some senior seats (on the 35!). I said, “It’s been a pleasure, Melanie,” amicably, and we went on our merry way.

The game was all too fun. Very exciting. Big hits, big plays, and big…well, jugs. The crowd was treated to a nice set when a drunken girl flaunted hers proudly. [This last thing—completely untrue.]

Unfortunately, one other thing that came out big was the sun. I got burnt like an albino on Mercury. Fortunately, however, I was wearing sunglasses at the time, so now I could tell people I was busy saving people’s lives with my superpowers this afternoon, and make them feel bad for bringing up my obvious appearance handicap.

I finally caught up with Murph and Jon after the game and hung in their room for a couple hours. Afterwards, I retreated to West for a fine dinner with the one and only Joshua Henry Ferris.

During the dinner, I got to thinking about how my demeanor is so different depending on the company. Around Josh, I’m quick to make a joke and not afraid to be goofy. I also watch my language a lot more closely. That’s not to say I curse a lot—only when I feel cursing is appropriate. When I’m pissed, I curse. When I’m fake pissed, I curse. Other than that, not so much at all, really.

When I’m with Jake or DJ, I’m as much myself as I get. When I’m with Jake and DJ, I’m too much myself for my own good—clumsy in my speech, off-the-wall, hysterically laughing more than half the time.

I always thought doing this—changing my demeanor, that is—was being two (or three or more) faced. I’ve come to accept it as normal. I mean, it’s not as though—cursing aside—I do it consciously. It’s my natural inclination to react differently in different environments. What can I say? I’m versatile if nothing else. Versatile like a fox.

As I pondered this, that god-awful Meredith Brooks song, “Bitch,” popped into my head. Ugh. I’m a soooooong from the ’90s.

***

After dinner, I really had nothing left to do but chill. Josh was ready to head off to another religious group of his, so I was left at the helm of 183 Hamilton. Murph and Jon were at some fancy-schmancy family dinner. I pulled up a chair and flipped on a college football game. Time to relax.

As the fates would have it, just as halftime struck, I saw Tom and Wil walking by. Looking for a nice diversion, I waltzed into Wil’s room and onto his futon to find Jay brandishing a (plastic!) bottle of Vladimir.

“You know you can make shitty vodka taste good if you run it through a water filter?” I said.

Everyone turned to me for an explanation.

“Yeah, my friend goes to Drexel and knows this guy who tried it as a science experiment for a class,” I continued. “It actually worked and he made a website about it, which is now insanely popular.”

Tom jumped onto Google to validate my story as Jay’s eyes darted to Wil’s Brita pitcher sitting on an end table. My story held up, and 15 minutes later we were doing our own walkthrough of the experiment.

The test sip was indescribable. It drew comparisons to “nail polish remover” and “rubbing alcohol” just by the stench. The flavor did nothing to improve its reputation. I personally have a very strong resistance to shots of hard liquor, and within seconds of gulping down a sip of Vladimir, I was contorting my face and scrunching up in the corner. Five minutes later, the burning sensation in my chest had yet to subside.

So we ran the filter. I didn’t try after the first filtering, but after the second I exclaimed (too) excitedly, “That’s passable!” Note to self: buy an extra water filter, do this at home, repeat as needed. [Ed.’s note: www.ohmygoditburns.com. You’re welcome.]

After my brief foray into scientific alcoholism, I watched the rest of the football game with Antonio. We rejoiced as Ohio State lost, joining Michigan and Iowa in the walk of shame. Antonio was a tad under the weather, so I walked back to Josh’s room to plan my next move. That ended up being a trip to the computer lab, where I talked to Jake, DJ, Megan, Josh (when he got home), and Catie. I also caught up on my favorite sports writer’s columns and posted on a couple message boards just to pass the time. For something seemingly so mundane, I left the lab very happy for both my friends and myself.

At some ungodly hour, Catie was wide-awake and bored, and I was dead tired and looking for something to keep me awake. I decided to give her a phone call. Due to the old West Halls black hole phenomenon, I had to take the conversation to the peacefully deserted quad. The weather was chilly—my teeth were chattering when I first got out there—but the skies were clear and absolutely stunning.

