Pedalexodus

Is It Really Possible?

The very first and utmost important thing is you need to have faith in your vehicle, I already knew I could physically do it. I originally planned to bike only thirty miles per day. It’s better to psychologically make your goals easily attainable. If you push too hard, as I did one hot afternoon, things can get a little sloppy - the mind has trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. Next, figure your time frame and budget. Having tons of time and lots of money will make your trip easier. Get the bags you think you will need and start filling them up. Being that I never took any practice runs, I opted to start by carrying a big backpack for flexibility. I did test the bags and frame by filling the panniers up with beer bottles to return for ten cent refunds, and I carried Papa Murphy’s pizzas home bungeed behind me on the pannier frame. In fact, during the trip, I was constantly revising my load, eventually I ditched my backpack and sleeping bag. Before leaving from Sparta for the second leg of my journey I purchased a front rack and panniers. Next, I suggest some practice using your tent and gear before take-off, especially in the rain. Get some advice on choice and spare parts from your nearest bike shop. Be brave and go for it, you’ll get over the thought that everyone is looking at you.

The last I will say about it being possible is that I didn’t have any other possibilities. I left the place that I was living with the intent of relocating. I could not quit and go home, oh how I longed to sleep on that familiar comfy-ass couch in the Man Cave. Even the thought of having the shelter of any house was comforting. This sense of comfort was definitely acquired at the motels, though it was sad knowing I had less than a day to spend there. If you have something to bounce back on, quitting will be easier.

The First Week Of Riding: I can’t believe the day has finally come for me to leave on a massively loaded bicycle into the unknown. There is the last minute packing of the computer and other things that will be going to Randy at Crystal Springs Nursery. It is where I worked for three months and he is so awesome to help with my earthly possessions. He will also be sending me my power up boxes, prepared with dried food, medicines, chain lube and other small things needed later. These are all in the medium sized flat-rate USPS priority boxes and they are pre-labeled to be sent to post offices for pick up. The only trick is that they will only hold them for thirty days, some shipments must be delayed. I had hoped to have only three boxes of personal items to leave with Randy, the biggest with my computer and tent, but I came with five. I also drop off the power up boxes, with help from Parris and his truck. It is almost a year to the day now writing this that Jennifer and Parris accepted me into their house, without it I would not be where I am now, thank you.

As with any trip I have too much stuff, mostly food and lots of water. Stupidly I am carrying way too much stove fuel, approximately one full large can of Coleman Stove Fuel dispersed into fuel bottles and plastic jugs. I was probably carrying a total of twenty pounds too much. On my back was the large North Face Ranger day pack which eventually I hoped not to have to wear. It was sort of the extra stuff bag, with a little room after the sleeping bag, extra clothes and camera for now. I was also starting with a big gut from drinking beer and writing music, it was not attractive, if you are curious check the film. One good thing about being stocked so well was that I wouldn’t have to stop, only for water, for a good seven to ten days. One last minute purchase was for a motorcycle cargo net, I tried using my mini-bungees but they didn’t work. I needed the reliable cargo net to completely secure the tarp rolled up with my tent and sleeping pad across the top of the panniers in back. This was a technique used on my motorcycle trips.

It was early afternoon on a cooler summer day, after starting the camera and film to say goodbye, I set off down the twisty dirt driveway one last time. Into the streets that I used play on as a kid, I am really self conscious about my appearance. It did look a little ridiculous with all my crap, I can’t believe the rear tire held. I traveled over the St. Joseph River bridge and could barely get up the other side. Is this what it would be like the whole trip? Now on the back streets of St. Joseph, I feel like a monkey is on my back, I am near where my step-father used to live, maybe he still does. I wanted to see him on my extended visit, it never happened, I am hoping he will not see me now. It is only about twenty minutes of riding then I am on Washington Street heading south and I am leaving St. Joseph behind. It was very emotional and powerful, in a good way I think, people there in my hometown seemed snooty. Was I leaving something familiar or alien? I guess I could be considered alien now, I am homeless.

