Chain Link Fence Part 3, Chapter 5 (510 hits)
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Submitted by TaK (View user info) at 2004-01-26 22:33:29 EST
**If you need previous chapters, see my reply below.** ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5:
"Ramblin' Man"
Of the three days following his mothers' death, Agragon had little to no memory. It was as if he had loaned his body to another man and went about his business in his mind, sorting files and researching, researching, researching. What he did remember was a sense that it was up, the game was played out. It was time to go about Evacuation Plan A, and time was of the essence. The sooner he got to the road the sooner the road would get him gone. There was no boundary left, no tie-downs. There was no wife to kiss goodbye or even a banking account to be settled. There was nothing to Agragon but the open expanses of land before him, and the rapidly fading memory of those put miles behind. This was his only purpose, and he went about preparing for his excursion in those three days with numb hands and a cavity in the spot his heart had occupied.
The decision to lead a wayward life was not a spur of the moment thing, nor had the idea occurred to him only recently. He had always longed to be a traveler, a man who was more animal than human, for some deeper reason he did not fully understand. In light of this he had always held a secret plan. It included bare necessities he would need and the general hows and which ways of his Pilgrimage, (he named it this, and with the capital, for important, and rather self-evident, reasons) the first and most vital being a short list of provisions and tools he would need along the way.
First, a backpack. Not a large hiking type with room for sleeping bag and fold-up tent, but a fair-sized, lightweight college book-bag. Enough to carry a man's livelihood and still allow for an all out run, if circumstances demanded.
Into the pack he stowed a small array of odds and ends: two pairs of jeans (nearly new), two button-down flannels, an unopened package of tube socks and one of boxers, a pair of long underwear, a toothbrush and paste, one five pound bag of brown rice in a pot with a handle that snapped on and off for easy storage ('O wonders of modern technology), a box of Saltine crackers, one box of eight hundred kitchen matches, one roll of Angel Soft, a compass on a short silver chain, a road map of the east coast, an ink pen and small diary, a finely honed hunting knife in a brown leather sheath, a rubber change purse from First Citizens containing all the money he was worth, (about thirty bucks after provisions) a harmonica, a carton of Camels, and four paperback books: a World Almanac, "Hamphill's Outdoor Guide to Wild Fruits and Vegetables", a wraparound and snap Bible (King James version), and an old beaten copy of Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha" with half of the sentences underlined and the other half highlighted.
These things being secured, he then obtained a body length portion of thin plastic that could be rolled into a tube and tied to the bottom of his pack for easy carrying. This he would use, on top of pine boughs and straw, to fashion makeshift beds along his path of open-air campsites. A large coat fit for cold weather he draped over his backpack, cinching the arms tight through the shoulder straps, and with that, he was done. Prepared as he would be. Except one more small thing.
********
In this fashion, with preparations put aside and the first leg of Evacuation Plan A underfoot, Agragon set his toes and heels to the asphalt and began his rambling, a day short of a full week before Botch would lose his precious butterfly hair-clip down the chute of St. Augustines' largest public library.
********
During that week Agragon moved south on a parallel with I-95, using rural roads during the days and any scrap of woods for camping overnight. On the evening of Ceyanne's run-in with the cute bartender - at the very moment she was stumbling her hazy way down a moonlit sidewalk - Agragon wrestled with sleep on his bed of plastic and pine straw.
On average he covered sixteen and a half miles a day, walking strict eight hour shifts. Trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible with his fires in the evenings, he wove a strange path from Raleigh to the border of South Carolina. It zigzagged here and there where he had left his southward course for denser forest. He used water from the Neuse for a while, and when he left the river behind, there were streams. Always water enough to boil rice for one man. Vegetables and fruits he found to be harder to come by than he had expected, but fertile land hadn't seen him yet, and he hoped that might change.
He also learned a lot about the true distance between ideas and dreams, versus actions and reality.
Not to say that Ramblin' didn't have it's positives. It was chock full of them. The open sky and the open road. The little things the mind tended to forget to take in when locked inside a sedentary life of television and pizza delivery.
Like the true music of life. Birds singing to one another and backing up the wind blowing through the leaves of the pines; the needles themselves slapping and brushing one another, whispering out a chorus over the grasshopper and cricket quartet proceeding in the tall grass that only dances. Swaying back and forth. The incredible feeling of the open air in your lungs and the road, the open road, falling behind you, taking the rotting putrid memories of back stabbings and double crosses - Cheatings, beatings, humiliations, and letdowns - along with it. The same road stretching on before you for what appears to be ever, promising adventure and trial, solitude and peace of mind.
But as with the rest of reality, the whole picture is never present in thoughts and dreams. Only through acting out the thought - actually going for the dream - or attempting the plan as it was laid, can both the black and the white be obtained.
Road life was good, but it was hard. Viciously hard. Sleeping had become a test of his will power alone. He would hear things, and if not, he would think so. Or the fire would burn itself out not halfway through the night and he would awake shivering and clutching himself in the sharp morning air, loath of his lack of a blanket. His arms and legs were covered with bites from the parasites that lived in the pine boughs he used as cushion beneath his plastic mat. He had seen no game so far, and even if he had, there was always a road too near by or a house not far enough away. Risking fires in the night was problem enough; he didn't want to add firing a sidearm within city limits to his possible downfalls. Especially not for one lousy raccoon or rabbit.
"Yeah, but brown rice can get old quick," he thought. "Real quick, when it's all you eat."
