The Perpetuity of Red Lights

and so instead of hanging around in one piece of shit town that came right after and right before an even bigger piece of shit town, I just carried on driving because what else was there for me to do? 

It was never the plan, but how many times can anyone say they’ve followed their plan? Especially when everything gets fucked up. FUBAR, that’s what we used to say at university. We were being melodramatic, of course. It was often quite easy to recognise what had happened, but it at least turned a shitty situation into something we could laugh about. 

That’s probably the best way to deal with anything; turn it into a joke. The sooner you laugh, the sooner you realise whatever happened wasn’t all that serious. 

It doesn’t work for everything. I’m not telling you to head to your granny’s funeral and start cracking jokes at the eulogy. Or do, I don’t know your family dynamic. 

But yeah, laugh about it. You’d be surprised. 

I just drove into the night and towards the morning through that shit town and into another shit town. I figured I’d have to run out of shit towns eventually, and somewhere worth stopping would come along soon enough. Nowhere ever arrived, though, nowhere I felt I could stop at, anyway, at least not for too long. I didn’t want to go back, so I just kept going forward. It was the only viable option. 

I should have swapped lanes there. 

Anyway, it’s cool, whatever, I’ll just laugh about it soon enough won’t I? Could do with stopping for something to eat too, I don’t even care what, I’ve had it all. One time, about 6 or 7 years ago now I lived on nothing but Krapao Moo, it’s a Thai dish. Fried chili pork with Angel Basil. If you’re ever in Thailand or you know, anywhere with a Thai restaurant, check it out. 

Yeah, I can’t remember how I ended up there, I just did. Nice people, the Thais, very proud, very welcoming provided you’re not a dick. 

 But yeah, I’ve eaten just about everything. I’ve had alligator, I’ve had guinea pig, chicken, beef, the usual, you know? I never crave anything anymore, basically. Because when you’ve tried so much, what’s left to crave? Well, I’ve never had roast penguin, but has anybody? I doubt it. 

Although. 

You know the average red light length across the world, not just here, is 75 seconds? Well, it’s 74.8 seconds, but you round up, may as well. Now, imagine how many red lights you’d hit every day if you had been doing what I’ve been doing for the past 3650 days, give or take because of leap years and the current time. No, the dashboard clock is broken. Don’t worry about it. 

What was I saying? Red lights? Yeah, how many per day, per week? And then, with this average wait time per light of 75 seconds, consider how long you’re sitting around waiting for green? 

And that’s not even thinking about the traffic before you get to the light. 

But again, it’s one of those things you can’t do anything about, so why worry? 

Precisely. There’s no point. 

So yeah, where else? I mean, it wasn’t just Thailand. I did Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam too, and then a few short jaunts along the border of Malaysia and Myanmar, some time in China, but that wasn’t as in-depth. Really, it was just a means to get elsewhere. It’s supposed to take 2 days and 23 hours of non-stop driving to cross China east to west and there are 2 roads, one running along the northern border parallel to Mongolia, and one that cuts through the middle. Well, I wasn’t interested in hanging around, and I wanted to see how north I could go, so I followed the road, crossed at the border, not entirely legally, and then went into Russia before heading as far east as I could until I hit Alaska. 

Now, I hadn’t packed for any of this, so instead I relied on the generosity of curious strangers - many of whom couldn’t speak a lick - taking pity on me. When they asked where I was going, I just pointed down the road and they didn’t need to know anymore. They just seemed to get it. 

And so because of this Tower of Babel of understanding they let me borrow petrol, a place to sleep, food, whatever I needed. I don’t know; I guess I don’t look too threatening. I guess I don’t look like you’re average tourist-slash-vagabond. 

For all they knew, I could have had a body in the boot. 

I don’t. 

What was important to me was keeping a memento of where I’d been, but again, this was never the plan. I couldn’t do it everywhere, not at first. I wasn’t planning on stopping in a town with more bars than policemen just so I could grab a postcard or a beer mat or I don’t know, a pebble. These in between places, at first, meant nothing to me. At this point, I was still driving until I found somewhere to stop. 

This all changed when I realised I wasn’t on a schedule. I had nowhere to be, no one to answer to or to meet, and so when I’d driven for too long, I’d pull into a car park or stop by the side of the road in a village with fewer than 200 people to rest and then the next morning as soon as the shops opened I’d grab a coffee and a quick breakfast and I’d pick up a magnet or a lighter or a packet of sugar off the counter as a keepsake. They’re all in the back there, under all those blankets. 

I tried to keep everything I could, whether I bought it or whether I was given it to borrow. Maybe, maybe if I make it back there, I’ll return them. 

This road is terrible, and I’ve seen some terrible, terrible roads in my time. This is actually worse than the one in Romania where I had this not-so-wonderful altercation with a gruff, oily housewife. She was nails; two cigarettes hanging from her lip, one burning out at the filter, the other still to be lit, and I accidentally I swear knocked over a pail of milk as I bumped and jumped down the road praying the suspension on this bucket of bolts would hold out. Chickens took flight and then plummeted, a goat trotted in front of me, and in the rearview, she trudged after me waving a broom shouting. 

I don’t know what she was shouting; I don’t speak Romanian. 

That damn backcountry Transylvanian road was a stupid idea anyway, I don’t even remember why I went that way. I think maybe I flipped a coin at a fork. Anyway, I ended up in a ditch and had to drag my feet back, all cautious like, and gesticulate for help getting out of a ditch and after some confusion where the woman swung at me a few times they got their horses and their Frankenstein’s Monster of a son to help me out. 

