Step 9

I spent the last 13 days in Washington DC. I attended “Selection Orientation and Training” with the company I hope will hire me for Afghanistan. I passed a battery of evaluations and tests, including an oral board and psyche eval. The psychiatrist said I had a bit of a “Superman Complex.” I told him it was tough being a superhero. And then I did a PT test that included a ¼ miles run and obstacle course, both timed. I did the run in decent time and breezed through the O’ Course. After that was all over and done with we settled in for what was supposed to be “the fun stuff.” I spent consecutive days on the shooting range and tactical driving course. They were remedial but still better than sitting in a classroom all day. Then the rest of the week was spent I classes covering assorted topics like “Afghan Cultural History”, “Situational Awareness”, and “Tax Prep for Dumb Contractors.” The tax guy was actually the best course of the whole day! So at week’s end we finished up with some defensive tactics, (for dummies too), and then spent what seemed like an eternity learning about the history of Afghanistan from a very nice man that didn’t realize his mouth was still moving after 8 hours of talking. When they shook my hand and gave me a certificate of completion I was more than ready to bolt out of there and head for the hills! I changed my flight home and stayed a few days on the east coast so I could drive up through Philly and NYC. I guess this whole affair has seemed ho-hum to me because I already did a mission oversees. Most of the 20 or so people in the training class were starry eyed and ready to eat Afghan nails when it was all over with. I, on the other hand, was only ready to hit the road and feed my hunger for change.

I think Johnny Mayer says it best in my ear these days. “Something’s missing, and I don’t know how to fix it. Friends..check. Money…check. Well slept…check. Opposite sex…check”. I just don’t feel satisfied these days with the choices I’m making. Going oversees is becoming a burden on my mind. I’m half tempted to scratch the whole thing and buy a hot dog cart and sell dogs in downtown Boise. And my personal life is in complete flux too. I have 4 women, one of them married, in my life right now. Yeah, isn’t that a peach? What kind of idiot would get involved with a married woman at all…much less with a ton of crap already on his plate?! I wanted choices…but Jesus Jim! Why can’t I pick something, or someone, and just go with it? Shit…anyway.

So step 9 of 10 is complete. It’s taken a long time to get here, and I’m not over the last hurdle yet. But I need to document the process. So here I write. Oh yeah…I’ve begun to see shades of Red again and am not sure what to think about it. There’s only one shade on the planet capable of frightening me today and this is it. I may refer back to a Scarlett Letter I once wrote to get some perspective. I don’t know though…it feels kinda ok now. Maybe I’ll just go with it and see what washes out.

-Jim Franks

And I Drive

It’s late and I’m driving home from a rendezvous with someone I’ve been trying to sink emotions and actions into in hopes I’ll forget some of the heavier things weighing on my mind. Her bed squeaks terribly, so the shadows left on the walls above it are more comical than sultry. Sex with her is not satisfying really. She’s a caring woman, but not the kind a man goes to in order to “work things out.” So my drive home is a distracting one. I have the music on but there are no songs playing that catch my attention. In fact, the playlist I have chosen is getting on my nerves. So rather than take the right turn that leads me home, I continue on…driving straight into the night, in search of something that makes me feel alive.