True enough. But he kept walking. There was nothing for him back there. If there was nothing except nothing waiting for him down the road, he figured he wouldn't have lost out any. And there was always a chance. When the world was so big, so fucking huge, and you just a scrap of a man with nothing to lose and not a care for a thing in the world - even your own life - there was always a chance.
Of what, he could not say. But he kept walking. It occurred to him only in passing which direction he was headed and where he would most likely end up. It was an alien feeling to him, having no direction, but nonetheless pleasing. Like being afloat in the waters of the earth. All waters. Being here, right here, while simultaneously flowing along on the opposite side of the globe, and filling the clouds above four different countries. For once he did not just see the world from his eyes. He saw the world without the presence of his eyes; saw the world around him and not him on the world. He felt small. Utterly and pitifully small. It was a humbling feeling.
On the fourth day of his Pilgrimage, a Wednesday it was, at the top of the afternoon, heat mist rising in the distance from the asphalt; Gon came across a man sitting sprawled beside a pack much like his own, (only this one was worn and stained by some unidentifiable green and brown substance that smelled like old cheese) with his back propped against the sidewall of a Hungry Hugo's Quick Serve. Old Cheese wore a battered pair of faded jeans tucked into cowboy boots with rundown heels and a bright green parka, also splattered with the strange stains. A gaping cold sore poked out from one corner of his mouth. Gon gave the man a passing glance and entered the store to splurge on a Gatorade and one of those vacuum-wrapped sandwich facsimiles. Using a portion of what little money he had, he paid at the counter and went out the front door.
"Hey gid. Step ovah here woudja?"
Old Cheese. Standing now, and motioning to him.
"I don't have any spare change mister."
"Spare jange he sez," Cheesy chuckles. "Not money boy. Just gum here for a second, eh? Let me ask ye sompin."
Gon stood undecided for a moment, and then took two tentative steps forward, covering not even a half of the distance between them.
"What do you want?"
Old Cheese darted his head around like a paranoid rooster, and assuring himself that they were out of earshot of anyone who may have been listening, pointed to Gon's crotch.
"I'll blow ye off for that bologna sammich sweet-cheeks," he breathed, a tendril of spit gleaming and dropping off of the sore on his mouth. "I know right where we gin go, and I'm known fer suckin' em' clean of the last drop, aye."
Gon stepped back, disgusted. The man was serious, his eyes were shining with hope and anticipation. He was nearly drooling on himself. It was sick. The kind of sick that made you want to do something about the world.
He stood there, still aiming one cracked and wart worn finger tipped with a pointed nail grimy with dirt at his prospective dinner, one eyebrow raised and both eye's below it hazy.
And something happened in Agragon's mind upon looking on this creature. Something, very clearly, audibly clicked between his ears, and he suddenly had to fight from passing out face first on the pavement. Raising a hand to the side of his head to steady his sight, he managed to fight off the dizziness and was further struck with another of those loud clicks that seemed to be coming from the very center of his brain. This one steadied him. Gave him a new light to carry through these dark halls.
He thought suddenly, was assured suddenly, that he could do something about the world.
"Sounds like a deal friend," Gon replied to Old Cheese. "Lead the way to the cleansing."
User Reviews
Submitted by BRICKHOUSE (user info) at 2004-01-27 12:58:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Gon, don't do it man, you'll regret it. Oh fuck it, cut his fucking head off and wrap it around his disease infested penis.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-01-27 12:08:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I've said this before, damn near any literary work can be broken down into its least common denominator. If anything this is more complex than a lot of what I've read. Here watch this:
Lord of the Flies - kids get stranded on an island, chaos ensues
Brave New World - a perfect world turns out to be lacking by a man who seeks to return to the old ways
Crime & Punishment - A bored intellect commits murder and a detective hunts him down.
Moby Dick - guy hunts for a whale
want me to go on or do you get the point?
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2004-01-27 12:05:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
uh oh. gon's gonna get herpies. or he's gonna kill that guy.
Submitted by cellar_door (user info) at 2004-01-27 05:49:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by esso_merda (user info) at 2004-01-27 02:53:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Another (+2) for mentioning "Sidhartha" by Hesse. I read that book about ten, eleven years ago and have since kept my ears open for the Music of Life.
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2004-01-27 02:24:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
To the beyond my good stranger esso_merda...
Spike, sorry! Glad it worked!
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (user info) at 2004-01-27 01:50:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh wow.
Made me ill, like it was supposed to.
SpikeGoddess
Submitted by esso_merda (user info) at 2004-01-27 01:40:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Where are you taking me, TaK?
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2004-01-26 23:17:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Pol Pot, you know what?
Your a fucking piece of shit. I really don't care about ratings, really that's not what bothers me. I could not give a fuck less about that. But seriously, have you read any other part of this story?
If you were to, you would understand that your review sounds retarded.
Submitted by hamilton (user info) at 2004-01-26 23:07:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by PolPot (user info) at 2004-01-26 22:41:56 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
Pol Pot condensed version:
Guy packs up and walks for a few days
Old man offers blowjob
Guy accepts
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-01-26 22:39:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2004-01-26 22:35:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Previous chapters:
Part 1:
Chapter 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/22616
Chapter 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/22679
Chapter 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/22737
Chapter 4: http://www.ubersite.com/m/22838
Interruption #1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/22949
Part 2:
Chapter 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23037
Chapter 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23164
Chapter 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23234
Chapter 4: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23349
Interruption #2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23654
Part 3:
Chapters 1&2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23760v
Chapter 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23847
Chapter 4: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23932
Thank you for reading dear Ubers!