Twenty-five miles later I am in Indiana, following Cleveland Avenue for the most part, then I started angling east and south towards Potato Creek State Park. I didn’t quite make it, I was hesitant to have to pay money to camp. I thought of searching the western boundary of the park on the skirting road for some stealth camping but found what I thought to be an earlier opportunity. At a T intersection in a farming community, I see just across the street a grassy dirt track through some trees leading to a corn field. I pull in to take a break and assess the camping situation. There was almost no traffic on the roads and I could set the tarp along the edge of the small clearing in a way that would hide me at night. The moon would be full that night and it crept slowly up from the edge of the cornfield. Everything was fine except that I started to worry about all the stuff I was carrying. Oh, in the morning a guy came at me with a rifle in his car!

I was leisurely packing up, trying to dry some things from condensation, and a car passes and turns with a rearview mirror view of me. The lady turns around and goes back to the adjoining property and house and comes back with her guy in the front seat with his rifle. First off, you have to imagine what a frantic redneck mommy might say about me to her sleeping boyfriend to make him half insane. I should have filmed it, though instead I went into survival mode and quickly started packing after she passed. I figured it out and it seemed like it took a few more minutes than it should for them to get back. He gets out, leaving the rifle in the car, and says What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I tell him I needed a place to stay last night, I’m on a bicycle trip, I’m leaving now and won’t leave a mess and I did apologize profusely. This guy looked like a Pantera meth groupie, early 30’s, tats, toothless, then he looks around, cools down and says No harm done. I shake his hand and tell him Thanks for being mellow.

I pedaled past their house going south, amazing thoughts going through my mind. It was the first morning, will something like this happen again? It did get my adrenaline going, the roads are calm, almost no cars, this has a calming effect. I pass the side of the park that I had hoped to get to the previous night, perfect, all grass with trees building to a forest, except for the fence. I could have lifted everything over it to go for the nearest cover, it would have been a lot of effort. One natural item that seemed to get in my way almost constantly was poison ivy, it is everywhere and I am allergic to it, there is no way I am going to walk through any of it. It was on the edge of almost every road, hedging the forest, the corn and soybean fields too. Often I would see camping possibilities in the forests, but there was always a twenty foot solid barrier of poison ivy blocking me. Rural northwestern Indiana is a grid work of roads running north, south, east and west, this making travel easy and variable. I wind my way south avoiding larger cities, or most cities, veering east, then west. I find a decent green space, Tippacanoe River State Park, quite large with roads going through it. There are also WMA’s or Wildlife Management Areas (FWA in Indiana?) with parking lots and at the first one I follow a faint road into the forest. These places are set aside for hunting, if you want a place to camp for free with little hassle, use these. The Delorme Atlases list most of them, it shows also I am quite close to the Sandhill Nature Preserve. I pushed my bike about fifty yards down the sandy road, trying not to leave a visible trail. There is no poison ivy here, it is too sandy. In the shade of some smaller oak trees I am happy to place my camp, it was a decent ride today covering over fifty miles.

The night is peaceful with owls hooting, deer huffing and puffing and a coyote howling, I even see a turkey fly up into a tree. The next morning I follow my first gravel road south paralleling the river. I am able to film while riding, I talk about yesterday’s thoughts of quitting because I was really feeling the energy expenditures. I thought What am I going to do? I don’t have a home, I can’t quit. I just have boxes in Michigan and boxes in Poland, a thousand bucks in my pocket and the crap on my bike. I just have to keep pushing, the mornings are the best, after the first ten minutes of pedaling I get a groove. I realize that there are a whole lot more miles to cover than predicted, I just have to suck it up and take each day at a time. Funny too, I am going sober for the bicycle trip, however I do have a decent supply of weed. Is that going sober? I quit drinking for the trip, and honestly there was never a desire for a beer during the whole time, there were too many other things to think about.

