BY JOEY DAYTONA | Lots of things in Michigan felt too big to me. Many of the roads are large enough to be comfortable for semi-trucks to drive on without much effort. Whereas here “back east” we had a smaller, denser scale of building and development so that you would, on occasion, see a group of pedestrians stop and gawk while a truck slowly made a corner and took out a street sign to enthusiastic applause. An hour later someone had a “7th Avenue” sign on top of their apartment’s nonfunctioning fireplace mantle like a trophy from a hunt.

An odd confluence of events conspired to get me driving out to Grand Rapids. One was a business conference. Another was a sick and dying relative. The band The Talking Heads had that song, Once in a Lifetime, where one of the lyrics is, “How did I get here?” This was one of those times for me, as I drove into Michigan across the Indiana border at 5am. I’d driven off the highway in the Midwest before and had to remember how to drive “by the book” with proper following distances, signaling your turns and obeying the speed limits.

I’d left the city at 7pm and drove like a banshee for half that 10 hours time until I stopped along the Pennsylvania Turnpike for gas and food. I rested my eyes in the parking lot and remembered a vacation trip I took as a child with my family where my sister and I had built a divider between us in the back seat of the car with blankets and pillows and proceeded to launch wadded up gum wrappers at each other in a miniature medieval siege. At a Howard Johnsons we ate, and I was allowed to get one souvenir from a vending machine. My sister got a black and white Scotty dog keychain, and I got a rubber tire keychain with a compass in the center. I didn’t need a keychain as I didn’t have any keys, but liked reading out our direction for a half-hour or so until my father turned around and gave me that dreaded look of disapproval as he turned up the radio. As I drove and the sun was coming up behind me, I saw a sign on the side of the road that read, “God Loves You.”

Once inside Michigan I pulled over to plug my final destination into the GPS. Ahead was Coldwater, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo but I would somehow have to miss Paw Paw and Cement City. I was on I-69 and getting hungry, so I blundered into the Tekonsha Cafe for a $7.99 big Midwest breakfast. Toast? “Would you like white, wheat, rye, Texas, sourdough, or, for an extra charge, raisin?” I had the sourdough which was divine with real butter and despite being tired I skipped the coffee lest I not be able to sleep once I arrived at my destination. The locals seemed nice enough with their uniform of dungarees, plaid shirts over T-shirts and trucker hats. If you squinted and unfocused your eyes they could have been Hipsters. I hit the head and listened to the dripping of the faucet before checking my phone to see if I had any early morning messages. My aunt texted me she hoped I was having a safe trip and asked when I might arrive. I estimated it before once back in the Camaro where I saw on the GPS it would only be another two hours, which due to the Grand Rapids morning rush hour traffic, stretched into two and a half. On the way I saw a Chevrolet Chevelle and was barely able to get a photo.

When I arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house, I was very tired and after hugs and a brief synopsis of my road trip, I went sleep in their guest room after I did a shot of Nyquil. I’d had a brief episode of abusing it a few years prior, when I would drink half a small bottle on weekend nights to get and stay asleep as my apartment then had a great view of the noisy streets of Chelsea. The room had belonged to my cousin, who long ago moved to Arizona for college (and stayed there, becoming a real estate lawyer). She might have also been a secret lesbian because if she was a man, they’d have called her a “confirmed bachelor” which was some sort of code I was told many years ago. We had only messaged on social media off and on through the years and we “liked” our various posted vacation photos with the ubiquitous Thumbs-Up. I hadn’t actually seen her in almost 20 years at a wedding—and in my mind, as relatives came to our table of younger folks they asked her, “When are you getting hitched?” which was met with blushing nervous laughter. Photos of her as the softball team captain were still up on the wall along with a couple of trophies and ribbons for horse jumping.

I awoke to the smell of meat and potatoes. Side salad and apple pie. Afterwards we sat in the living room as the TV news provided background noise on a low volume. I looked around the room and it truly was a time capsule from when my cousin had moved out. Nothing had changed since I’d visited after the wedding with my sister and parents (before they divorced). My uncle drank a beer out of a can, and I had a ginger ale on ice. We regaled each other with tales of the “good old days” and remembrances of other relatives, now deceased. My uncle once took my father to the local version of a country club to play tennis. There he swapped out the ball with a joke item that would just land with a thud. He talked about it when he could and sure enough there was a commercial on the television for a sports drink and the young couple were playing tennis. I counted to three and he reminded me of the gag ball. Another 10 minutes passed and when there was a long pregnant pause, I excused myself and hit the head. I looked in the mirror and saw a different me in that moment, older and wiser but getting closer to these old people in many ways.

