Ghost Tour (ch.23)

September 27, 1998

[PART THREE]

A foreign city. The stage was blanketed in fog. Not from a dry ice machine, it was more primordial. Reid couldn’t find the pedal board at his feet, or anything else onstage for that matter. Strapping on his guitar, he found it had no strings.

Presumably there was an audience in the mists. He started to panic. He was not prepared. He would be unable to perform.

The hum from his Fender Twin grew more encompassing. He came to recognize the sound, not as a buzzing tube amp, but the whir of a large diesel engine. He opened his eyes and found himself on a thin mattress in his darkened bunk, steamrolling at highway speed. He was on the tour bus.

Parting the curtain, he executed a controlled fall from the bunk onto his feet and wobbled into the closet-sized bathroom. He balanced with his shins against the bowl, the door swung closed against his posterior.

Once relieved, he padded past vacant bunks toward the rear lounge, empty in the late-morning sun. He’d only experienced the bus as a hive of activity. Now deserted, it was almost as eerie as his dream, a rolling ghost town.

Back up front, he paused when he heard Kenny speaking as if in conversation, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else there.

“You know I always give people the benefit of the doubt, but I had a feeling about that guy… anyhow, they can take the scratches off back at the barn, we got an extra couple…”

Kenny stopped mid-sentence when he realized Reid was standing there, listening.

“Hey partner. Thought you were still sleeping.”

“Who were you talking to?” Reid asked.

“Oh, just myself…occupational habit.”

Reid eased himself onto the captains chair. It felt warm, like someone had just been sitting there.

“Catch up on your sleep?” Kenny said, changing the subject.

Reid rubbed his eyes.

“Ninety percent human.”

Kenny could hear the sandpaper in Reid’s voice. Taking him onboard had been a snap decision. His boss wouldn’t have agreed to it, which is why he didn’t tell him. The kid needed time. Or shelter. Or something.

“Looks hot,” Reid said, looking out on the high desert.

“Quite pleasant this time of year, actually,” Kenny said.

Heading east on I-40, the landscape was dramatically different than what they’d passed through on their way west. Looked to Reid like something out of a John Ford western.

Though a chase scene between Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote also came to mind.

# # #

Kenny’d been planning to stop in Albuquerque, give Reid a place to explore while he took his mandatory eight hours. But then, Kenny’d gotten into his own share of trouble in Albuquerque, one time or another. Seemed Reid might need protection from that sort of temptation.

He pulled off at NM-117, headed south about five miles to a vista he knew, there were a few spaces for buses.

“Gonna catch a few winks. Nice place for a wander, just make sure you bring some water with you.”

Kenny cut the engine, took a few swigs from a water bottle himself, then found a lower bunk to sack out.

Reid wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous, but the view from the sandstone bluffs was too commanding to pass up. He grabbed some water like Kenny recommended and headed out.

The air was dry, maybe eighty. Perfect really.

The sign read El Malpais. Reid’s high school Spanish was basic but good enough. This was bad-ass country.

Another bus arrived, this one full of Japanese tourists, content to smile for each others’ digital cameras, the vastness of the valley as a backdrop.

Kenny would be conked out for a few hours. Reid stepped over the low wall and began descending the sandstone, which radiated heat in the orange New Mexico sun.

The Japanese chatter faded, replaced by the wind racing down from a distant mountain. It was a different sound than the Pacific. Dry, raspy, but similar in its ability to dominate the thoughts. A complete audio reality.

Reid asked quietly at first,

Are you still following me?

Confident the gusts would mask a full-throated call, he repeated,

ARE YOU STILL FOLLOWING ME?

No answer, but the wind. Maybe the ghost was gone. And yet he still felt…observed. In this place, the presence was so vast, it seemed an answer would be known in the heart directly, without intercession by the English language.

His boots had dried but grown less pliant. He stepped carefully from one boulder to the next. He grabbed onto a ponderosa pine to keep from sliding.

When the ground leveled out, it changed composition, became volcanic. Badlands. Not a place you’d want to live. But radiating something. Maybe something useful, even.

He stopped a minute, took a drink of water. Kenny knew exactly what he was doing, pulling off here. Reid had a sudden memory of clapping erasers against the outside of his elementary school on a hot day, chalk dust on his hands, in his nose. His fifth grade teacher would send him outside when he got too rambunctious. She knew what she was doing too.

It wasn’t just continuing the bus ride that was necessary. It was this place, this moment. This is what needed to happen.

A lizard scuttled past, desert emissary. But still, no answer.

