CHAPTER ONE: JOURNEY’S BEGINNING

The year was 1991. In the aftermath of my faux achievement, the dread set back in. I was back in the really real world again, stuck with my dead end job, and dealing with my slowly but surely departing girlfriend. The only truth to this endeavor was the physicality. Not the dunking part. But I really had been spending the better part of the last year whipping myself into shape at the gym. I was preparing. For what, I don’t know. But I was preparing, nonetheless. I knew I had to make a move towards greatness. I just didn’t know how.

I got out of bed as I listened to the sound of pouring rain hitting the windowsill of my crappy St. Louis apartment. Before gathering my clothes that were strewn about and taking them to the laundromat, I grabbed the phone and dialed my girlfriend's number. I got the answering machine.

*Beep* This is Cassandra. I’m not here right now, so leave a message. *Beep*

“Hey Cassie, it’s me. I know it's super late and I’m sure you already went in for your shift. But I wanted to tell you that I’m gonna go ahead and call in tomorrow so we can both have a day off at the same time to talk things over. Give me a ca…” *Beep*

I sighed as I hung the phone up and then began gathering the laundry. Just one of many mundane motions I went through on a weekly basis in between fielding calls from my nagging mother and putting up with my shit job. You see, I worked at a shampoo bottling factory. I made $9.70 an hour. No sign of a promotion in sight and no raise in nearly two years. Though I had heard rumblings that a lead position was opening up and I could make $10.20 soon, had I stayed. But I didn’t, so that’s irrelevant. More on that in a little bit.

Cassandra was a nurse at the local hospital. I met her three years prior when I was admitted to the emergency room for a skateboarding accident. It wasn’t exactly within patient-caregiver ethics, but it was her first year as a nurse, and to me, she was Florence Nightingale. It was love at first sight. But it didn’t stay that way. She staved off us moving in together until we could afford a place in the suburbs. Only problem was, my deadbeat job kept me trapped in the city.

When I got to the laundromat, everything was pretty typical. I was the only one there on this rainy night. The TV on the wall was showing footage from the Gulf War. First Bush by the way. After loading my stuff into the washer, I eased back into a rolling chair, and propped myself against the wall. It was a particularly agonizing mundane experience. I felt myself doze off, catching myself just before falling flat on my back from the rolling chair slipping out from under me. To prevent this, I leaned down onto the sorting table in front of me. After a moment, I crossed my arms and began to snooze.

Next thing you know, a bright light woke me up. I sat upright and looked around as I saw some little old ladies coming in. Shit! It was daylight out. The clock on the wall said quarter till 8.

Dammit, I hadn’t even put my stuff in the dryer yet and Cassie would be getting home from her shift soon. I scurried quickly to get everything done and jumped in the car to fly back home. When I got inside, horror awaited me. There was a message on the answering machine.

*Beep* Hey, listen. I know this is kinda shitty doing this through the answering machine. But I think it’s for the best that we breakup. You’re going nowhere and you’re taking me with you. I’ve got dreams, and a sense of adventure, that you just don’t seem to understand. I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be. Goodbye…*Beep* Cassie’s interrupted message exclaimed.

“No no no!” I uttered aloud, grabbing the phone and frantically dialing. Three times I called Cassie’s number, but no answer. Then suddenly, the phone rang on my end, so I answered.

“Hello! Oh mom, it's you. Listen…”

This was rather startling. My mother, without hesitation, began explaining to me that Cassie had called her and told her everything. Cassie said it would be best that I try not to pursue her and that she and her friends were going to Aruba for two weeks, starting tonight. I just sat there and listened to my mother talk. She told me how this was a good thing, for both of us in fact. When she was all finished, she stated my name repeatedly, intending for me to respond. Oh, I responded alright. I took that fucking phone’s receiver and I bashed it rigorously into the the base until the line disconnected and all that remained was broken plastic and bits of metal.

I wasn’t sure what my next move would be, but I decided to go off somewhere to think. I didn’t even bother going for a drive. I just took off walking. I walked, and walked. For hours I roamed the streets, contemplating on what my life had become and what it should have been. Then after a while, I came to a simple conclusion…that I simply didn’t give a shit anymore.. I made an about face and decided to go visit my place of employment, even though I had already taken the day off.

I came in on foot to the factory through an open garage door. I took one last good look around at the plastic bottles on conveyor belts lining their way around the floor to be filled, sealed, and boxed. My job was pulling a lever to squirt the shampoo into each individual bottle. After a good long moment of taking in the myriad of tubes circling the room, I made a deep sigh and then headed towards my workstation. On my way there, I encountered my grumpy supervisor, Rick.

“Do you have any idea what time it is? You’re late!” He huffed.

“But Rick, I took the day off,” I retorted.

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“Oh, yeah. That’s right. Then why the hell are you here?” he asked.

“Ya know, i was just thinking…” I paused for a moment.

“Yes?” he waited.

I smiled big and replied, “Actually, nevermind. I think I’ll go ahead and do the second half of my shift if that's alright?”

“Huh?” He scoffed, “Well, alright. I got Sheila over there on your station. You can go relieve her and tell her to hurry up and play catch up on the work she missed while doing your job.”

“Not a problem sir,” I smiled widely again before making my way to the station.

