the falling apart of two men in the desert, about which it is impossible to write.

day thirteen. 83 miles. {33 by bicycle, 50 in the back of a pick-up truck} eureka, nevada to ely, nevada.

day fourteen. 64 miles. ely, nevada to baker, nevada {7 miles from the utah border}

day fifteen. 60 miles. baker nevada to somewhere in the middle of the desert, west of milford.

day sixteen. 47 miles. the middle of the desert to east of minersville.

day seventeen. 39 miles. east of minersville to cedar city.

the disclaimer of sorts:
let me first explain that none of these things are possible to adequately describe. no way. secondly, this post will not be broken up by the specific days, as it has all become one giant mush of time. a complete blur. hopelessly smooshed together.

it is now june 22nd, and i have returned to finish the unfinished writing, the gaps in the stories, noticing that the words herein don't even begin to convey the extremity of emotional/psychological/physical discomfort felt. plus, it is all a blur. all of it. i can recall exact moments here and there, but for the most part the last five days are all one day. one long and confusing day. a piece of thread, unraveled from the spool, spinning out endlessly before us all, without change. long and white. a path from somewhere to somewhere else.

alas, where is garcia marquez when you need him?

nevertheless, the reader reads. a jumbled mess. like the body and mind of this man. all twisted and turned inside out. "like wire come into the heart." ~ck

day thirteen. this was without question, the most physically challenging day of my life, excepting the extremity of several broken bone incidents. {though SOME of the broken bone incidents were much easier to stomach than this} horrible and atrocious and seemingly unbearable, mike and i are pushed to places of endurance that we have never before been. physical and emotional. how do i write this? oh.
i guarantee you, it is not what you expect.

we leave the hotel in the morning and notice the black sky. black. it looks quite a bit more like an ocean than a sky. it reminds me of the midday darkness that fell over sevilla that one day so long ago, when i stood on the rooftop and watched the light crash down. and then we see the thunder. the white flashes of light high up on the brown hills. we stop at the "grocery store," the walls of which are covered in large animal heads {75?} and a few complete specimens, to buy garbage bags to protect our things from the forthcoming rain. we stand out front bagging things. computers, phones, cameras, sleeping bags, a few items of clothes. we feel smart. we feel as though on this day, we will be victorious. we will conquer the foul mood of the earth. we feel invincible with our black plastic bags and our smart little brains. oh, but we are incorrect. amazingly incorrect.

so we begin the climb out of town. the rain falls. it is light at first, and we laugh at the brilliance of our rainjacket selections. we giggle. compliment one another's color selections. jeff in a pale green, and mike in a muted but shiny yellow. we stop to add/remove layers at the top of the hill three miles in, as the rain has increased a bit. i put on my legwarmers and gloves. mike puts on another shirt beneath his jacket. we carry on. the rain increases. the drops grow in size. everything gets worse. we make it to the summit and put on our headlamps and red flashing lights in the back. they blink.

^&*$%(^&%@ *&$@*&%@*$ *&@^$*&^$@ (@$*&@^$&*

it becomes virtually impossible to see as the rain falls harder. highway 50 is not designed to accept water in the desert. it is a floodplain. we ride through 6 inches of water. we grow more and more wet by the moment. the rain becomes ice. hail. the hail drops are large. peanut sized. they hurt. i fall into a state of mild despair, as i realize that the rain is not going to stop, but will instead grow worse, steadily by the moment. the headwind remains. my brain spins. our panniers and bodies are soaking wet. at somewhere around mile 30, i begin to to the math to ascertain how much longer it will take us to get to ely. it is nearly 4 in the afternoon, and we have another 53 miles to ride in this hailstorm. uh-oh. we're fucked. simple as that. we are moving at a pace between 8 and 10 mph which puts us there somewhere between 9 and 10pm without lunch or any breaks. this is unacceptable. impossible. dangerous. mike and i pull over and discuss the gravity of our situation. though mike is reluctant, i convince him that we absolutely MUST hitchhike for a ride. it is the only release from this situation. freedom. we are also somewhat afraid of being struck by lightning, as irrational as that may sound.

and then comes the real pain. at mile 33, a white truck finally pulls over. we rejoice. we are saved. the man steps from the truck, laughing nervously at the crazy guys riding their bicycles through the nevada desert, in the middle of a hailstorm. he feels bad for us. his heart is enormous. i can tell. we lift our monstrously heavy bikes into the back of the truck, which is full of construction gear {ice chests, duffle bags, tools, etc.} and attempt to figure out just where we will sit. there is no room in the cab, as it is full of people. we smile, and tell the man that we are imminently grateful, and we will be fine riding outside in the back, which in hindsight was completely absurd. we feel as though we are imposing a bit, and thusly DO NOT put on any more clothing. we climb in the back amongst the things, and fight to create a place for our bodies. my left leg is bent at the knee, and resting on an ice chest, while i squat on my right leg. by the end of the ride, my right leg is shaking as though i am having a seizure, which i may have been close to as a matter of fact.

