A Quick Trip to Athens

I left work after dark and raced to the highway, wove through traffic, sped judiciously past Greensboro, Winston Salem, turned north: Pilot Mountain to the left rising out of the blackness - somehow appearing more black than the sky. Yes, in fact, I noticed the sky was not black but deep purple, like bruised flesh - a trick from the full moon obscured behind clouds. I climbed I-77, rose above the Piedmont, and sped back into the high country before the wild hills of West Virginia appeared - black coal hills, undulating, looking down on me. I had a distinct feeling of something old - perhaps something I felt a long time ago, but since I could not name it, it slipped away.

I past the time (except for a quick gas stop near Wytheville) on Mars, tracking its colonization by humans early in this century. This history was laid out in vignettes and was read aloud - the voice emanating from a tablet computer. The Martian Chronicles. I hugged the tablet close to my body (sometimes right up to my ear) to hear it over the roar of the engine and the hum of the wheels.

It was almost midnight when I arrived in Athens. I went up the Richland Ave. bridge to see the burned out shell of the Union. Gabe lived up on the hill on the far end of town, sort of way back in a little hollow - the one place in town I never really explored. Chris Zdinak was already waiting inside. He poured me a shot of scotch whiskey as I shook off the rain. The studio apartment was nice, if a bit unfinished around the edges. It had a high ceiling with skylights, wood burning stove in the living area, and it smelled of cigarettes. The boys - the boys were a sight to see. Perhaps a bit rough around the edges themselves, but, you know, I'm quite fond of them. All that weekend, we went back to our days living at the ACME Co-op together: parties, long lost room mates, the general dis-order of youth.

Gabe was wild, like I've always known him: long bearded, Jesus hair. "I'm a crazy, crazy motherfucker," he sang to me - a song he wrote, a simple I-IV axis, cowboyish. Very hip. He's sad right now, too, because of a lost love. He sits at his piano - "I wish I had my piano" he kept saying on Saturday evening - and plunks out sad songs just like I used to do on long, lonely nights. There's a beauty in all that sadness, though, and I can't help but to recognize it. It's the beauty of an icy cold, moonlit night. Your breath turning into a cloud. The thinness of the air in your lungs. Stillness and solitude.

Chris Zdinak was sporting a goatee, and it made him look Eastern, like all that Tai Chi he practiced in the Co-op living room, like all that philosophy rolling around in his head - like Kerouac's Japhy, seeking the Buddha, running up a mountain. We took a long walk back from the bars on Saturday night where we had met with Wes and Nick - the Fillipow brothers. Chris was drunk, and I was buzzed. We shouted while walking up and up the hill, ducking through side streets I last took on a visit, unannounced, to Susan's apartment.

"Chris Tomazic," he said to me, "when did you become self-aware?"

I mused. What did the question even mean? "Geeze, I don't know."

"I think you're like me. You became self-aware at a young age. Your world forced you to become it, like mine did to me."

"I think you're drunk, Chris," I thought to myself.

Gabe had a little fireplace, and back at the apartment, Chris built a fire and burned some wood. I walked around the house playing the harmonica. In the oven, a whole chicken was roasting with potatoes and carrots. We had cracked open a bottle of champagne - quite literally, cracked it open since the cork was stuck in tight - and there was the scotch, and tincture. We joked about the old days, told secrets, sang, and generally felt a sort-of reprieve that we left behind many years ago.

Goodbyes are tough, but a long road ahead with the promise of Casa take out at home makes things a bit smoother. Chris and I caught breakfast at Casa, then parted ways. I took the long drive back over mountains clutching the tablet, listening to the voice narrate.