Kookshow, Chapter 8: Border

 

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(7-25)

 

 

Riding across America with my truck-driving neighbor from Evergreen Estates was an adventure in itself. I could have easily accepted that feat alone as an experience worthy of being retold while drinking with friends at bonfires held throughout the summer. Yet my mission in heading west was one more specific in nature. I wanted to achieve two personal goals. First, to finally reach the Golden State after more than sixty years of life. Second, to solve the riddle of Kookshow Baby, and decide if my affinity for her as a nearly mythical figure was warranted.

 

The first of these achievements was accomplished as Carter Polk III steered his commercial rig across the state line, over a bridge spanning the Colorado River on I-40 at Topock. Situated between Needles, California to the North, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona, to the south.

 

I silently bowed my head to offer a prayer, when this mile marker had passed. The act made my host flinch in his sseat, and exhale dramatically. He patted me on the shoulder.

 

“Hey, are ya okay old man? What’s happenin’ over there?”

 

I nodded to assure him of my wellness.

 

“All good, I just wanted to give thanks for getting this far. It’s been a thing in my family for years. Dad took his Aunt Areta to her new home out west, in 1949. My great-grandparents ended up in Pasadena. He always wanted to follow, but it never happened. One uncle of mine lives outside of San Francisco. A cousin tried moving to Cali, but came home eventually, for the sake of our family. You might say we’ve had that vibe lingering for generations. I used to play records by Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, or Brian Wilson and his crew, while dreaming of dipping my toes in the Pacific Ocean. All I ever got as a consolation prize, was a trip to Lake Erie. But that energy has lasted ever since...”

 

Carter raised his eyebrows, and smiled broadly.

 

“Dude, ya could’ve hit the road years ago. Why wait so long if it was a big deal?”

 

I had to think for a moment before answering.

 

“As John Lennon once observed in song, ‘Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.’ That’s pretty much it, really. Marriages, careers, responsibilities, a sense of duty to the bloodline, all those things crowded out my good intentions. Eventually though, I ended up here. Busted and broken, limping along, but free. When it finally dawned on me that all the roadblocks were gone, that came as a revelation. I had gained liberty from my failure...”

 

The veteran driver seemed to understand, immediately.

 

“That’s what I get from going on the road. It’s more than a damn paycheck. I can’t take being cooped up at home fer too long. I need tha wild frontier, ya know? I’ve put thousands and thousands of miles under my wheels. And it still feels great to be gone. I don’t have a home really, this is my happy place. Whenever I quit movin’ that makes me feel dead!”

 

A pinprick of recollection struck in my cerebral lobes.

 

“That was my younger brother, too. He had to give up trucking for health reasons. That hit him hard. He  hasn’t been the same since. The wanderlust never goes away, I think...”

 

Polk scanned gauges on his dashboard, then settled into a traveling groove.

 

“So you’re in California, bruh! Ya did that much. Now yer gonna go find that chica at the abandoned drive-in? I’ll wish ya luck. I hope it turns out like ya want!”

 

My stomach felt a bit uneasy, while pondering.

 

“Yeah, we’ll see what happens with this roll of the dice. Maybe she will think I’m too old, too shaggy, or too crippled with my disability canes and thick glasses. Some of the residents at our trailer park say that I look like a mountain man, or a homeless bum. I figure both descriptions are accurate. It doesn’t matter though, at this time and place, I couldn’t be anywhere else. Fate or God, or whatever you believe in put me here. This is my spot in the timeline...”

 

The road king nodded, while gripping his steering wheel with authority.

 

“I like that take on living. Ya got a point there, we’re all where we are. Fighting it just stirs up shit, and I don’t need any more of that! I’m not a big fan of drama!”

 

Anticipation evoked tingles of excitement, while watching miles of highway pavement pass my window. Each breath brought me closer to the moment of finality that I had been seeking. I wondered if Terry and Tiffany DuFoe felt similar emotions, while waiting. Yet also, worried that my cornbread, media queen might be unaffected by such vibrations. I knew that as a member of the Cult Radio community, she must have grown a bit jaded with so many celebrities and dignitaries moving through her space. As a weathered old piece of Buckeye wood, I might be somewhat disappointing to behold. Perhaps, too much of a philosophical minimalist to match the fast pace of her everyday routine.

 

“See, I live by a new creed now. Call it a reinterpretation of something I heard as a kid, in one of those chopper films from the 1960’s. Peter Fonda’s rant in ‘The Wild Angels’ with music of Davie Allan, included as a bonus. That said it all. ‘We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time...’ Does that sound too basic to be plausible? But it works now. All I have in the world is a longbox home, brought in on wheels, and a refrigerator full of beer. A lifetime of sacrifice and duty yielded nothing more. But I’m content. Maybe this is a turning point in my path, I don’t know. Or it might be a losing venture, where I crap out at the tables, and go home dragging my tail behind. One way or another, it’ll provide inspiration for my art. That’s what matters, in the end...”

 

Carter shrugged and grinned as the last few miles before arriving at Lake Hughes disappeared.

 

“I hope yer gamble pays off, man. If not, we’ll be heading back, in the other direction, on Monday morning!”