I’m navigating using Delorme Atlas & Gazeteer map books, I purchased each state then cut out specific pages, I keep the current page in a clear plastic bag under the cargo net. I have my entire route’s cut out pages with me, all the way through to New Mexico, even a detour to Austin, Texas. This may have been excessive because the pages add weight but I didn’t want to chance losing them in the mail. They are very detailed, even with power lines, creeks, natural features, parks (though not all of the parks are noted!), train lines, county boundaries, all of which I used. The future maps were all tucked deep inside the rolled up tarp with my tent and sleeping pad. The tarp is big: twelve feet by eight feet.

It was a rough day pedaling into a hot headwind coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. The heat from the pavement is starting to be noticeable. I’m having some intense cramping in my chest and belly and I’m having trouble staying hydrated. The question keeps coming up, What the hell am I doing? There are many more houses and private properties than imagined, bringing hopes and ease of camping down. The next camp started as an afternoon break in the parking lot for an electrical transformer. There is a small mowed track going down behind it and there are trees on both sides. I wait a long while before deciding to take the bike down and make camp. It’s unsettling being so close to the humming electrical fortress but I want to take advantage of the stealth location. There is a house up top across from the parking lot and one across the bottom corn field in the visible distance, so I can’t go wandering without possibly causing alarm. It’s hot and humid, on both sides are thickets where the mosquitoes hide. It’s still mid-afternoon and I will have to pass the time by reading. It is close in my small bivy tent, this will become a trip-long claustrophobic challenge. The next morning I see deer edging into the corn field and they instantly spy me, then I wave to them.

Taking into account my inventory with the sweaty nights, I realize I have too much warm clothing. Also I have a large jar of peanut butter and a large loaf of hearty homemade bread which was given as a gift before leaving. I start to make a daily meal of peanut butter, onions, and spicy mustard on the bread, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It was a horrible fact to find a campground next to a creek with a small pavilion just a couple of miles further from the electrical transformer. You never know, making decisions isn’t always easy, but they are final. Also the summer heat, exertion and dehydration was affecting my brain, making decisions even more difficult. Furthermore, I am wearing a dark blue helmet, I never wear a helmet, but now I won’t chance injury, it is dark and absorbs heat from the sun, literally heating my brain.

It was another blistery day riding into the south wind. Sure, I didn’t wear sunscreen like a dumb ass, another provision I was trying to stretch when it mattered most at the beginning. I got burnt, I got brown later. On this topic I suggest zip off pants with a long short pant length, like cargo pants. I got lucky with a pair that covered nearly to my knee, they were baggy and let lots of air flow. I didn’t use the platypus hydration system as much as I should have during the first few days, but later I switched to constant use. I would drink about a liter for every ten miles, five liters for the day which was about the most I wanted carry. I would later develop a pattern of carrying a full 2.5 liter bag on my back and a small amount of reserve in a pannier. Near the end of the day I would gather five liters, enough for camping and to have enough to start the morning ride. Pausing during the rides almost came from necessity, with the corn and soybeans right up to the road the only meager shade came from telephone and electrical wire poles. I also took breaks in cemeteries, I could find shade from a tree or two and the birds congregated here also. Sometimes while resting with the tombstones I would get crazy stares from the locals passing by, other less paranoid folks would wave.

Now my butt is starting to hurt and a chafing develops, I start putting chapstick on it and it helps a little. It’s day four and I realize that I need to get rid of my backpack and my thermal layers. At my next cemetery stop I work the pack and gather a big zip-loc back of stuff to ship to myself, or my sister, in Sparta, Tennessee. It’s refreshing to have a plan to lighten the load, all I need is to find a post office. This day is the hardest so far, riding into the hot wind. I’m attempting to get to an RV campground and the most direct route takes me along gravel roads, which slows my momentum. I am only able to use the first three gears and maybe my top speed is seven miles per hour. I get there heat stricken and weakened late in the day and have to fuck around with calling for a campsite because the office is closed. There are tons of RV’s here with elderly couples driving around in golf carts with their poodles just to be nosy. It’s flippin’ $25 for me to have a picnic table and a shower. It will be the most I pay for something like this on the entire journey. I feel a little ridiculous biking in with everyone’s air conditioners pumping fresh air into their RVs. There is no privacy for me and I feel I’m on display setting my dinky tent up, but then I get the shower and I am relieved. There’s an amazing pond full of frogs of all sizes and after dark I go to collect the sounds with my camera.