In the hallway were yellowing family photos at eye level, with dust in the corners of the frames. Who was that at the Prehistoric Forest?

Someone on a pony. A guy washing a green 1972 Chevelle. Then I saw myself and my sister in one that was taken in their backyard right here when we were little kids. A sunny summer day, maybe around the Fourth of July. Our arms were around each other in a tight, smiling sibling clinch. I almost cried. I took a photo of it. Instead, I put on my shoes, grabbed my keys and wallet and took a cruise up and down the local drag: Main Street USA on a weekday night. Tomorrow was the conference, then a visit to the local hospital to see my other uncle. But that night, I was James Dean driving downtown at 10 miles an hour with the top down so everyone could see me. Out of state plates in the house! When I got back my aunt was still up, and as she said goodnight. I resolved to text my sister. When I did, describing what had transpired so far, she wrote back, “Pix or it didn’t happen!” so I sent her the photo of us way back when to prove I was here. She wrote back, “OMG!” in disbelief.

The next day, well-rested and after another big Midwest breakfast, I was again stuck in the Grand Rapids morning rush hour. I listened to local radio stations each in turn five times over before giving up and having satellite radio play my familiar tunes. I was seemingly stuck in a downtown NYC late 1970s vibe for the last few years. A nifty CBGBs and New Wave punky playlist of Blondie, The New York Dolls, Lou Reed, the aforementioned Talking Heads, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys, Johnny Thunders, and then off to the UK for Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Damned, and so many more. I got to the hotel where the conference was being held and got Breakfast Dessert of another coffee and a small paper plate of pastries.

For lunch I wandered around downtown and took my photos in a random way of experiencing the drift of following my third eye and various signs and clues. I happened upon a mid-90s Impala SS that caught my eye. People call the color burgundy but I knew it was actually Dark Cherry Metallic and was only offered two of the three years Chevrolet made them as an option of the Caprice. I walked past the Pantlind Hotel. Pantlind, not Pantland.  It was built from 1913 to 1915 by J. Boyd Pantlind.

Business conferences have a very predictable pattern and rhythm. A breakfast buffet whose oblivious attendees stood, with mugs raised, in front of the coffee service chatting and blocking all late arrivals, one of whom informs them them they need to move along.

Idle chit chat called “networking,” which follows familiar and inoffensive lines of inquiry like, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do, and for whom?,” which is akin to the freshman year of college icebreakers in the dorm under the watchful eye of the Resident Assistant looking for psychos or possible sex partners. An introduction in the ballroom with the leadership cadre providing an agenda and run of show. Then off to your separate sessions along some thematic tracks.

Bottled water and mints. Handouts and a presentation on a screen. Question and answer with some mixed results. I wish they had a place to lie down for a while, like a Chill Out Room with low light and a pile of cushions and pillows.

Cue the porno music, brown chicken, brown cow orgy under black lights. Swingers in a Swag-Lamped passion pit sunken shag carpet living room funk malt liquor Quaalude haze. Bill Cosby gawking at a safe distance with his hand on his joystick. The negation of crass commercial and commodified desires is the ultimate triumph of the proletariat and all that (waves a red flag while throwing a Molotov cocktail). I was beginning to feel that the wholesome Midwest vibe was making me back into a cultural, social, economic, and political revolutionary.

I took my lunch to go and began my walk around town. I found the Rosa Parks  and Arthur Vandenberg statues near Biggby Coffee where they made me a Righteous Red Eye with two shots of espresso.

We all know who Rosa Parks was, but Art was a Republican U.S. Senator from Michigan who served from 1928 until 1951 and helped form the United Nations. I looked him up and it seems he was an isolationist until after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I thought that Vandenberg Air Force base was named for him but that was his nephew, Hoyt. I then found the plaque commemorating where the Grand Rapids’ first wood-framed house was built by Joel Guild in 1833.

