The Brothers’ Bike Ride

Day 4 was a Saturday. I hadn’t slept well because my room was opposite a Wal-Mart, and the bright lights from its parking lot filtered in through a crack in the blackout curtains of my room. I woke up early from a dream in which David Letterman had invited me to see a taping of his show. We were in a restaurant with a red and white checkered table cloth. He said he’d get me a good discount on the tickets. There was more to it, but it was mostly about my imagined sense of 1980s New York at night. The dream felt kind of like this:

I can hear Tim saying, “What the hell was that?” Or maybe “what the f*@% was that,” but that’s tomorrow’s entry.

A truck pulls in for an early-morning delivery

Anyway, Wal-Mart. I have very mixed feelings about Wal-Mart. In each new town, it’s always a relief to find one because I know our basic needs will be met. Bananas, bandanas, band-aids, beer, things that don’t start with B: we have bought all of these in Wal-Marts throughout the south. And as I’ve mentioned before, there is a definite comfort imbued by well-known brands when you’re in a foreign city. In fact, the bikers are taking a somewhat unusual route this leg because I’m wary of staying in non-chain motels.

But… oh, you can guess the rest of my snobby, liberal, city-dweller feelings. Blah blah homogenization loss of character minimum wage red states poverty disenfranchisement infrastructure education opportunities. Hillary ’16.

Another cold one! Mark does not look happy about it.

The guys headed out on another long, unpleasant ride. I worked for a couple hours in the Best Western, then started for Ville Platte.

I was expecting it to be the Louisiana equivalent of Brawley. (I’m linking to some greatest hits here, Steve.) But it actually wasn’t so bad. Right before I got to the next Best Western I saw this place:

The logo uses Cooper Black, a font not seen in the wild very often these days

My thought, obviously, was, “I have to see what this is.” My theory was that it was a Wal-Mart competitor and that I’d be able to pick up some snacks.

But Dirt Cheap is actually more like a Goodwill, without the good will, and without any standards at all.

A tantalizing display of things that are 60% off

So, just imagine aisles and aisles that look like this, each with its own uniquely random crap. Here’s another example:

Perhaps you would like old toothpaste, some plastic bottles, a bra, or some other stuff

While it does not seem to have a Wikipedia entry, here is some background from the About page of its website:

The first Dirt Cheap store opened in 1998, in Petal, Mississippi, and has since grown into 57 stores and counting. Today, Dirt Cheap is a standalone company purchasing its own merchandise and exhibiting its own unique selling strategies.

Indeed!

I felt a little bad taking pictures and tried not to be too obvious. People were actually shopping in here, though the aisles of miscellany were generally empty of anyone. Most shoppers focused on the racks of clothing, which were arranged in a somewhat more civilized manner.

I left soon after getting the general idea, the refrain of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” cycling through my head — actually I was saying it out loud over and over under my breath — and went to, yes, Wal-Mart for the snacks I’d set my sights on.

Then, because it was still a little before check-in time, I headed to the state’s pride and joy, Popeyes® Louisiana Chicken. There were kissing cop cars in the lot, and I immediately got nervous, because Silvester’s registration, like my many bottles of seltzer, expired long ago — in fact more than a year ago. (You gotta feel for Silvester; he hasn’t been given the love he deserves.) Starting in Arizona, with a few exceptions, we’ve been traveling through essentially lawless lands. But in Louisiana, the landscape shifted. There are cops. And I have no idea what will happen if I get pulled over in a rental car with expired tags. Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow!

So I pulled into a spot out of sight for the police cars, providing I left before they did, because I was right next to the only exit. I hurried in and placed my order.

Wouldn’t you have been less obvious if you’d gone through the drive-thru?
Sort of! I would have had to drive right past the cop cars in order to get in line. Like I would have been two feet away from them.

But the whole process would have been faster.
That’s true.

Did you really think the cops were in their cars and not inside, enjoying a leisurely meal of Popeyes unpossessive chicken?
Yes. I mean, I couldn’t tell!

Did you park at a weird angle that made it look like the driver of the minivan was a nervous person and/or scofflaw?
Yes.