I’m up early ready to go, but wait for the office to open to try and haggle a cheaper fee. No luck, then I bike to the nearest city, Thorntown, and mail off my zip-loc baggie in a flat rate priority envelope. I sent a steno notebook, thermal pants and shirt because it was not going to get colder, and two toothbrushes and a pen. I pass through a larger town, Crawfordsville, with a densely populated city length of about two miles. Then I angle into the countryside where the terrain is hilly and forested near a small river. It is peaceful with very little auto traffic and I am tentatively looking for a place to camp. It is the third day of the brutal south wind in my face, is it going to be like this the whole time? The bike has developed a clicking when pedaling, at first I think it is in the crank, then maybe it’s the pedal. Maybe I’m stoned and paranoid? There has been no rain yet on the journey, a blast of cold water sure would be nice, though I have learned never to ask for rain. With time to think, many life-related questions surface, I’m riding a bike to where? And then I’m going to do what? I don’t know. Do you know what you are doing with your life? I didn’t. This may be the center of the void, the unknown and I’m bicycling around in circles, before going down the black-hole toilet drain. I had been sober since starting, that was good, then it started to feel great, again there was really no time for drinking beer. It started to feel like an intervention ride, a life intervention ride, that’s what I would tell people when they asked. The marijuana was a good enough vice, I rode stoned, all the way from Michigan to Sparta, TN. And the roads were safe enough, so far.

I was soon getting nervous about finding a camping spot, it seemed I was preoccupied with all of these life worries. I realized I had to relax and tune in to my environment, Cascade Trekker style, and there it was. A forested hillock, I will call it that, a bicycler’s glen. There was a game trail running up about twenty feet from the road. I scouted it, beyond view from the road was a slowly sloping grassy area too small for a house. There was little or no poison ivy and I hefted all of my gear a good hundred yards down, or up? .. it took about an hour taking care not to be seen by any passing vehicle, there were a few. From my camp there were slopes going down, one gulley had a tiny trickle of water for filtering. I realize the setting is perfect and a little welcoming when a large hawk floated through the trees and I could see it’s wing colors.

I am starting to experience small biting flies, of course writing I don’t recall how fierce they really were. I snorted one, inhaled them, they crawled in my eyes, they were like mayflies but smaller like gnats. After setting up the tent I place my mesh bug-net vestibule around the entry. It’s like a rectangle box of netting that I can strategically place. I am disturbed to find that the bugs are small enough to crawl through the netting. Gladly they are not small enough to get into the tent. I think I did let a few in and they terrorized my feet just before sleep. Some of these biting episodes required taking two allergy tablets to relieve itching and allow me to sleep.

At camp, while charging up with Powerade and vitamins, I recollect some of the riding issues I have faced. Riding in the heat and humidity feels embryonic, as if there is no change between body and environment. The afternoon heat, intensified by the reflecting heat from the road, makes my head feel like it’s going to pop. A few times I could feel a racing, fibrillating heartbeat, maybe pumping blood to cool my body. This was a little scary but I just rode out these episodes. I have had intense cramping in my lower chest and upper belly area. Sometimes I would have to rest and almost double over from the pain hoping an ambulance might pass. There has been a loss of appetite, it seems like I’ve eaten about half of what I usually would. There comes a point during physical stress when only certain things are appetizing, I feel I could manage with only water, Powerade, fruit and jerky. Coupled with the previously mentioned environmental strains and dehydration, my decision making processes were slow and mushy. There is also some sunburn starting, this can add to body heat too. Thus far I have traveled two hundred miles in five days, which doesn’t seem like much, but amazing for the battle against the wind and heat, and laboring to carry my full load.