Once back to the conference for the afternoon sessions, during another break, I looked at the map of Grand Rapids more closely for clues and to see how far I’d ranged. I thought of all the people with a steadfast opinion, like isolationism, who were proven wrong and had to publicly change their minds and softly beg forgiveness for being so very wrong not to actively resist and then destroy fascism. It felt archaic now with Trump Forever signs I saw on lawns out here.

Back in traffic and to the hospital for the visit. That was sad and depressing to be brutally honest. Luckily, I’ve never been overnight in one as a patient but had dated a nurse for a few years and heard all the usual crazy stories of the emergency room at 3am. We sat there in my uncle’s room talking with the curtain hiding his roomie who was wheezing away and watching some lousy cable channel (Fox News). My aunt was my dad’s sister but the man we were visiting was her husband’s brother who I didn’t know as well. He’d had a tough life and had a few wives before getting cancer. He’d also been in jail but that wasn’t discussed at the time but only years later in hushed tones. Eventually I learned he had “hit on” my mom while drunk at a party years before. He was a black sheep and a lout but was now on his way out, so we huddled up and prayed for him. We held hands while standing around his bed and when we were done, he was crying and blotting his eyes with the edge of his bedsheet. I took a photo of them on each side of him not knowing if it might be the last photo of him, but I did know that I’d never see him again. On the way back we stopped at a local pizza place for a bite to eat. We even got to Flavorize the crust!

The next day I was again at the conference and again out for lunch for a walk around town. After it was all over I wandered over to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

Turns out it was closed but it is located along a riverfront park with a bunch of possibly homeless “street people” hanging around. I am not one for class warfare and give when I can. The scene was chill and I made eye contact and smiled. I can imagine actual fans of Ford coming and wanting to have a little picnic by the river then being under the watchful eyes of “bums” and “druggies.” Maybe when the museum is open they’re rousted by the police? It seems that the folks who should be singing The Ghost of Tom Joad by Rage Against the Machine are the least likely to know the song.

Near where I’d parked was the Van Andel Museum Center that had an Apollo capsule from back when NASA was going to the moon.

There was a spaceman statue at the Ford museum along with a statue of our former President.

Apparently the Grand River didn’t have as many rapids as it once did after having been tamed, as much of the land and people who were living there before the “settlers” invaded, killed them and chased away the rest.

I’d also found, around the corner from the Apollo capsule on the campus of the Grand Valley State University, the statue of Noahquageshik, aka Chief Noonday, who was a chief of the Grand River Band of Ottawa Nation.

I had to look up the Trail of Death that happened after he refused to sign a treaty in Chicago giving up the land south of the Grand River to the white men. There seems to be so much American history not taught for some odd reason or another, probably because plenty of our relatives were deplorable racist murderers.

I walked back, finished up the conference and skipped the hospitality Happy Hour networking event in the hotel lounge. I didn’t feel like being around them anymore. Bourgeoisie. Aspiring and ambitious. Evidence of the wide-reaching influence of Motor City and the mass production of the automobile all around me as I drove through this blandscape. I was reminded of the Calvin Coolidge quote “the business of America is business,” except he actually said, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world.” He said They. I drove back to the suburbs as I admired again the large scale of things in Michigan. “You can make wide turns here often.” would make a nice slogan on a bumper sticker. We surely do live in a liberal bubble on each coast of this country. I resolved to re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig when I got back to Chelsea.

So… I already have issues with strangers putting their fingers in my mouth so when I developed a toothache on the road, it gave me a lot of anxiety. I had a girlfriend wear rubber gloves and pretend to be my naughty dentist once, or twice, leaned on me and made me open wide. An odd play on a dom/sub power dynamic. Then I pretended to waver about my insurance plans coverage. The intimacy is what it’s all about for me as the actual sex act is secondary in some situations, like when in love. I told my relatives I was visiting a friend and sleeping over, so I drove away with a wave, a smile and a change of clothes and a few things in a shopping bag. I was raw and undone as the throbbing in my mouth stood at attention like a soldier boy on duty and aiming to please.

