Upon Arrival

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn
So roll on, Columbia, roll on.
-- Woody Guthrie

They gave me home made wine,
but it was not enough, the cold had made me numb
-- Frank black, Manitoba

I just spent 6 days in an alternate reality, one of 2$ well whiskey, 4$ packages of cigarettes, bikini clad girls floating along the river in inflatable tubes, open plain vistas with blinding sunsets, and cozy long drives along unknown highways with lots of touching and feeling.

As you know I was in Quincy, WA, to see Arcade Fire, The Dears, The Pixies, Wilco, and Modest Mouse. I saw them all, the standout being Arcade Fire's powerful entrance onto the stage after arriving from Barcelona only hours beforehand, Wilco's performance with the sun setting over the Columbia River, and Frank Blacks ability to hold 20,000 people in the palm of his hand.

I had arrived in Quincy with a ride from Julia, and her friend Gina. I sat in the back seat of the car with a view of their lovely black hair lapping at the head rests in front of me from the rush of wind coming in through the open windows. After crossing over the border into America, I walked into a road side gas station to buy a 12 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Total cost: $10.40. The party had only just started, and I knew then that it was going to be a good one. We were on our way to meet Unice, who had arrived from Portland, and was waiting for us in a hotel room on the outskirts of Quincy, population 5 341. Although Unice was nowhere to be found when we got to the hotel, the desk manager let us into the room anyway. He did the honors of opening the door, and was not by the state of room 206. It wreaked like pot, was littered with beer bottles, and was empty. Unice had been having a party with some friends that were staying at a camp site close by. We got rid of the desk clerk as quickly as possible, found a note from Unice saying that they would return from dinner shortly, and crashed on the beds, Gina, Julia, and I. Our rest was soon interupted by the door being unlocked, laughter, and the rippling sound of brown paper bags full of beer. Unice always has an entourage of friends whenever she is out, and tonight was no different. There was Mitch, a steel worker who had just gotten back from a 3 month stay in mexico, Mitch's girlfriend Joette who had just moved to Portland from LA, Joette's sister Quiana, who was a marathon runner and our future host in portland, Percy, a photographer for a large commercial studio in Portland, Percy's wife Laletta, an artist, and of course there was Unice.

Unice sat in the open window of the hotel with an eggshell blue cotton dress on that had three seam folds that ran the entire length of her dress, but only on the left side. She had cut her hair shorter, and had dyed it in such a manner that it looked like she had carefully poured platinum blonde all over her jet black hair. She had gotten more tattoos as well, this time adding hot rod flames that started at her left wrist which crawled all the way up her forearm. Watching her sit in the open hotel room window with one leg crossed over the other, sipping her drink when we were alone in the hotel room, when everyone else was outside smoking, is still one of my favorite visions of the entire adventure I was about to embark on.

The Sasquatch festival was 12 hours of intense sun, 24oz cans of bud light, and a steady procession of cigarettes and joints at the Gorge, a natural amphitheater just outside of Quincy. The venue itself was as dramatic as the action on stage, which used as its backdrop the most incredible view of the Columbia River, which lay beneath impressively eroded hillsides that it had created with its powerful current thousands of years beforehand. Imagine lying on your back in the blazing heat of a cloudless sky, while watching the best bands that popular music has to offer right now. I spent the whole day in some kind of heat induced trance. After awhile it was all about survival as casualties were passed out all along the perimeter fence, just by the stage. Arms outstretched, and mouths open, they were oblivious to the fact that a massive horde of drunken sun crazed music fans loomed dangerously close by. Luckily, because one of my friends was playing on one of the smaller stages, I was allowed access to the VIP tent where there was free water, booze, and a stellar patio beside the stage which overlooked the Columbia River. Unice was chatting up Jeff Tweedy from Wilco, while I concentrated on keeping my head from hitting the white plastic of the table I was sitting at. No wonder I eventually lose all my ladies.

Before leaving Quincy everyone that had hung out with us over the weekend met beside the Yakima river for an afternoon swim before we all dispersed to our regular lives. Julia and Gina had to head back to the hometown, so I arranged a ride with Percy, for Unice, Quiana, and I, while we were floating on our backs in the swift cold current of the Yakima. Down stream there was a large metal staircase that you could grab on to as you floated by. We would climb out, walk back, get a beer, and repeat the process. It was fantastic. I spent most of my time with Julia though, who looked lovely in her brown and green paisley bikini. It was so wonderful to be having such a great time with people I had only met just yesterday. We said our goodbyes knowing full well we would never see each other again, got into our cars, and headed south to Oregon.

Unice, who know lives in LA, had been in Portland for sometime shooting some teen angst TV pilot, and was staying with Quiana, who lived in a small house with a pretty back yard. We arrived in Portland shortly after 10pm, and I met Quiana's roommates who were a group of performance artists that owned an ice cream truck, and among other mail art projects, would blend performance art with ice cream sales in and around Portland. Leigh seemed to be the leader of the whole troupe, and his paintings covered the walls of the small house he shared with Quiana. Leigh had wild hair that loomed dangerously close to an afro, and he beamed with infectious enthusiasm. We opened a bottle of wine, and I played Roll on Columbia on Quiana's guitar. I had been transfixed by the view of the Columbia all along the way to Portland, and by the stories Quiana shared with me about Woody Guthrie being commissioned by the Oregon power authority to write inspirational songs about the damns that were being built up and down the Columbia River. Quiana said there was a man that was still alive in Portland, and he recently shared his story with the local newspaper, of how he was hired by the state government to drive Woody around Oregon in a brand new black government issued sedan. Woody was driven up and down the Columbia, while he sat in the back of the car, plucking out songs on his guitar, rarely speaking a word. According to his driver, he seemed depressed.