the truck pulls away from the side of the road, and we begin laughing at the situation. this is where, the reader must keep in mind that we are at an elevation of nearly 7000 ft. in a hailstorm. it is so fucking cold, it is amazing. we are on a boat in the middle of the norse sea, but we are riding in the back of a pickup truck in shorts. i cannot really describe the physicality of the situation. i can only describe the mental places that i was forced to visit. my seating position was the most uncomfortable seating position i have ever experienced, but i could not move, as the weight of my bicycle was pressing up against me with great force the entire time. if i moved, i was afraid that the bike would break my ribs {yes the force was strong enough to make that concern valid} and crush my lungs, leaving me dead in the back of this stranger's truck. mike would not have been able to tell that i was dead, as i had to hunch forward, crunching down as tightly as i possibly could, so that the hail would not attck me. there were times {twice?} when i raised up for some reason or other. i would estimate that this man was driving between 80 and 90 miles an hour, which meant simply that i was pelted with hail at speeds of approximately 100 miles an hour including the headwind. i cannot describe how painful this was. and it just kept getting worse. i began to shiver violently. my entire body shaking. i have never in my life, been anywhere near this cold. i kept telling myself not to cry, as that would not help me at all. i did not cry. i began speaking to myself. speaking to keri. my mom and dad. christian. my dead grandfather. i stared at the ice chest. i tried to sing songs to hold my mind together. i began to worry about hypothermia. in hindsight, i still believe that this was a valid concern. i began to think about frostbite. amputation. i am not exxagerating or joking. i considered my options to attempt to rectify my miserable state. where is my fleece? could i possibly get it on? shit. it is in the pannier that the bike is laying on. what about my sleeping bag? what if i could undo the bungee cords, open the bag and pull it down over my head. hmmmmm. i extend my arms, but realize that i would have to stand to reach it, which would most certainly send me flying from the truck into the arms of death. the only other time in my life, that i have felt my mortailty come this close to the precipice, was when i found myself staring at the mountains in some giant lake, attempting to swim another mile when i was certain i would drown. "doggy-paddle." it is an absolutely terrifying experience. and while i type, i know that it must ridiculous that i was pondering my death in the back of a pickup truck, but i just ask you to trust me. really.

my mind went in and out of moments where i felt strong and moments where i felt weak. i was afraid that i would fall asleep and never wake. a coma. i spoke spanish to myself. sang a spanish children's song about mosquitos. "no moleste mosquito, porque este mosquito es mio." i made up my own song about ice chests. i yelled out. "fuck!" "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" i begin to ponder trying to yell at mike and tell him to tap on the windshield, asking the guy to stop. how much longer can i take it? and then a moment of genius. i remember that i packed two extra garbage bags, and that they are within reach. i raise up, the ice attacking me from behind, and grab them. my intention is simple. i will open them, poke holes for my head and arms, and will thusly have two extra layers to save me from this hell. but of course i open the bags, and the wind catches them. it is impossible. they are black kites in the sky. after about three minutes, i get a hole poked in bag # 1, and try to put it on myself. of course the hole is far too small and all i manage to do, is get my left arm through, which means that now i have a big black kite flying off my left arm. i try again. bag # 2. i am quicker with the hole this time, and manage to get it over my head somehow, but then the wind catches it. i hunch forward in despair. i now have one bag flying and flapping from my neck, an oversized plastic scarf, attempting to pull my head off. the other makes it difficult to keep my arm down. i cry. i stop crying quickly. i find the strength to raise up, and ask mike how much further he thinks we have to go. i am screaming at the top of my lungs, and though he is three feet away, we can barely hear one another. "ten miles," he says. i fall back into my ball, and tell myself that it will be over soon. tell myself that i will appreciate the intensity of this experience for the rest of my life. i hum to myself. tell myself to focus. focus jefferson, focus. i could write about this for pages and pages. this place i went. but i need time. time to process and time to comprehend. the truck finally stops and we climb down laboriously, most of our bodies numb. we are laughing and shivering. we shake the man's hand, our own grip, a block of wood. unmoving. ungrabbing. we stand there on the roadside laughing for minutes as we scramble to get more clothing on our bodies. we talk about this all day.

we get a hotel for the night. we shower. nap. go to dinner in a disgusting casino/restaurant. we watch sadly as the old people gamble and chain smoke. we sleep. we rise, our things still soaked. the panniers have puddles in the bottom. we eat breakfast and ride.

i ask myself, "when, oh when will this bloody desert end? how much can one write about the desert? how many times can one shake their head at the goddamn relentless headwind? how many towns can we ride 64 miles to reach, 73 miles, 85 miles, only to find that there is no grocery store...only crackers and other such crap for dinner?" it is simply not wise to eat crackers and cookies when one is putting their body through such turmoil. "how can i endure another 140 miles of this place of psychological ruin?"

i run desert facts through my mind:

1. it is not very enjoyable to eat your breakfast in the desert sun. one simply wants to hurry up and finish, as it is too fucking hot. how can it possibly be this hot at 7am?