I have an overnight revelation, I decide to return to the city I had passed through, it is only six miles away, and I will be leaving my camp set up. I am going to the post office to ship my sleeping bag to Randy in Michigan. It’s way too warm in this low elevation camping, sleeping in it feels like a sweat bath and it is extra bulk to get rid of. I recall seeing a plaza with a big sporting goods store, I am going to look for a cheap, very light fleece sleeping bag and a gel seat cover. I will also visit an IGA grocery store and maybe the Goodwill. It’s interesting that it took five days to realize what I need and don’t need. I will return to camp for another night in the place it seems I have taken from the local deer, who came huffing and snorting the night before. There is also a house nearby where I can hear children playing and a dog barking, but my camp is secluded and a very good sanctuary.

On the way back to the city I experience one of the most visually memorable events. In these soybean fields live many sandpiper birds, I think that’s what they are. Pedaling into town on a major connector highway, I see a baby bird in the road with it’s momma squawking in the field. Behind me comes a big diesel truck, not a semi, a consumer version that gets used only once a year for what it was designed for. (The point being is that many such people own these massive rigs with massive engines that elicit a sense of power to the owner with such waste.) The driver veers a little into the center to avoid me and grazes the chick. Right next to me it goes limp, maybe dead from shock, and I feel it was because of me that this happened. At that very moment, from all the gathered actions of the day, to be so precise, and the moments of the truck driver, and the moments of the momma bird and her baby, all to collide. I feel a little queasy after that, a little disjointed from reality. It is a vivid, very sad memory that may last forever.

I go through town, Crawfordsville, in the building heat, twisting past the houses avoiding the main roads. I enjoy air conditioning at the post office and the sporting goods store where I find the thinnest fleece sleeping bag and a triple gel seat cover. I fill up both water bladders there with ice cold water and spend about $35. There is a very pretty, shapely woman here in her sports clothes purchasing something and she smiles at me. I cannot rid my dirty mind of showering with her. I feel I really could have talked my way into that, though even on this trip I feel I cannot make any attachments, however brief. A deeper retrospect makes me think I will never want to be needed or to need someone else.

I go get some fruit at the IGA and decide not to look in Goodwill for any lightweight button up shirts. The new fleece bag will serve nicely as something to lie on when sweaty, and it seems that most of the evenings start this way, sopping my head with my hanky. Back at camp, as afternoon closes, I experience my first thunderstorm, it is welcomed and I am prepared with the tarp covering everything. Not the bike though, it is locked to a tree up slope. It seemed only for a brief time did it cool down. When the rain stopped it was hot and humid again.

The next day I am freed from the strong wind that had been slowing my progress, also I decide to follow certain state routes, to avoid the gravel. I make good time and the pedaling is comfortable. Early on I pass a Hispanic chicken farmer and stop for greetings and a little filming. He said he sells them on web auction sites and makes decent money. He showed me around and I filmed his birds, it was interesting. Later, I nearly miss a cutoff road to take me to Greencastle, it looked small and steep, almost like a driveway. I double back and start an almost grueling thirteen mile hilly ride, though very scenic and lightly traveled. I later have some heat related issues with chills on my arms and legs, I nearly pass out in some grassy shade. Forty-five minutes later when I get up I can see the outline of my body pressed into the grass. Often while exerting in the high humidity, getting enough oxygen seemed difficult, my breathing was very deep and heavy. This day had been getting harder with more breaks between lesser intervals.

The good news was that I was only a few miles from Greencastle and waiting for me there was a motel room that I was dying for. The day was chaotic, almost heatstroke feverish, which was amplified by thunderheads in every direction, yet in the circle of my existence, was the sun. The whole afternoon was like this, I didn’t know if I wanted the clouds to envelope me or not. Eventually I find a cheap motel on the main strip, with the passing semi-trucks shifting gears and rattling the walls. The price is $45 which is the most I will pay for any room on the trip. The room smelled like cigarette smoke and the TV was old school and sucked. I got a weather report which told of massive rain on every side of where I traveled that day, my previous location got blasted with flooding. I can’t imagine having to bike through a flood, this was the luckiest weather break of the entire journey.

