Going, going or My Chemical Romance

Driving into another night, I’m remembering how physically draining it can be to make a cross country trip. The battle with hips and lower backs is well-documented by the Over-The-Road class.

I’d forgotten, though, the battle with blood sugar.

A candy bar or one of those fruit smoothies from the cooler wreaks holy hell on my glycemic index and I struggle to keep my eyes open. So, it’s time for more coffee.

I’m awake now and vibrating. If I fill up my car cup once more, hallucinations will kick in. I’ll start seeing the exhaust signatures of cars miles across these darkened grasslands. Or I’ll see my high school girlfriend climbing up my leg with a knife in her teeth.

Ah well, the important thing is that I’m alert and ready to click off more miles.

And then the arch. Forgot about this. Former Governor Jim Rhodes built an arch, similar to the one in St. Louis, but much smaller, on the state line bordering Indiana.

Rhodes was in office when the four students were shot and killed during the anti-war protest at Kent State. Here, on the opposite side of the state, the arch bore a big sign proudly naming Rhodes as its patron, even though taxpayers funded what is essentially a work of public art.

When I was a kid, my family would drive west maybe once or twice a year and so we’d pass under this arch. Each time, my father would point at it and ask why “that bastard Governor wasn’t in jail for murdering those college kids.”

This is not the kind of memorial Rhodes hoped for. I don’t care. Right now, I’m thinking of the college kids.

Welcome to Indiana and a forest of billboards.

Half bear catchy wording or pictures of puppies, pleading with anyone to “Advertise!” The other half promise to increase the yields of your corn fields.

Again, the road at night calms down. I see a truck or another car maybe once or twice every 10 minutes. And it’s not the coffee or hallucination. I look around and know exactly what this landscape looks like in daylight.

It is pale yellow, the color of harvested mid-Western fields. The few trees that once indicated property lines are silver-brown, perhaps the most evocative color of fall.

Of course, right now, everything’s black. Not so much the absence of color but the absence of light.

I’ll stop soon and find a hotel. Tomorrow, I’ll see if my image of this place is accurate.

This may be the first time I’m actually looking forward to waking up in Indiana.