2. it is not very enjoyable to eat your breakfast while standing up to avoid the constant influx of bugs into your food. i have finally given up, and just eat them. one gives up on many things while in the desert.

3. there is no comfortable seating in the desert.

4. i am still afraid of rattlesnakes.

5. i am still afraid of spiders, especially ones that i think are mice in the dark due to their size. why, for the love of god, are there spiders the size of mice?

6. what is happening in my nose is miraculous. {the content specifically}

7. one should not have to rise as they attempt sleep, to remove several fist sized rocks from beneath their bed. it is frustratingly uncomfortable.

8. i despise nevada. gambling, and whores, and trashy people. there was not one town that we rode through {granted there were only six or so} that i liked at all. i found all of them to be awful. just fucking horrible.

9. distances in the desert are terribly deceiving. things are always much further away than they look.

10. the desert is much, much, much, much, much {etc, etc} longer than i thought.

11. i do not wish to ever ride my bicycle through the desert again.

12. to those of you that think i am complaining, and being unappreciative of my trip: ride YOUR goddamn bicycle through the desert for 9 days. there.

we leave ely, and ride for what seems like far too long. oh, the hope. the hope that lives in the name of a town. the amount of time spent daydreaming of the magical little cafes and restaurants that will live there. no. none. these simply do not exist here. we arrive in baker to find the grocery store closed, and one shitty little restaurant. with the store closed, we cannot ride on. we eat at the shitty little restaurant and ride back up some dirt road to camp. i walk downtown and call keri from the lone payphone. she is the light in a dark, dark room. her laughter, an angel. the conversation is at times heavy, as the time apart is seemingly unbearable. a sickness. i walk back into the desert and sleep. awaken to the relentless sun. breakfast. we fuck around in town four hours. writing. reading. eating. loading up on water.

we leave far too late in the day. 3:30 pm. what were we thinking? at some point during the day, mike fall apart completely. mile 26. i pull away, far away, a mile or two. i finally look back and no longer see him. i flag down a car {the first in an hour or so} and ask the driver if he might check on my friend back there. i can see down the road approximately fifteen miles {we have measured it...no joke} and see mike a few miles back rise and walk into the street. the car drives off. he is okay. i ride back to him. we drink coffee and tea respectively and ride on. we ride and ride, into the darkness of the night. cedar city has become mecca. our only remaining hope. the sky drops and the moon rises. we ride until nearly midnight, fighting up a ten mile climb. we camp. the desert is killing us. our spirits.

we rise and leave. it is only 30 miles to milford, nevada {the next town} but things get bad. the headwind is relentless. we are riding downhill at 9 mph. i fall apart. completely. i drift in and out of consciousness. i begin to count the lines of tar that intersect the pavement, fixing the cracks. i reach 342 without really noticing. i begin running a sentence through my head: "please let there be a payphone in milford. please let my credit cards work with it, or let the collect call work. please let keri be home. please let her answer." i say this sentence repeatedly for 15 miles. at one point, i shake my head, and feel exactly as if i just woke up. i am frightened. i drool on purpose. it feels interesting running on my chin. i talk to myself. i speak german. i say the word "strawberry" over and over and over in german, then in english. i am falling apart. i know this, but do not give a shit.

we reach the town, and it is as hopeless and miserable as all of the others. we sit at the gas station for hours. keri is not home. mike calls his parents and i hear him arguing. i try everything. i listen to music, which does not work. i write, which does not work. some man is now on the payphone. i panic a bit. i feel trapped. locked in a box beneath dirt. finally, she is there. she calms my restless heart. she tells me that the desert will end. mike and i know this, but we cannot seem to swallow the truth of it. somehow, we eat and ride on, with more hope in us. it says on the map that there is a grocery store in the next town 16 miles up. there is not. there is only a gas station. oh god, help us. we eat dinner at the gas station. the despair becomes funny. we laugh quite a bit.

the trashy people stand around and talk to us. to young boys {13 and 14} ask us questions for hours. "do you chew?" "do you hunt bears?" "why didn't you buy a quad {4 wheel drive atv} instead of those bikes?" we leave. i cannot describe the exhaustion with everything that we feel. everything.

we ride another three miles into the desert and camp.

we wake in the morning and ride through another fifteen miles of mormon crickets to our slavation. farmland. cattle and horses. humans. cedar city. i have not the words.

salvation i suppose. what else can i say? we leave the endless desolation and arrive in a city of 20,000 people. it feels like mecca. we get a hotel for the night and do laundry. eat in a restaurant for the first time in days. go to the grocery store. buy fruit. fruit fruit fruit. how much we of the west, the gluttons of the world, take things for granted. fruit. my god, the fruit i will consume. and now a break. we stay here tomorrow, look for a place to camp nearby, and wednesday i drive a rented car to salt lake, while mike does something else. what will mike do?

keri grows closer by the minute.

day eighteen. zero miles. what else can i say?

Posted by jeff pitcher at June 22, 2004 09:42 AM

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