You would think that I could rest upon entering the room, instead I had to go through everything and gather dirty laundry. I then set about recharging the camera and flashlight batteries. There was a snag in my plans when I go to the laundromat, I miss the deadline for starting a wash. Then another foul-up, with all of my clothes dirty, I’m wearing my frog-togg raingear and upon lifting my leg over the bicycle seat the crotch seam rips. The pants were shot, the tear was eight inches long. I came back to my room deflated, then I ate the last of the peanut butter, onion, sweet and spicy hearty bread sandwiches. I was exhausted, probably hungry, most definitely dehydrated, I hadn’t pissed all day, and now another task is at hand: replace the frog-toggs at Walmart. I was lucky there was one in this city, though I would have to do it the next day along with my laundry. And then came a shitty night of sleeping, I got suckered into TV until 10:00 PM, and the room wreaked of tobacco. It just fucks my head up and gives me headaches.

The morning in Greencastle started with me and an old Hindu guy haggling, he was killing me with kindness, I was trying the same on him. I tried to raise a polite shit-fit about the cig-stink to get a different room for free or cheaper for the inconvenience, all I could get was a different room for the same price. Hearing my complaints, the cleaning harem of older Indian women speaking Hindi all got involved, in a nice fashion. I asked if I could smell the room first? ..then said to myself fuck it, I’d rather do all my stuff today, without stress, then moved my things to another room. I would stay a second night here, it would wreck my planning for the budget, again I said fuck it. For the seven nights all together I was at $115 for overnight fees incurred. I had estimated only $45 for one room per week. Add to my predicament, the heat that was making my clothes and body stinky faster. I would need to wash my body and clothes more frequently, I didn’t want to be dirty and stinky because I had been asking people for water.

I head out to the laundromat, start my laundry, then boil water for coffee on the sidewalk out front. I never left my clothes unattended on the trip, only to sneak nervously and quickly into the restrooms. It’s always nice to start a little conversation here, it feels like all here are companions of sanitizing. I talked with an elderly couple that were born and raised here, we talked about weather and farming, the elderly gentleman had a knack for repeating himself. With the clothes washed and back at the new motel room, I set off for Walmart with the ruined Frog-Toggs rain set.

It was on the other side of town, actually my exit side, maybe I am wasting energy? Get ‘er done… It was a super store, yeah! They would have this product. I go and buy it, twenty bucks, come back to the bike, swap ‘em, maybe pretend to look at the rip (I can’t remember if I did or not), then go to the service counter and say there was a big rip in the pants and ask for my money back. I was very cautious not to get caught with the exchange, and cognizant of cameras in the parking lot. I don’t feel bad about this, it is a manufacturer’s flaw and/or mistake not to note the weakness of the product, or reinforce it better. They really are like paper, they work great if you know their limitations and use them carefully. Immediately upon returning to the motel room, I put some strong tape layers in the seam of the pants to reduce the risk of it happening again. Whew, I’m glad this episode was resolved.

Next I gravitate to the city park, and it is quite nice. I am going there to dry out my tent and tarp and fix lunch in the pavilion. There’s one street dude hiding in a gulley that seems mentally challenged, I think he slept there. It was memorable because I thought he would bother me, but he sort of circled around and never got close. The park is busy on this last day before summer starts, kids and families and picnickers all here to escape the heat amidst the big old-growth city trees. Tasks complete I ride to the mini-skate park, there are berms and ramps and scoops all built with concrete, and a few brave heat tolerant kids are there. I came to ride it. I came to film riding it, and it turned out pretty kooky with me on a touring bike with full bags, deftly utilizing gravity. One kid there wanted to steal my camera.

With everything finished I take the bike and camera on a ride through the De Pauw campus, it is picturesque, almost stately. It’s also nice to have a casual ride on the bicycle without all of the gear. I can venture all about on the hand-laid red brick sidewalks cutting through lawns to fountains. There are still ominous clouds on the edges of the city, I was told that the city is higher in elevation and the storms seem to go around it. I experience a revelation, this was day seven with no beer. There seemed to be a reward to offer for that.. I took a late afternoon walk to the nearest convenience store and bought junk food. I remember most the Snickers Ice Cream Bar. To round out the day, trying not to get hooked on motel TV, there is some punk nearby playing bass tone music most of the night. Incredibly the next morning is Zen-like on the bike. Thirty miles by 10:00 AM on lightly traveled state routes and I devise a routine for the days to follow.