There was no one in line, so my three-piece chicken tender meal was put together instantly. I decided to eat it in the car so that if the cops spotted Silvester’s tags I’d be there, ready to cooperate and play dumb. On my way outside, I saw two policemen in a booth in a relaxed posture, laughing over their chicken and ice teas. I had nothing to worry about, probably. But I decided it was too late to turn back.

I took another photo with the sauce in the proper orientation, but my phone didn’t save it so you get this

I set the box awkwardly on my lap and dug in. I consider myself a chicken tender expert due to vast baseball park experience, and these were not nearly as good as I’d hoped. But the fries were great, and, spoiler alert, held up well in the fridge overnight, which fries never do. I don’t know if that means they aren’t real fries or real food or what and I don’t care. I did not eat the biscuit because I’m trying not to over-calorize.

This was my view as I ate lunch and has inspired Day 4’s band name: Bunkie 22. Bunkie 22 would be an annoying ’90s band in the vein of 311 or Blink-182.

The pinky orange “Sweet Heat” sauce got all over my bleached chambray shirt, and in my nervousness I’d neglected to take napkins, and in my vainness I’d neglected to take photos. I just let it set on in to the fabric, telling myself I’d be able to deal with it soon when I got to the hotel. This was difficult for me. Five minutes later I pulled in to our next Best Western, covered the seven or so splotches with my sweater, and checked in. Once in the room, I immediately changed into a t-shirt (because it was like 65 degrees, a temperature my skin thought it might never feel again). Bar soap took the stains right out.

The Best Western in Ville Platte seemed like it might have been furnished by Dirt Cheap, but it wasn’t all that bad, except for an overly strong smell of commercial grade soap. I’m more sensitive to smell than I thought; it really has the power to disrupt my experience of a place. And later the new manager kept asking me if everything was okay, and I kind of wanted to give him all my notes, i.e., you need to get all new furniture and linens and you need get this weird smell out, but I mostly wanted him to stop asking, so I just said yes over and over and smiled falsely and agreed to write a positive review on TripAdvisor which I can’t in good faith write.

Dad and Tim went to church late and were back about half an hour later. We walked across the parking lot to El Charro for dinner. It was decent! I had steak tacos.

This place made some effort with their decor and I appreciated it.

Our lonely Best Western. By morning the parking lot was almost full. I am pleased with this photo.

Back in my room, Dad and Mark blogged while I helped Tim map out the route for the next day. Tim asked if we could turn on the Weather Channel and the TV was tuned to AMC, and AMC was playing Jaws, so we watched that. Then the guys went to bed and Jaws 2 came on and boy, it’s not very good.

Best Western hallway in the Kubrick style

Hotel Art of the Day

“Modern” “abstract art”
24″x18″
Best Western, DeRidder, LA

Hotel Art Score

4/10. I don’t know. The best thing I can say about it, to tie things back to the ’80s, is that those raised boxes remind me very slightly of the abstract shapes in some music videos from my childhood. But it’s not bringing anything to the table as art, and it didn’t have anything to do with the room’s bland decor, so looking at it just made me feel cranky. But it’s not completely terrible. I just don’t like it.

Art Art Score

2/10. I just don’t like it.

I’m a day behind. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Lumberton, Texas, a little after sunrise

At the start of another cold day

I worked for about five hours on Friday but didn’t finish the thing I’d really wanted to finish, so I left the hotel in a BAD MOOD.

On my way out of town I had to make a hairy left turn onto a busy street. After waiting a while I finally saw an opening and started creeping into the lane of oncoming traffic; I just needed the traffic on my right to pass, and in seconds it would. But suddenly a car coming from the right turned left onto my street, taking my turning window. Meanwhile, a semi truck was bearing down on me from my left, and I didn’t have time to accelerate quickly enough to clear it. So I backed up to avoid death. But it was scary and did not improve my mood!

The drive was neither here nor there for me; it was too crowded to achieve the sense of oneness with the world I’ve found on previous trips, and I was pretty distracted thinking about work. I contemplated moving to my parents’ shore house for the next six weeks so that I would be forced to work all the time and wouldn’t have to engage with the things and people I care about. And somehow having and then discarding that thought freed me. Also Spotify (or God) kept playing jazz as if it knew my brain needed to break out of its overly trodden stress grooves.