It’s been raining all day and although water is no longer falling, the road is still wet. Not that the Corvette needs dry pavement to function well, but the possibility of sliding into a hillside or wandering deer is still something I am thinking about. I have gone 20 miles away from home in the direction of a route I know will take me out into the countryside and onto long and winding stretches of sodden, sparsely traveled road. Yes, I know exactly where I will go now. A trip I have taken many times on my bike on hot summer days just so I can feel warm wind in my hair. As I leave behind the ridiculous, geriatric speed zones of the last town I will see for 30 miles I grab my mp3 player and choose the perfect playlist. It’s titled “Get Down Rock”, and I created it for times just like this…when I want rock and roll to hurt my eardrums. There it is finally, I can see it…the open road and the sign saying I can now bump up to 60mph. I push my car to 80 and feel her low profile grab at the road like a roller coaster grabbing track. I place my right hand instinctually on the hand brake as my left manipulates the wheel. I want to be able to brake and swerve quickly should I see an animal or on-coming car in my headlights. “But long before having hurt, I’d send the pain below…much like suffocating!”, sings Chevelle as I pass my first “Deer Xing” sign at 90mph. I can feel my car’s roaring heart now. She’s warming up to the idea I have placed in her mind. She is a race horse, like her master, and she loves to run. The road-side scenery is starting to blur. Even in the blackness of a moonless night I can still see the occasional sage or stone in my headlights. But as I concentrate on the road for 100 yards ahead I start to only see reflections staring back at me. A passing mile marker flashes at me and my mind thinks it’s a possum. But I don’t swerve or panic, or slow down. I push now…faster still, until I’m going 100mph. And now the tight curves come that think they can own me. My mind is racing too fast for 45mph, and I am secure in the fact that my horse can traverse this course at any speed she sees fit to. So she hugs them, and I hug her until my knuckles start to hurt and turn white. I’m concentrating too hard now and my head starts to hurt. I need a quick distraction. There’s so much going on in my mind…just pick something:

Oh, how I wish I could kiss you. I imagined my lips sliding on yours and our tongues gently touching. My closed eyes are just a breath away from yours and as I move my head lower to suckle your lower lip my eye lash brushes your cheek. And I touch my eyes there…pressing them into the fleshy skin of your face, almost as if I can see your heart from there if I press hard enough. Your breath is on my face. It’s sweet and warm. And then…

Back on the road I can see tail lights in the distance. At 110mph I can catch that car if I can stay on the road. I make it my mission. Over each small hill I lose sight of him, but then the red eyes reappear, staring at me and taunting me to catch them if I can. Closer and closer they get as another Deer Xing sign flashes by. If I hit a deer at this speed, in this car, this low to the ground…it will surely crush me in my snug little fiberglass cockpit. But I won’t hit a deer…so I press. And then suddenly the lights are gone! Dammit, he turned off before I could catch him. I start to wonder if it’s a lonely Sheriff’s Deputy possibly, out on these back roads for a late night nap. Who else would be turning off out here in the dead of night? But as I pass the spot where I roughly believe he turned off I don’t see a thing. Not a dirt road, not a long driveway, nothing. Maybe some kids found a hide-away to park and fuck at. Lucky devils… And so I go on, steady now between 100mph and 120mph, as the curves permit. I know my turn off towards the bridge that will get me over the nearby river is coming up soon. I need the turn so I can head back towards town. Missing it would mean I’d have to go 60 more miles out of my way because there’s no way I’d ever stop and turn around. The highway sign announcing the turn-off comes just at the right time. My eyes are blurry and my head is hurting from squinting and concentrating on what I don’t want to run out in front of me. As I slow to turn I open the window to give myself a dose of fresh air and to wave my hand outside. I want to feel the moist night on my skin. On my skin…

Will it be cold in Afghanistan like it was in Iraq during the winter? I think it must be colder. I remember what that dusty, pungent desert air felt like on my skin. The smell of it, the taste it left in my mouth, is something I’ll never forget. Why do I want to go again into something that I have never felt on my skin before? Do I need it like a fighter needs to feel leather on his hands, or a mother needs to feel a baby in her womb? Sometimes I think so. Sometimes I think that’s the man I was always meant to be…an adventurer, an explorer, someone that always needs to feel something fresh. I’m not sure though. I wish…