“And I better never see you call off for no good reason again Goddammit!” He shouted as our interaction came to an end.

As I approached my work area, I saw Sheila there. A short, thirty something brunette with goggles on. Usually, she swept the floor and ran UPCs.

“Oh, hey there…” Sheila started as I interrupted.

“Sheila, I just talked to Rick. I decided to come in today after all and he told me to tell you to take a big lunch break, on company time. Then come back with just an hour or so left of your shift to tighten some loose ends for the day,” I told her.

“Hmm? Really, Rick said that?” she asked, confused.

“Yeah. Also, he told me to tell you to remind him when you get back that I volunteered to do this and some of your job today so you can chill out for a few hours.”

“Well, okay. Sounds good to me. Thanks!” Sheila said, as she left joyfully.

My grin turned to malice as I looked at my workstation. I went around the corner to gather a few needed supplies, and when I returned, I frankensteined my station into a monstrosity. First, I strung the lever that squeezed shampoo out to continuously flow, causing it to partially fill bottles and slurp across the floor as the conveyor moved. Then, I rigged the conveyor button to move autonomously, causing the bottles to accelerate around the bend at a rate of about four or five times their usual speed. Then…I left.

Walking out of that place felt good. Like I’d really accomplished something. Not quite on the level of the basketball dream, but it was a start. Though I still had some grieving over Cassandra to do. I decided to keep walking, and thinking. The day slowly turned into night, and I began walking through less than desirable areas north of downtown St. Louis. But my mind was so fixated on my dilemma that I paid it no mind. That is until what happened next…

Let me preface this next part of my tale by warning you that this story of mine is quite weird. Probably far stranger than what you have gathered up until now based on what I’ve presented you with. ‘Guy’s a loser, guy gets dumped, guy quits his job…’. You’ve heard all that stuff before. But no, this story is far more wild than I or you or anyone could have imagined. And it all started on this night…

As I was walking in a particularly sketchy area of town, I started hearing some commotion coming from an alley. As my attention turned to it, I was able to make out the voices of two younger men.

“Come on, get his shit and go,‘ one said.

“Alright, alright, lets get the fuck out of here,” replied the other hoodlum.

The two men dashed away in the opposite direction of what seemed to be the body of a third man. Distracted from my thoughts, I ran over to render aid in whatever way I could. As I approached, I found what appeared to be a young man, around my age, incapacitated. He looked like a bum, unkempt and lifeless. I frantically started yelling for help.

“Hey! Help. Someone, call for help. We’ve got someone injured here!” I shouted.

There was a pause, then I yelled out again, “Help! Somebody!”

There was no reply. No one to be found on the street. No gasping audience, or the sound of sirens coming. It was just me, and him. Some guy on the street, dead. As I looked down at him, I started to feel something within me. Maybe an answer? I felt myself at a crossroads. I could either become something I wasn’t before, or I could become like him. Just some guy, dead on the street. No one would miss either of us. It was at that moment that I had an epiphany. Something about this guy stuck out at me. I’d noticed almost immediately when I arrived that he was of similar age as me. Similar build, ethnicity, hair color, and so forth. But now I realized, he could almost pass for me and I for him by just about anyone other than our closest friends and relatives. This gave me an idea.

I burst from the alley immediately. In an all-out sprint, I made my way back home and grabbed my car. As quickly as I could, I drove back to the grim scene. It had been just over an hour, partially to my surprise, partially not, his body was still there. No one else was around. No police, no paramedics, no coroner. Not even another passerby. So, I pulled up alongside him and popped the trunk of my 1971 Buick Skylark.

I loaded his body up and muttered, “Buddy, I’m about to set us both free.”

Getting back to my apartment and hauling him upstairs wasn’t easy. Though my time spent in the gym had certainly paid off and made this feat attainable. I slowly but surely got him inside without anyone noticing before the sun came up. Then I set him up in a chair in my living room, with his hands across his lap.

That morning, I went down to the bank and without much fanfare, I closed my account. $1872…that’s what I was worth in this world. When I got home, I saw there were two messages on my answering machine. I reluctantly hit play. The first, a message from my mother, nagging as usual. I skipped it. The second, an irate message from Rick. I skipped the machine…across the floor into the wall.

Happily, and hurriedly, I packed a small backpack with some essentials and took them down to the car. When I got back upstairs, I opened my wallet, took out my drivers license, and melted it with a lighter. Afterwards, I went to the utility closet near the front door. I blew out the furnace's pilot light and turned the valve all the way open. Then I rushed into the kitchen, threw some towels into the oven and turned it up to 400 degrees fahrenheit. On my way out, I put some toaster strudels, still wrapped in aluminum foil, into the toaster and cranked it up, wishing my friend in the chair goodbye as I made my way to the stairs.

As I mad-dashed out of the stairwell, I found myself skipping down the sidewalk to my car. I hopped in, tore off down the road and only looked back once to observe the fiery wreckage blasting out of the 5th story windows of my now destroyed former home.

It was at that moment that I realized I was free. Free to make something of myself, whatever that may be. Skid Row’s ‘Slave to the Grind’ was playing on the radio and I banged my head to the music as I flew down the highway that sunny afternoon into the western Missouri countryside. This journey of course would not be without its perils. Just three and half hours into it, my car would sputter to a halt on the side of the road just hours before sundown.