It was February. West Virginia was blanketed in snow. My ashtray was blanketed in butts. I chain smoke when I drive. The kills were blasting loud over my stereo. God knows how fast I was going, but knowing West Virginia cops and my own impatience, it was well over 90m.p.h.. I don't like the drive, made it too many times. My car was old and wasn't really built for long distance travel. Miata's are fun to drive in short increments. But when you're cooped up in one for twelve hours, the length of the drive, they start to feel like a cramped cage. I had left Chicago at noon or thereabouts, so it was about eight or nine at night when I reached the mountains in West Virginia and felt my bladder notify me that I needed to piss. I exited off the interstate and started looking for a gas station.
West Virginia woods are beautiful at night. The scenery for most of the trip consists of corn and bean fields. West Virginia, on the other hand, looks untouched, looks natural. The tree's had long lost their leaves and their branches looked to be thin hands reaching for the snow as it slid down slowly, carefully, so as not to be caught. I watched the snow and tree's while I barreled down the snow covered side road. I know how to drive in the snow, so my speed only declined slightly during a series of planned fishtails while searching for a bathroom. After 15 minutes of no buildings I decided to stop and write my name in the snow.
It feels great to piss after holding it for a long time. I remember it felt great then, maybe that's why I didn't notice the engine shut off mid-stream. When I turned around to return to my car, I experienced a short wave of panic. For twenty minutes I tried to restart the engine. It was no use, the cable around the alternator had been loose enough to drain the battery over the duration of the trip without my noticing. The car was dead, I needed help.
I've always hated technology, but never as much as I did when I looked down at my cell phone and read "no signal" on the display. I'm kind of known for throwing phones against walls or into bodies of water, but I stopped myself that time. I realized that, no matter how therapeutic it would feel, it wouldn't help my situation. I looked in my trunk for warmer clothes and made the best combination I could. I had a Bears beanie, t-shirt, hoodie, leather motorcycle jacket, jeans, and chucks. Those god damn chucks. No closed toe shoe in history can be compared to the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star in terms of inability to protect from weather.
I had only gotten a hundred yards up the road before my feet felt like they were freezing off. It must've been ten degrees out there. I sang songs to myself to keep my mind off of the pain in my body. I love the cold, but that cold seemed unforgiving. I went through all the Modest Mouse and Foo-Fighters songs I knew. Then moved onto The Black Heart Procession and Queens of the Stone Age. I know a lot of songs, and by the time I finished the entire QOTSA catalog I started to get worried.
I walk fast. Three miles in an hour is an easy task. I looked at my phone. As useless as it was as a phone, it was useful as a clock. I had been walking for eight hours. Something was wrong, I should have been at the Interstate at that point. I started walking downhill for a while. That's when I realized I must have lost my way. At no point on that road did I drive uphill that long, I was lost.
The sun started coming up and my body was shaking uncontrollably. I was too tired to move with urgency. I decided to climb back to the top part of the road to see what I could see. The sun peaked over the mountains and that's all I saw, mountains and tree's. The snow covered the road I was on. I saw no interstate, no buildings. My body calmed down for a moment. I looked out at the big valley in front of me. I heard geese fly over my head, which was strange in the dead of winter. I love that sound. I remember thinking "this is a perfect moment." One of those memories that goes untouched in your head. One of those times that, when I'm nervous or worried, I go back to and calm myself down. I felt disconnected and alone, those feelings are freeing. There was no static in my mind, no worries weighing me down. Just the moment, and nothing attached to it.
I was so consumed that I almost didn't hear the man say, "You alright out here?" I looked behind me and saw a man with a bunch of surveying equipment. I replied, "what?" He directed me to his truck. I got in and he turned on the heaters full blast. My toes and fingers felt like they were on fire. My face and stomach started hurting. I couldn't feel my lips at all. He lowered the mirror in front of me and told me to look at myself. My skin was blue. He wanted to take me to the hospital but I declined due to my lack of health insurance. Instead, he took me to a garage and I got my car towed and fixed.
I frequently remember back to that moment and wonder what made that moment so perfect. Was it the beauty of the mountains and trees and snow, the geese flying over head. Or was it my brain slowly shutting down, locking out all thoughts, focusing on the moment, disregarding everything but what I could see and hear. Maybe it was both, ignorance is bliss, eh?
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