And then the bridge is there in front of me. “I’m the generator, firing whenever you quit. Yeah, whatever it is…you go out and it’s on. Yeah, can’t you hear my motored heart…you’re the one who started it.” The Foo Fighters sing to me now. I love this song so I fly over the river singing along at the top of my lungs. Up the hill now on the other side is a passing lane. I’ve been taking up the whole road for the last 20 miles anyway, but this extra wide section gives me great comfort. There are no lines holding me in, no colored paint to keep me from using every inch that I need. Up and up out of the river valley I climb, I want to hit 125mph if I can but the end of the extra lane comes too soon and I can’t quite get there. Aha…there they are! Taillights in the distance taunt me again. I know this stretch is long and straight. I know out here there’s nothing but road and rocks so I push now for 125. 8 cylinders of American made muscle make a beautiful sound when you whip them. My foot presses down on the pedal and the horses underneath the hood raise their heads and howl at me! The red eyes are coming straight at me and I can see they sit too tall and wide to be a car. Good…no cop was about to get me up his ass. I make out the high back of some kind of trailer…a tractor trailer, maybe a cement truck? It doesn’t matter because I’m not slowing down to care. With 100 yard to go I quickly swerve into the opposing lane and begin my assault on the red tail lights. As I fly by, the 4 extra tires of the grain truck spray me with road water. I laugh out loud at the thought of the truck driver’s face as he barely has time to see me approach then scream by him. I’m sure he’s muttering “fucking idiot” as I go, and go, and go…

Am I making the biggest mistake of my life leaving again? I have come to really enjoy my meandering lifestyle. I have met and dated so many women in the last year that I’ve finally lost count. I traveled all over the west seeing things I may never get to again. I explored the Yucatan Peninsula like it was my own backyard. Hell, I have been a regular Christopher Fucking Columbus! But there’s got to be more right? I can’t do this forever can I? Why would I even want to? I started out 3 years ago in search of the Jim that I was meant to be. I feel so close to finding him. I think I must go back to the desert in order to do so. But what if I just…

Here comes the turn at Lakeshore Drive. Should I be really fucking stupid and take the winding road around the lake back into Caldwell? Of course I should. It’s a goddamn wildlife refuge, in the dark of night, with no moon, during hunting season! Why wouldn’t I drive as fast as I can around the lake? As I make the turn, Incubus now croons to me, “I dig my toes into the sand, the ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless, and in this moment I am happy, happy. I … wish you were here.” It’s the perfect song to take me into the final leg of my midnight race. These curves are sharp, some as hard as to even suggest 25mph as the best speed. But I just can’t do it. I can’t get up over 75mph either, but I run fast enough to push me into the door as I go through the motions. I can’t hear my tires straining against the pavement because the stereo is too loud. But I imagine it, and I imagine the men and women in the few houses I roar past sitting up in bed asking, “What the hell was that?” Lots of Deer Xing signs now…one at every corner. I have to swerve to miss bloody red road kill, left behind by the racer before me. And now I see real eyes passing in the culverts and bushes along the side of the road. Mr. Fox or Mrs. Badger better stay put if they want to see the sunrise again. I don’t want that kind of damage to my rocket ship, but I wouldn’t stop to avoid it either. Hard right-hard left, straight away. Hard left-hard right, straight away. And so it goes until I am around the lake and fast approaching the stop sign that I know signals the end of my dream. There it is…just ahead now. I made it safely. My head hurts from the noise and excitement. My hands hurt from holding on to car parts too tightly. My eyes are blurry from squinting into the dark in search of obstacles to avoid. And as I roll to a stop I realize I am extremely tired now. 45 minutes earlier I couldn’t imagine sleeping until I could see the sun crest the horizon. But just like that, my mind and body are tired, almost exhausted in fact. I make the right turn onto the dam and as I cross it I give one last thought to my journey…the one I’m on and the one ahead, Audioslave sings to me, “Someone falls to pieces sleeping all alone, someone kills the pain, spinning in the silence, just finally drifts away. Someone gets excited in the chapel yard, catches a bouquet. Another lays a dozen white roses on a grave. And to be yourself is all that you can do…” Chris Cornell always knows just how to say the right thing to me.

10 minutes later I back into my garage. Part of me can’t believe the stupidity of what I just did. Part of me doesn’t give a shit. But the biggest part is smiling because I feel alive. I may not know where I’m going, or have all the answers to my life’s hard questions…but dammit I am alive and can still feel the beating heart in my chest! For now it’s enough. For now it’s what I have and I am going to ride it out because that’s just what I do.

-Jim Franks