I drove around listening to Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, and Ministry—the late 1990s industrial soundtrack to some lost years in Boston. Hazy memories of a warehouse dance party in Worcester on ecstasy, with quarter pipes on each end for the kids to skateboard up the walls on. A mouthful of sour Skittles and some reefer. Techno strobe light chromatic shuffle stay hydrated. Boots and pants and boots and pants! That was it! I’d driven past corn fields on the way here and was just reminded of how some friends of friends we’d met at the “rave” invited us to a hippie pagan solstice party at a farm in Vermont. We camped out, ate magic mushrooms and I’d wandered off to take a leak and found myself masturbating in a corn field as I pleaded for the aliens to land and take me away before walking back to the campfires to eat Smores. The stickiness of marshmallow with graham cracker crumbs stuck to it on your hoodie that smelled of wood smoke and gender confusion. I hadn’t thought about that in years. When you’re tripping you see how gross and dirty the world really is, but you laugh it off because you can’t be dragged down by that sort of negativity.

As much as I loved my aunt and uncle, as an adult I needed a night away. I kept driving sort of looking for a sign and found one. Motel. I checked in after dusting the surfaces I found the closest liquor store on the online maps. There I got a bottle of bourbon and two liters of ginger ale. The shelf of Faygo sodas reminded me where I was. The long shadow of Detroit flung itself over the rest of Michigan like a greasy clumsy drifter on your wet dog. I paid cash because the credit card machines weren’t working which was a real tragedy for the folks in the other lines. The line for the ATM machine was getting restless.

I followed my third eye on the way back and followed a semi-truck that caught my attention. GOD, Guaranteed Overnight Delivery. I played my favorite (Detroit-based) Insane Clown Posse song, Miracles (aka Magnets, How Do They Work?). I was looking for another sign and found it in a secondhand clothing store run by a church. “GOD brought me here.” I thought I might say if anyone asked—and I would be telling the truth for once. I looked around and it was like a mid-century museum of Americana. I took pictures like an anthropologist but deleted them in the car out of shame and guilt for some reason. I found a black shiny women’s swimsuit and bought it as the late-middle aged lady cashier smiled at me. What was she thinking? Was it for my girlfriend to wear as I took photos of her in high heels as Lana Del Rey played in the background? Would she bat her eyelashes at me and say all breathy and drowsy, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” Would I promise to delete those other photos after I masturbated to them just once more?

Back at the motel, I got ice and started drinking even though I’d been mostly sober since my father died and I had a lost month that ended with a vodka, weed, and Xanax episode where I dreamed I stole the Mexican flag from a local restaurant. The next day I saw in my kitchen it was hung up on the refrigerator like a war trophy. I turned the TV on and sat down. I looked at my phone for a while, stood up and took a photo of myself in the mirror.

After some time, I was feeling less pain and took a bath. I could see how if one were really messed up it would be easy to just slide under the water and drown like a rock star. Michigan was growing on me, enveloping me in a druky orange haze. I forgave myself for many things. It was like a reverse baptism or something, a 1930s pre-Hayes Code débauche.

I dried off, was hungry and found a Detroit-style pizza place that delivered. Fed and sleepy the TV droned on and the next day I found an “emergency” dentist after calling around for half an hour. I got my script for painkillers, went to the drugstore and returned to my aunt and uncle. I swallowed a couple before sitting with them to watch TV in that drab but loving living room of imperfect memories.

–END–

JOEY DAYTONA  | Joey was a DJ, snowboarder and drag racer before retiring early to wait tables in Chelsea during the day and drive for a car service at night. His spirit animal is Travis Bickle. He also writes e-books under a pseudonym and was the manager of the Spaghetti Tacos restaurant upstate and former co-owner of the Go More Fast speed shop. He has a YouTube channel under his real name and was banned from Twitter. His motto is: On the Road, On Tour, Across the Country!

Chelsea Community News is an independent, hyperlocal news, arts, events, info, and opinion website made possible with the help of our awesome advertisers and the support of our readers. Our Promise: Never a paywall, no pop-up ads, all content is FREE. With that in mind, if circumstances allow, please consider taking part in our GoFundMe campaign (click here). To make a direct donation, give feedback, send a Letter to the Editor, or contact our founder/editor, send an email to Scott Stiffler, via scott@chelseacommunitynews.com.

To join our subscriber list, click here. It’s a free service provding regular (weekly, at least) Enewsletters containing links to recently published content. Subscribers also will be sent email with “Sponsored Content” in the subject line. That means it’s an exclusive message from one of our advertisers, whose support, like yours, allows us to offer all content free of charge.