Gray

Chapter 25

I sleep it off in my bunk. When I wake up, we're still driving, on Interstate 90, jumping off onto 94 toward Minneapolis. We play a show there that night, then follow the interstate up into the great stretches of nowhere, past Fargo, across North Dakota and Montana, where the country just becomes horizon for days on end. A succession of sunrises and sunsets with no obstructed views. God's country. You meet the mountains just past Bozeman, climb up into the clouds, your cell phone merely an afterthought at this point, a stop in Missoula, Wild West Cowboy Col- lege Town, then through Idaho within hours, into Washington, down into the valley, Spokane on a Saturday night. Across the great green expanses of the state, barreling down on Seattle, the glimmering emerald in the bosom of the mountains. Mount Rainier over our left shoulders. Then 90 expires, and we head down 5, along the coast, Tacoma, on toward Portland. Trees for miles, patches of bright red clay, God's dirt, the best there is. So clean and fresh, I almost con- sider shipping some back to the kids in the skyscrapers of Chicago, because they don't know what they're missing. Because words will never do it justice. 

I love the long stretches between conversations best. The quiet is like blue waves running be- tween screaming, tourist-filled islands. It doesn't feel forced; it feels okay to just be breathing, to just be riding up front with the guys, our little family band. I cool my cheek against the window, watch my breath fog the glass. At night the sky is lit with a million jumbled stars, scattered across sheets of velvet. The stars out West are jokes on city kids like me. They make you feel in- significant, they put you in your place. The rain and the fog are almost invitations to slip this bus off the road, into the trees, the sounds of glass shattering and metal bending, one wheel still spinning and the smell of pine cutting so hard. I'd be okay with dying in the woods just off Inter- state 5. 

There is nothing but days of driving now, a lull in the schedule. Oregon at a leisurely pace, National Forests around every turn. Into California, like another world up north, just redwood trees and mountain peaks. We are bound for Sacramento, the odd-fitting capital city, like Albany, only more depressing. It seems like an afterthought, something they decided to give the people there because all the good stuff had already been handed out to LA and San Fran and San Diego. A consolation prize. A show there and then two by the Bay and then home again for a few days, then flying out East to begin another tour, different bus, different driver, the same eternally shift- ing world. Our video is in the top five of TRL; we will be doing appearances in Times Square. Our album is selling more and more copies every week, and the label thinks that, with a second single, it will go platinum. We are a priority now. The shareholders have freed up more funds; we will be shooting another video, going to the UK and the rest of Europe. But all of that is still months away. Right now, we are stopped at a rest area outside Willows, California, sitting on the picnic tables out by the pine trees. Right now I look out at the traffic headed north, feeling the fleeting summer breeze on my neck, almost like a kiss or a caress. A wave good-bye. Right now I get a call on my cell phone, from a Chicago number I don't recognize. I answer. It's Her room- mate. Right now she is crying on the other end of the line. Right now I hit the ground.