Lost.

I went on a walk a few nights ago.  I was upset, and from previous experience, I’ve learned that nothing can calm volatile emotions like a walk.

Especially when you get lost.

Now I was never really that lost, I always had a handle on where I was, though I wasn’t always going in the right direction.

Vague, yuck.  Let’s try this again.

Angry at people, I told my girlfriend I had to get out of the apartment for a bit, and I was going on a walk.  She told me to enjoy it.  So nice to have that, someone who knows you know what you need and doesn’t try to question it.

So I left and just started walking.  I always wanted to know what the road behind my apartment complex led to, so I sought to find out.

I walked down the road until I happened upon a subdivision of houses.  Mostly one story and small, with toys scattered on the lawns and one of those little kid cars they push with their feet toppled over on the sidewalk.  It was nice to be on a sidewalk, as they are rare in Evansville.  

Recently walking down a sidewalk less road with some friends, a driver nearly killed us all, narrowly speeding by, not even tapping the breaks.

As soon as this driver sped past us, a cop heading in the opposite direction pulled a U-turn, started the siren and lights, and began, seemingly, to follow it.  However the cop stopped right next to us and quickly jumped out of the car.

“What are you guys doing in the road?” he indignantly shouted at us. 

“Well, we are just walking back from getting some food and—“

“Walk in the grass then!  There are drunk drivers out this late, and all of you except” he points at me, “are wearing black!”

Great, I was on his side now.

“Ok” we said back, head hung down low.  We knew we were in the right and the cop was being, well, a cop, but he could have gotten us if we argued.  We’d all drank that night, which was the reason we were walking.  If we had driven to the restaurant it would have been drunk driving, and now that we were walking it could be public intoxication.  Lose-lose in the eyes of the law.

If we hadn’t been drunk:

“We wouldn’t have to be in the road if there were any sidewalks in this shithole town”

“Why don’t you go after the drunk drivers instead of their potential victims?  Oh yeah, that requires actual work instead of picking on young people.”

“We aren’t allowed to wear black?”

Etc.

So it was nice being on a sidewalk.  Drunk as I was, I had nothing to worry about in the neighborhood walking on the sidewalk, as cars drove by the only worry I had was being yelled at.  Which didn’t happen, I was only laughed at once.

I arrived at an intersection at the same time as a car.  Our paths were perpendicular.  So I stopped and waved them by, as by my logic, a car could go through the intersection faster than I could.  But the car just stayed there no matter how clear I was making it that I just wanted to stand at the corner.

What if I really just wanted to sit at the corner, would I have been forced to cross an intersection I didn’t want to cross just to get rid of the bright lights and people behind them.  I imagine I would have, being me.  Just crossed to get rid of them.  And in a way I finally did.  I didn’t know where I wanted to go, and I think it was at this point that I got lost, being forced to cross by this car I tried to wave ahead.

They could see me but I couldn’t see them but still they won that interaction, just a huge metal machine forcing me to move, no humanity to it.  And so I did move, I crossed the road and they drove through the path I walked after I hit the sidewalk.  And they laughed at me.  I could see the four girls inside, all their faces, skin shining from the street lights, smiling and laughing in my direction, pointedly.  

Maybe they weren’t laughing at me, but when I hear laughter out of context I nearly always assume it is directed at me, caused by me.  That my condition deserves such laughter.  Strange that most of my social life consists of trying to make people laugh that I fear the laughter of strangers and am hurt by it, in a way.

I tried to forget it, tried to not let it ruin my walk, my getaway.  My desperate escape.  I was wearing my VFFs (Vibram Five Fingers, use the google, I’m not going to bother with an explanation), just in case I had the urge to run.  And after that intersection I did.  And I ran hard and fast, I could hear the sound of my nearly bare foot slapping the pavement, one after another, in a rhythm that quickly climaxed and slowed again to walking.  My chest hurt, I couldn’t breathe and I was sweating.

And then I saw the building that told me I was far away from home.  I thought I was heading back to the apartment, I had to get back by a certain time and I was close to missing it, or so it felt.  I didn’t have a way to tell the time.  I thought about cutting through lawns to get to the main road my apartment complex was on, but the idea of walking down that street, especially after being laughed at, horrified me.  Images of bottles being thrown at me flashed in my mind and I decided I would stick to these side roads. 

  

Ok, I’m on Saratoga, alright  going well, I’ll turn right here towards my apartment and now back left and… fuck a dead end.  

I ran as often as I could, stopping to catch my breath or to orient myself.  This time I stopped to decide if I would walk further from my goal or just cut through some yards.  When I was a kid I would always cut through peoples yards and never feel to strange about it, but the older I got the more I felt like a criminal when I cut through yards.  I guess I just fear confrontation, or getting yelled at, or someone sending the dogs out after me, or calling the cops, or bringing out a gun, or stepping on a land mine.

That last one has been with me since I was a kid and someone told me a certain yard had land mines in it and now every time I cut through a yard I have the land mine possibility run though my mind, no matter how ridiculous I know it is.

A quick internet search shows that people hate it when people cut through their lawns.

A quick memory search reveals that yes, people do.  I blame it on the media, ha ha ha.

I set off so many fucking security lights that night, making me feel as though I was breaking out of prison instead of trying to get home.  I walked slowly and deliberately, so if someone saw me I would be seen, I hoped, as not much of a threat.  

Or like Anton Chigurh.

I kept seeing the same street names and I started to have flashbacks to my psychedelic experiences, wondering if I was trapped in my imagination just walking down the same road over and over again, never getting anywhere.  Those thoughts were easily dismissible, but still I ran more often and further than before, seeking to disprove I was ending up on the same intersection over and over again.  I saw the same houses I had already passed, saw the same people through the windows, but at a different angle this time.

I kept thinking that a road was the right was until I went down it for a while and realized it wasn’t familiar, and then saw the lights of a large home store, and turned around.

Finally I made it to the road I sought to explore and ran all the way back to my apartment, covered in sweat and relieved to have made it back.

The entire time I was already putting the experience into an analogy for my life.  First I walked by toys in yards, then the toys started to disappear and I saw a man watching television through a window.  Then, when I had to decide something important, I was forced a certain way by society, laughing in my face the whole time.  I started to run, to find somewhere else to be, but instead I realized I had gone the wrong way.  And to get back, I kept going down the same roads, not learning from my mistakes.

Eventually, to escape my mistakes and the treadmill I was stuck on I cut through some yards, terrified of being seen by anyone, of being caught.

But maybe there isn’t an analogy there at all.  Maybe I just went on a walk after having too many drinks and came back better for it because the panic helped dissolve my mood.

Let’s hope I keep going down this road though.  The one where I write instead of avoiding it.  Let’s hope the next time I want to stand at a corner the car will just drive by instead of staring me away from the corner.  Most of all, let's hope we find somewhere with more sidewalks.