The Crux

It may be the year 2006 and I have been living in the Pacific Northwest for about ten years. My mother has been suffering, maybe not the right word, following a hip accident and I have offered to help her. She sold her house in Michigan, she purchased an RV, and she drove out with plans for us to find a place to live together. I am living in Portland, Oregon and finding the right place starts to get difficult, she doesn’t want any sort of fixer-upper. We did see a couple of places that could have worked, but the buying game was new to me and it was her money to invest, roughly $40,000. After a month of looking I suggested we look on the other side of the Columbia River, in Washington State. At the far eastern side of Clark County, just before the Columbia River Gorge begins, is the small town of Washougal. The grid of streets are ordered by letter and on J street we find a ranch style house that is perfect. My mother likes it and I say why mess around with an offer, we need a place, just pay the asking price. She did and a week later we moved in. My criteria for a house was that it had to have room for a garden and a potential music recording space. I had a lot of recording equipment at this time and I was a serious organic gardener.

The pieces of this writing are coming out jumbled and there seems no semblance but I’m going to worry about ordering it later. Or maybe at least include precedents at some point. Write now, flow. The first inkling as to some wrong doings came when my mother’s cat, Baby Bear started hiding in my closet, even pooping there. It’s an indication that he’s scared. The cat story in Washougal is such: I have Moscow and I have Spaz, both orphaned by my sister and mom has Toby, Moscow’s sister and Baby Bear who is Spaz’s brother. So two sister cats and two brother cats have been reunited. But something is wrong with Baby Bear, a healthy cat like Spaz, both in the primes of their lives. He is taken to the vet and the animal doctor says it’s really strange, it’s almost like he’s been poisoned. Hearing this once seems like no big deal, but the cat gets worse and the decision is made to put him to sleep. I didn’t like it. And, many instances or occurrences pass unexplained, to be deciphered later, maybe too late. But I was suspicious at the time, I am always thinking of both right and wrong or good and evil, especially when something fishy happens. So I say if he’s going to die bring him home for a while so he’s happy, and she did. The vet made a final house call, the cat already had a direct IV line. I was going to watch but couldn’t. I remember hearing my mom say, When his head droops he’s gone, with little feeling. You see, she practiced as a nurse and cared for terminal patients and most likely had some pass away in her immediate care.

Next, her second cat grew more feeble by the day. The same age as my Moscow who was not becoming weaker and growing thinner. There was no prognosis that I heard about, she was just eventually put to sleep. Soon after, mom soon tells me she wants to travel in her RV, it may be she didn’t want to take the cats. I don’t know why she didn’t say anything about traveling before she bought the house. I have always had one bad roommate or landlord while living in Portland, but I certainly didn’t need the house for myself. She had traveled from Michigan in the RV with her dog Sophie and the two cats and it just may have been too much. Plus, she never asked if I would care for her cats, which I would have done gladly. After a year of living together she drives away. So I continue with the crux of the story.

She returns, I was having some issues with renters jacking up the electric bill in the house, but I don’t think this was the only reason. There was no way I could afford paying for the mortgage and all of the bills, even with renters. Originally, under the premise that my aunt, her sister, might live with us, I remodeled an out building to live in so that the two bedrooms inside could be theirs. It didn’t work out, the aunt wanted to be near her grandchildren and never came. So we rented the second bedroom for $400 per month, which relieved some of our burden. Another thing to point out was that even though I was paying exactly half of everything, except the down payment, the house slowly became more hers than ours. This was very detrimental to my wanting to be there and participate in the upkeep. Shortly after she returns, from being on the road for a year, she is diagnosed with lung cancer. I thought for sure she was going to die, so I started selling all of my extra things. I had accumulated many novelties for my music and hiking activities. I had become very good at buying and selling things on the internet, one year selling video games, I profited nearly $30,000.