I’ve been listening to a mix Andy made from Tom Moon’s 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die on shuffle on drives going back to L3, I think. It’s incredibly diverse and about 93% awesome. (If you want in, let me know and I’ll share it with you.) After listening to it semi-regularly for more than two years, I still encounter tracks I’ve never heard before. But whenever you’re with people and try to turn them on to it, it plays stuff that makes you look weird for liking it. There should be a term for that phenomenon, as well as for the phenomenon of your computer slowing way down whenever you want to show someone something on it.

I happened to catch the guys right at the border

Dad is enjoying his fruitcake

Let’s pause for a moment to marvel at the great state of Texas. We crossed into El Paso on the last day of L2 and spent the next two legs exclusively in Texas. It is pretty much its own country, and like most countries its people and culture are varied. Despite spending 19 days in it, we barely brushed its expanse.

It was a short drive to DeRidder after crossing the Louisiana border, and I pulled into the parking lot of the first grocery store I saw to replenish our beer supply. A clerk saw me wandering around like a clueless dope and asked if she could help. I said I was looking for six-packs and she told me they weren’t in this building but in the brown one just outside. Okay.

But first I decided to buy some seltzer, because I had found good, unexpired seltzer in nice glass bottles. All previous bottles I’ve had on this trip have gone flat after one sip, and I realized it was because they were all expired. (My bottle from Day 2 expired in November 2013.) Anyway, the checkout girl at Brookshire’s was frazzled and gave me change of $11 instead of $16, and it was kind of an ordeal to get that $5, but not one worth describing. And yet I’ve spent three sentences almost describing it, so why stop now? But I am.

The brown building was a tobacco and liquor store. There were maybe eight kinds of beer available. That is not a lot of kinds. It seems that in Louisiana liquor laws are determined by municipalities rather than by the state. In New Orleans, for instance, you can drink pretty openly wherever you go, but in this part of the state they seem really uptight about it. Anyway, I picked up a sixer of Fat Tire Amber Ale.

When I saw Wal-Mart next to our Best Western, though, I stopped in, thinking they might have beer with hops, and thinking also that somehow Wal-Mart would have found a way around the separate tobacco/liquor store requirement. Yes and yes. I stood for a while in the busy self-checkout line only to learn after trying to scan my beer that you can’t self-check alcohol.

The guys arrived at our Best Western around 5 p.m. again, totally beat by another long, cold day. I asked Mark what the best part of the day and the worst part of the day were. “This is the best part,” he said. “Everything else was the worst part. Today sucked.”

Dad wanted pizza for dinner, so we ordered from Domino’s and blogged quietly in my room while we waited. The pizza arrived and tasted good. Tim read to us from Crossing the Borderlands. It was a nice night.

After dinner Dad and I walked over to Wal-Mart for more mini wine bottles. We stood in the line of a young lady, and she told us in a very teenager-y way that she couldn’t check us out but would call someone over. She called us “you fantastic people” twice and pronounced receipt “reh-seh-pit” on purpose. She looked mildly like perpetual teenager Kristen Stewart and had a streak of green in her hair.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about how to purchase alcohol in this part of Louisiana.

Just before bed I watched some of Burlesque (2010) on Bravo (starring Cher, Christina Aguilera, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, and Alan Cumming). It was strange and I don’t recommend it. The director of photography would try to enliven scenes by using fog or unusual saturation when it had nothing to do with the action, and it just made the production look cheap. Also Christina can’t really act. But she sure can sing! And she has big boobs.

Hotel Art of the Day

Scribbled circle on colored squares
Digital, 20″x20″
La Quinta, Lumberton, TX

Hotel Art Score

6/10. When I first saw this and its companion, which is similar but has squares of different colors and a scribble that resembles a scary face, I thought, “Oh, brother.”

But then it grew on me. Maybe it was because everything else about the room was so inviting, but I ended up feeling warmly toward it. I am able to see it as a statement about the potential for harmonious co-existence of chaos and order.

Art Art Score

3/10. I think that I’m imposing that meaning on it and it’s actually just some cynical hotel art meant to tie in the room colors but add some visual panache. But I’ve thought more about this than usual.