Reid kept walking, volcanic rock hard beneath his feet. There was no definitive length to this wandering, though he certainly wasn’t going to make it to that distant mountain and be back on time.

When he stopped for water again, he drained the bottle to the halfway point. This was the only measurement. Go much further and you’ll run out of water. With this small bit of clarity, he turned around, headed back.

Back up on the bluff, he perched himself on a rock. The Japanese tourists had been replaced by Germans. The path of the sun arched downward toward the west.

The wind was ever-present, but he could hear Kenny’s voice when it called out to him from the open door of the bus.

“Let’s go get us some supper.”

# # #

There was a truck stop right there at the entrance to I-40. Kenny ordered himself a steak dinner and insisted Reid do the same.

It came thick and well-done with a heap of crispy fries spilling overtop and a pile of green beans besides.

Kenny trimmed a bit of fat, cut himself a healthy square and ate it with gusto. This was his one good meal of the day, and he was going to enjoy it.

Reid didn’t realize he was hungry at first, but a good mouthful jumpstarted his system. It’d been a long time since he’d had a steak. Kenny was right, it was just what he needed.

“Gonna get to see your wife earlier than expected,” Reid said, making conversation.

“She’s a busy one. Be good to have a few extra days off, anyway.”

Reid still hadn’t been able to envision his own homecoming. Kristina was there, theoretically, it was the coupling mechanism that was in doubt. Like two runaway railway cars, seemed they were on course to collide rather than reconnect to form a working train.

Questions remained about everything. Accessing Kenny’s common sense was another reason Reid tagged along. But the success of their friendship so far had been, in part, the tacit agreement to talk like menfolk, not get all metro and whatnot.

“You ever feel like you’re at the end of your rope?” Reid said. Seemed manly enough.

Kenny kept chewing, both on the steak and on what Reid had asked.

“Many times.”

Reid switched from steak to fries so he could get a few more words out of his mouth. He took a little chance.

“Man, when I was walking across Los Angeles, I was so messed up. Thought I was being followed by a ghost at one point.”

Kenny smiled, wiped his mouth off with his napkin.

“What’d he look like?”

Reid laughed a little, thinking this was Kenny’s way of adding levity to the situation.

“Like some dude from the 40s or something.”

Kenny nodded, as if pondering in earnest.

“Mine looks more like a cowboy,” he said.

# # #

Back on the bus, Reid sat in the captains chair as usual. Kenny started her up and rolled her back onto I-40 toward Texas.

The poker game of ghost stories had ended back at the truck stop, neither knowing exactly what was in the others’ hand.

Night had fallen. Kenny’s face was underlit by the dashboard. Reid knew so little about his traveling companion, but he felt he could trust him, that was the thing.

With his bandmates, it was sort of the opposite. Trust had been betrayed, which is why they were back in New York, and he was out here.

And yet, how many times had they literally slept on each others’ shoulders in darkened vans crisscrossing the country? How many break-ups and make-ups had they weathered together? They knew each other in ways that would not fade with time. That still counted for something, didn’t it?

An oncoming semi flashed its lights, Kenny flashed in response.

The CB radio crackled.

“Breaker, you got an alligator up there, eastbound slow lane, mile marker one o five.”

Kenny reached for the mic.

“Copy that, thanks driver.”

Kenny had been taking advantage of the elevated speed limit and relatively light load. He took it down some, checked his mirrors, switched to the passing lane. A minute later, they passed the blown tire the other driver had just warned them about, then Kenny took it back up to 75.

The highway continued straight and uneventful after that.

“You can go back there, watch a movie,” Kenny said to Reid, after a while.

“I’m good,” Reid said.

In another hour or so, Reid did go looking for a drink. There remained a stunning array of dressing room alcohol, abandoned when the band switched to air travel. Reid let it be, grabbed a club soda instead. He sat with Kenny a bit longer.

It hadn’t been a long day, exactly, but the hike in the desert had taken some exertion, and he was still catching up on sleep.

“Guess I’ll turn in,” he said.

“See you in the morning.”

It occurred to Reid that he could sleep anywhere, even in the back lounge if he wanted. He took a long look at his bunk, then at the lower one he’d assumed to be haunted.

Fuck it.

He took the pillow and blanket from his own bunk, threw them into the bunk underneath and climbed in.

Lying in the space he’d been avoiding, he conjured not only his own apparition but the cowboy Kenny had spoken of, who for all Reid knew had been there all along.

“Bring it on,” he said.

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