Catie and I talked until she was tired enough to sleep, at which point I advised her (being a self-proclaimed expert on the subject) that very little sleep is still better than no sleep at all. My already nursing vocal cords were running out of steam anyway.

At this point I realized that I needed to crash, and I had no way into my warm sleeping bag other than by calling Josh and asking him to let me into the dorm. I stalled, not wanting to wake him. Unfortunately, the chairs in the study lounge were not suitable for early morning naps. I gave in and called Josh when the maintenance crew showed up to clean my makeshift bedroom.

***

In the morning, I sauntered off the floor and out of my protective fleece shell to find that my sunburn was still present in (almost) full force. No surprise there. Anticipating a hassle at the Greyhound station, I left at the same time Josh went to church. I hit up the ATM for 30 bucks and got a move on. There turned out to be no hassle at the Greyhound station. Despite the fact that my return ticket was scheduled for the day before, the clerk gladly exchanged it for an 11:45 to Philly. I took an abandoned New Yorker on my way out and boarded the bus.

As we rolled through the cozy town of Lewistown, I noticed a sign marking the Kishacoquilla Creek. I have nothing to add; I just thought that name was funny.

When we got to Harrisburg, I rushed upstairs for some sustenance and new reading material, as my adopted New Yorker was already stale. I got three packs of Pop-Tarts, and goddammit if they aren’t made by some race of super-intelligent stoners. The never get old. I was disappointed to find, however, that there was no Mountain Dew in the fridge of the little convenience store. I settled for a Diet Mountain Dew.

I ate my delicious Pop-Tarts in the bus terminal with my bags sitting in front of me. A little Mexican toddler was wandering around, I guess looking for a place to grab a seat. Lucky for her, my obnoxiously bright yellow and black duffel bag was vacant. She plopped down on it and I just laughed.

“She’s a trip, isn’t she?” her mother said, breaking her Spanish to do so.

I just laughed some more, until she decided to switch to her father’s bag. Soon after, the cuteness level was raised to orange when a couple black children the same age started running around. A girl chased a boy out the door, and then met the Mexican girl. Needless to say, they hit it off, exchanging two “Awww”-inducing pecks. It just may have been the cutest five minutes of my life. The more time passes, the less I can control my smile.

And it got me to thinking about what DJ once told me. He said I look to the future and dwell on the past too much, and that I don’t bother to enjoy the present. It was in this moment of optimistic purity that I realized something very important: the only way to have hope for the future is to enjoy the present. Before, my optimism was hopeless. I was searching aimlessly for something that would whisk away all my problems instead of doing something about my problems. When these optimistic pipe dreams never panned out, I wondered why everybody got the breaks and not me. And instead of learning from my past mistakes, I either tried to move past them by forgetting about them, or I went through periods of self-loathing because of them.

Now I know what Andy Dufresne meant. He wasn’t sitting around, waiting for a chance to have his innocence proven. He was proactive, digging a tunnel and building a fortune of a safety net so he would land on his feet. That’s what hope is—a great thing, maybe the greatest of all things. It’s not optimism. It’s being content in the present and working to keep that contentment.

That’s what my dad meant when he told me nobody would like me until I liked myself. Jake likes himself because he knows who he is and what he wants to do with who he is. DJ is the same way. I never knew who I was. Somehow, now I do.

And when I start to doubt myself, lose confidence, or forget the meaning of hope, I can come back to this. This is a good thing, and a good thing never dies. Nobody would let it.

It’s just like Andy said: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” That’s damn right.

Afterword

Written September 9^th, 2005 through September 11^th, 2005. Special thanks to everyone who made me who I am today, especially Mom and Dad, Megan, DJ, Jake, Murph, Josh, and the rest of my family. Apologies to everyone involved with The Shawshank Redemption, but it’s your fault you made such an amazing film. I could go on with thank yous, but that list could be longer than this story. Most of all, thank you for reading it.