I’ve gotten pretty good at packing a shoulder bag. It’s become necessary for my spontaneity sending me on manic movements in and around the northeast. Sometime in the last six months a shift has happened in my workflow—where my perched apartment above the hair salon has become something of a trap, a place where wheels spin and fuel fails to ignite. When I got my VW fixed up in the summer, and obligations no longer tied me to town I was back on the road, writing articles on my phone from motels in Ohio while thinking about the finer notes of gas station coffee.
On New Year's Eve the MARC was delayed. Some sort of short system outage. I talked to a nice lady from PG County who encouraged me to check out a website about Christ, or pick up some Bible literature from her friends outside the station. She first got my attention by commenting on my boots: a pair of cognac-colored cowboys I picked on East Main in Bozeman in my final year in the rather Un-Wild West. I always travel with them or the black set that my regular, Top Hat Jimmy, gifted me in exchange for more pours of sparkling wine. Trudging through East Coast cities in Western footwear feels right—a partially-concealed statement of difference that leave my feet blistered and raw after a dozen miles a day of aggressive yo-yo’ing up and down the big boulevards of the Megalopolis. Those wounds help dissipate the unreal ease-of-living that the cities wish to project.
Because of their tall climb above the sock-line, cowboys also force me to pack carefully: pants must be boot cut (a small selection from my dwindling wardrobe), the belt should match (either a dressy black or something tanned leather with a buckle), and the rest of my clothes should be a modular outfit (perhaps a sweater and shirt) so to keep enough room in the bag for more books—as much research material, short stories, and possibly a bit of fiction or poetry on top of my usual suspects; latest issues of Cineaste and MotorSport (I’d carry Mubi Notebook with me too if I didn’t prize it so much as an art-object), a cheap translation of The Communist Manifesto I stuff with tax-deductible receipts, the Tao, and a copy of “Howl” I stole from my high school AP English teacher and permanently water-damaged on a rainy day at Seaside. This all leaves just enough room for toiletries, first aid, Benadryl, epinephrine, a Chromebook I’ve borrowed so long it might as well be stolen, a well-insulated commemorative water bottle I got while dehydrated after a track tour of Monza during its centenary Grand Prix weekend, and, lastly, a pair of sunglasses.
This is enough for a pretend bohemian lifestyle of day (or two) trips along Amtrak lines and toll roads. It gives me a taste of that bygone era when writers might be paid to run around aimlessly, and furthers my belief that the American government should start funding me to wander between rest stops. I almost certainly wouldn’t produce the Great American Novel, or really much at all of value, but that’s beside the point. One might lament the days of decent advances and substantial payouts from magazines, but my distaste for the fascist world of employment-related healthcare has me wishing for a broader independence. I’ve got the bag packed at a moment’s notice, now I just need to find the resources to sustain a childish dream of someone who read too much Kerouac and Steinbeck at 18 to find a way to have enough money to get on the road, and stay there.