The cancer was very hard to deal with combined with my mother’s personality. I don’t mean to be harsh, I helped when she asked, but previously, she was very needy and I didn’t want to grow old being her only supplier. This had been nagging at me, she could live another twenty years. How would time pass for me? She had been a downer, always talking about death and her friends dying. She didn’t make new friends, she didn’t do activities. However very strange, just before she was diagnosed, she started going to the gym. I believe her body was trying to tell her something. The home environment became difficult, with her crying, in sort of a mean way, it reverted me back to childhood and I was very uncomfortable. I tried relating to her as an adult, I was never mean, but there was some unexplicable charge in my body, I kept feeling like this little boy cowering from fear of a slap in the face. I hated being this. Also being a grown man, I couldn’t be the huggily-cuddly type that she wanted, I’m sorry.

She found one of the best lung surgeons practicing in Seattle and set the appointment. This I believed saved her life, but again in her mind was constant death. So the time comes for the surgery and her sister Sandy comes from California to help her through it. I drive separately and spend two nights in Seattle. There arises a conversation between me and Sandy about me leaving to do something else with my life. I wasn’t very serious, for I knew I had to help my mom through her ordeal. I didn’t know if she would survive. I told my aunt that I couldn’t leave if I wanted, but she insisted I could. At some point in the hospital Sandy revealed to my mother the conversation we had. I really didn’t want her to tell her, but when my mother finally came home, she looked at me like there was burning hate in her eyes. I’ll never forget it.

She returns home to start chemotherapy, the surgery went well though she almost needed to be put on a respirator. Two things you need to know: first she smoked like chernobyl and second she is addicted to western medicine and probably takes 20 pills a day. I think she loves the attention from doctors, taking medicine and going to the hospital. I helped when I could, I always answered her to help, but I think she thought it wasn’t enough. Now I tell about what I think she was doing to me.

I kept my fruit in my room, mostly bananas and oranges. Slowly over time my stomach started to give me trouble and it looked like some of the fruit had splotches like they were tampered with. I started hiding my food and was very cautious about what I ate around the house. I was living in the second bedroom and we had a renter in my studio. It is summer and it is my time for exploring the mountains on extended backpacking trips, it was all I lived for. I was a weekend disc jockey and made just enough between that and selling on Ebay to afford the freedom. On the morning of one of my trips, my mother’s birthday to be exact, I ate two pieces of fruit and became violently sick instantly. I ran out into the backyard and puked. I continued the day in a complete daze, really ill from something, I rode my motorcycle to Mt. Hood not caring if I crashed or whatever.

It was a turning point for me to get out of the house and back into my studio where I could completely control my food intake. Eventually I did, but there was still the oven in the house that I had to use. I had recently purchased a food processor and had garden fresh sliced potatoes to bake. I prepared them and left them in the oven. I came back in and the oven light was on and I asked her did you turn on the light and asked why? She said she wanted to see what was in there. I made two batches, ate them both, and soon there was a fire at the bottom of my throat where the food waits to go into the stomach. The pain was near horrific and all I could do was to lie on a heating pad to pass the night, barely able to sleep. What was really strange, as I was lying there in the dark, on the floor on the heating pad, my mother suddenly raced out of the house like it was an emergency and asked if I was ok. I sort of mumbled yeah.

A little later, maybe this same summer, my female cat Moscow started to seem ill, yes she was getting quite old but she was healthy. My mother kept suggesting I take her to get put to sleep, and I procrastinated but said I eventually would. I came back from one of my trips and my mother says she died. I asked what happened and she said she died in the car going to the vet. I was really upset about the loss but also upset that I was not there to be with my cat when she died. Later I talked to Betty, our renter, because she was in the car with my mother. She said that it was the strangest thing, the cat went into convulsions then died. I just imagine how terrified she was, my sweet kitty. She was always afraid of the car rides, maybe she had a heart attack or there was some other influence. It was just wrong.

Now my last bit of real love, was my male cat Spaz. His brother gone and the two lady cats gone, I hoped I could love him for a long time. He was a big Russian gray guy, a little over-weight, but healthy. For Thanksgiving my mother planned to travel to California to visit her sister and it will be nice to have the house to