Break

On the Massachusetts Turnpike on October 12, 2001 at 12:34, I realized that I was completely alone in the world, always had been and would be until I died.

I was driving east, indignant about what had been implied that evening. I had been wronged, betrayed, let down.

Mile markers appeared and disappeared every 60 secs or so in the light of my highbeams. An otherwise amazing indian summer evening had dissolved into night.

I drove back to my hometown, killed time checking out the old haunts in the area and had breakfast at a diner on Route 6 before knocking on my parents door just before 6 am. After some coffee with my mother, we went to West Island.

As we walked along the empty, coarse sand beach, we talked about what had happened in New York the month before. We discussed politics, what was going on in the world and what might happen next. We also talked about what was happening between me and my wife.

After the beach, I drove back, two hours, alone to Northampton. I fell asleep and woke up at 10pm. I got in the car to get cigarettes and coffee and the followed west on Route 9 all night out of Massachusetts.

I was empty and blank with no destination and only a puzzled recollection of what had been said back and forth since August. Crossing over the state line from North Adams, I took a dark, lonely state highway south to Albany.

Albany wasn't right so I got on to Interstate 87 North. I settled into a highway speed with that drawn-out feeling from driving all night, chain smoking cigarettes, listening to Dylan and drinking coffee. At Saratoga Springs I stopped to stretch. I bought more coffee and another pack of cigarettes.

I got back in the Jetta, back on the highway and went back to Northampton. When I got there everything had changed. Our house had lost its soul entirely. I felt dread entering each room like the pause in a horror movie just before something happened.

It was like someone had died. Everything was quiet. It was like the morning after a big party, before anyone else had gotten up. The air was cool and dry. It was 10:00am and I slept for a couple hours.

When I woke up at 2pm, it came to me. I gotta get out of town, take a road trip to Montreal. No more English, no more Northampton, no more of any of this. And lots of music. I drove back across the state to let her home town to let her know what I decided to do.

My in-laws lived right on the rural edge of the Taunton area. They owned a cornfield of more than 18 acres that they leased out to a farmer. They had purchased the land to keep anyone from building houses back there. It was surrounded on four sides by woods. The only direct way from the street into the field was through her parents' yard.

I parked on the east side of the cornfield and picked my way through the swampy woods. When I reached the middle of the cornfield, the sun was just starting to touch the tops of the trees on its western edge. I called her on my cell phone to say that I wanted to speak to her in person.

"Where are you?", she said in a voice that sounded like she had been crying.

"I'm in the cornfield, could you come out. I need to talk to you." In moments, our dog Gretchen was running to me at full speed all mouth and wagging tail.

"I am afraid we're not going to make it this time," she said to me in a space of time and light that seemed to echo even as it happened.

"Don't worry, we just need some time to work it out. We need to step away and things will be okay."

I said with the utmost of confidence, "I'm going to Montreal to do some research at the archives there," as another door slammed shut between us.

She looked at me puzzled. "Montreal?" was her last word spoken to me as her husband before she had made her mind up. The last time there was any chance to patch things up.

But I don't know what was said after that. I know that I walked back into the woods and back to the nursing home parking lot. I hopped in the car, as if a steed and sped north, winding up the motor in each gear before shifting.

I drove back west with a lighter heart. I had a plan. I went to a used record store in downtown Northampton. Then I went to a bigger music store in Amherst. Amherst was in full form, buzzing with sounds, music and people talking, shouting and laughing.

It created a palpable beat. Promise spilled out from every store, restaurant and bar. It washed onto the sidewalks. It pooled the streets. As I moved through it, I began to feel bleary eyed, removed, numb.

I bought a couple hundred dollars worth of music. I went home. I packed my car until it sagged with my 12 string, my computer (desktop), books, my darts, all the music I had, a portable stereo, and almost all my clothes. I was watching it all happen like the director following the lead character in his spy movie.

At 9:37 PM, I left town. Dark air rushed by the open car window as I sped north past Deerfield into the Green Mountains of Vermont, shedding behind me unsupportable worry, dread.

I drove fast through a starry night, downshifting to fourth gear around bends as Interstate 91 climbed northward

Going down into valleys, the speedometer shot to 100. I shifted to fifth gear and the speedometer reached 105 and then pinned itself to the right. The air rushed by louder, the cigarette flared, the car stereo roared the blues loudly and I enjoyed the sport of outrunning my crumbling life.

Johnny stopped to ligbt another Dunhill Red. He had been explaining everything that had happened between August and October in French while chain smoking. "You want another?", he asked.

Natacha nodded, "Oui mais, Diet Coke this time", she said drowsily.

It was quarter to three and last call. They had been talking in the Salon VIP since 11pm. It didn't matter that she was naked except for what she wore when she not on stage, a see-through lingerie sorta like a short bathrobe.

She had been following closely to the story all the while, asking him to repeat certain parts that he didn't know how to say in French well.

He lived for those hours everyday. All she wanted was $100 an hour Canadian, whether she danced or not. It would have been unseemly for her to dance anymore. She was a chum.

"P'tite Chrisse", he said to himself, walking down the steps to Jacquie the bartender. With a smirk he said to himself, "At least she fakes it well".