Quiana and Leigh worked at a small restaurant in Portland, so the next day we did some shopping and were then treated to a free lunch, and all the beer we could drink, which took us to happy hour. I was completely transfixed by the American bar. They are often similar in appearance, with dark wood, neon signs and such, but they each have their own unique aura. The whole concept of happy hour governed my entire time in Portland. Where else can you drink double whiskey sodas for $2.00 a round? Well, anywhere in America at 5:30pm really, but this was new to me, and dangerous as well. Quiana had to work, so Unice and I were left to our own devices in a small hotel bar, with a bartender that looked like a retired member of ZZ Top. I drank double whiskies, and Unice drank gin. We talked, we laughed, and Unice cried when I told her how our bodies are vessels, carrying us in an unstoppable journey towards death, and that we must jump into rivers at any given chance when the opportunity presents itself. She hadn't swam the day before, saying it was too cold. Then she told me how she had started to see another guy in LA, some actor of course, and more tears followed, the whole bar seemed to watch us, but we could care less. I told her that was fine, that given our geographical location, it was pretty pointless to think we could be anything other than friends. The hours flew by and before we knew it we were almost three hours late to meet back with Quiana. By this point we didn't have a clue where we were, and were too drunk to concentrate on getting anywhere else, so we called Quiana to come and get us. Quiana, along with the pub she worked at with Leigh, also worked at a trendy downtown bar in Portland, so she took us there. We sat at the bar, and were promptly poured free shots of Makers Mark whiskey, which despite our earlier declaration as friends, caused me to kiss Unice's shoulder, and run cocktail straws laden with ringlets of ice up and down her arm.

When I awoke on Quiana's couch the next morning, I had one American dollar left in my pocket, and I still had a day and a half left in Portland. I couldn't figure out if I had lost my money, or had given it all to the cab driver as he was cleaning Unice's vomit off the back seat of the cab while Unice and Quiana were lying on the grass beside the driveway. Then I remembered how Unice and Quiana were passed out in the back of the taxi, and I spent close to a half hour with the cab driver, who was incredibly patient given the situation, trying to find out where exactly Quiana lived. We all eventually made it back into the house, and I grabbed a guitar and launched into some song about trendy cabbies, being lost and drunk in the city, and jumping into cold rivers. Once Leigh had gotten over the shock at the state of his roommates, he grabbed a banjo and played along.

We spent all next day recovering, and by the time we were feeling well enough to venture out, it was happy hour again. We had dinner at a high end mexican tapas restaurant, and despite the pricey menu, Pabst was available for $2.00 a bottle. After dinner there was some great bars on the strip shared by the restaurant, so we met with some of Quiana's friends, and had drinks, bar hopping our way to the Baghdad theatre.

Seeing a movie in Portland is a unique experience because most of the theaters there are a cross between a cinema and a bar, the Baghdad being the flagship of this concept. It's huge, each row of seats has a long table in front of it. The theatre was empty, and Fever Pitch was playing. Romantic comedies are my favorite kind of movies, they are terrible, I know this, but there is something intoxicating about watching people fall in love, especially movie stars. It's all so perfect. I can lust after the lead female, and pretend I am the lead male in a 90 minute affair with a guaranteed happy ending. It's unhealthy, as it leaves me with a feeling of loss and emptiness as I leave the theatre, because I realize it's all just a fantasy. I walked home in a light rain with Unice and Quiana. In the morning we would say goodbye and I would be alone again. We made such a great trio, never once feeling like being on our own, always willing to pursue the others agenda, or singing each other songs on the couch before we would fall asleep.

The following morning came all too quickly, I hugged Quiana goodbye, gave Unice one last lustful kiss, and boarded my train for Seattle. I quickly found the bar car, and took a seat that faced the window, which featured the pacific northwest rolling by. I sat there for the whole trip, drinking cans of Budweiser beside some overweight woman jamming chips into her mouth, while talking to me in some trashy dialect I could not comprehend. I got rid off her pretty quickly by mentioning that I had just gotten out of jail for pimping young girls, which was actually a pretty stupid thing to do, especially once I saw the size of her husband, and the hate in his eyes for city slickers such as myself.

I arrived in Seattle, sometime around, you guessed it, happy hour. I walked across the street to the closest bar, and reality began to set in, that in three short hours I would be back in the hometown. Before I had left, I had slept with Nymphalidae, Ananta, and was now having lustful feelings for Julia, but probably only because I know she's not interested in me. Disinterest, or even being hurt, seems to be the only thing that I can feel these days. It was the whiskey soaked words of Unice, from two nights earlier, that formed the largest cloud of doom in my mind during happy hour in Seattle. She said that I was damaged, and that any woman with half a brain would never come near me. How ironic to be thinking this in Seattle, a city of so many fond memories that have since tarnished under the darkness of the past. I drank, and I thought about my future. It was bleak, gentle reader, so fucking bleak. My inability to lay the past to rest has fueled within me a selfish, cold, numbness that seems insurmountable. Sitting in the bar, I could see out the window that the bus was beginning to board. I finished my last drink, grabbed my bag, climbed the bus to an empty row of seats, and began the very short journey which would take me back to a place I know all too well.