I think I picked up a lost horseshoe from there too. 

Yeah, quite scary, but not the worst. There were hundreds of times over the past 10 years where I’ve felt unsafe. 

I don’t even know where to begin. I got caught in the tail end of a hurricane beside some storm chasers in Texas, that wasn’t too long ago, actually. There were riots as I trundled on fumes through Egypt early on, I just willed the car to keep going, praying I didn’t get stuck between protesters and militants. In Durban I had a gun shoved in my face on second 49 of a red light and a hand shoved into my car frantically demanding something. I had nothing, but they didn’t know that. 

Well, what would anyone expect me to do? I panicked and feverishly searched through the glove box and the ashtray and under sticky coffee cups and coats for something, but I couldn’t find anything, and so I looked at the gun and I looked at who was holding the gun, a kid, could only muster a dusting of a moustache, and I just shrugged. I didn’t even say anything, I couldn’t say anything, not even a timid, confused Wat? 

And then, behind us, there was a horn and then another horn, and then a barrage of horns and he bolted but I could only sit there, and I was sat there for so long that cars started going around me. 

Yeah, I’d say that was probably my worst experience, at least human-to-human danger wise, but I’m fine, I still have my worthless trinkets. I got out of Ecuador as quickly as I could, though. 

Yeah, maybe it was the horseshoe, good luck and all that stuff. 

Honestly, I thought after that I’d stop, call it a day, settle down anywhere I could, and I nearly did, on a beach in Costa Rica living the Pura Vida with a cold bottle of Imperial - because what’s more cliche than an almost-middle-aged man road tripping and waking up on a Caribbean beach where he can forget about his problems? But no, I had my feet in the surf, I’d just ordered a top up and I was thinking how I could probably, somehow stay there, or if not on that exact beach then on another one, surely. 

I don’t know what happened, really. I think I ended up playing cards with this group of kids, well not kids, travellers. Gap Year Kids. Americans; rich ones, too. They needed a ride North hoping to get home soon, and I obliged. I actually just caught up with a few of them last week. Yeah, made quite the network of friends along the way, or if not friends then at least acquaintances. You’re on the road, you give lifts; you give directions; you give company, and people appreciate that. You don’t have to, of course, but you pay it forward, and then they pay it forward, a chain of togetherness. People have looked after me, so I look after them. 

It’s nice to know you can rely on someone when you’re all alone inside this 3 ton box of scrap. I’m sure you understand, and if you’re ever lucky, or unlucky, whatever, enough to be in my position and you come across a lost soul or someone looking to escape or somebody who just isn’t sure where they can go, just so long as it’s not, well, here, wherever here is, I hope you can do that for them. Help them out, it’s good for the soul. 

Ah shit, sorry. I’d completely forgotten about food. It gets like that sometimes, though. The hunger goes on for so long it persists but then because you get so used to being hungry it subsides. You get distracted by the road ahead; the long, endless, snaking road ahead. Hey, get out of the way you stupid cow. 

No point in blaring the horn, that’s broken. I don’t know if that’s legal or not. Probably not. 

You’ve got to go around them when this happens, not too fast, but not too slow either. Too fast’ll spook them and they’ll see red and charge and cause untold damage, but too slow and they get curious, see. They’ll come right up to you, inspect you, think the car is just a cow that’s bigger and fatter than they are. 

I was travelling through this little town outside of Nottingham in the UK about 9 years ago, there was traffic, I was just trying to get onto the motorway, there was an IKEA nearby, but none of this made the tiny town interesting, it was the escaped cows that were causing havoc at the roundabout and everyone slowed to a crawl to be careful or to gawp, or both, but because everyone moved so slowly the cows, about 20 of them, all came up and gave the cars a sniff, the windows a lick all sloppy, and because we’re in the way, and to them just big, big cows, they climb onto the bonnet of the car in front of me and just lie down. 

It wasn’t even going to rain. 

I get a feeling there’s a place coming up soon, but I don’t know why, I feel I’ve seen this place before. That’s just Small Town USA though isn’t it? Everywhere looks the same. 

Hey, did you hear about that woman whose face got crushed by a moose? No, it’s not the start of a joke, a moose climbed over her car and crushed the roof which, you know, crushed her face. Yeah, she had to get plastic surgery and everything. 

I don’t know. I was just thinking about the cows climbing on cars and how much worse it could have been. Cows and moose, don’t drive near them if you can help it. 

Yeah, I might be in the minority, but I much prefer people to animals, most people anyway. People keep you grounded. 

Of course not. There were some days I’d not see a soul. Some weeks I’d see 10 people at the very most. We feel so crowded in our day to day, heading to work, going out to lunch, shopping or find a place to park or climbing into a lift. We’re always bustling for space. It’s claustrophobic, it’s suffocating, but a lot of people, most people, I’d say, you may not agree I don’t mind, they don’t realise that once you’re out of the cities, even out of the towns on the edges of the cities, there’s so much space. There’s probably too much space, too much space for anyone to stay sane, anyway. There were a lot of times going through North America as I made my way down through Mexico, into Nicaragua and Guatemala and onto South America and then back around and back up again, that I felt as if I’d slept through some disaster. I was so far away from anything that I thought they had activated the nukes and that was that. Or even worse, even worse, was that I’d fallen to sleep at the wheel and crashed, kaboomed, and died, and this endless driving was my own version of Hell. Purgatory, at the very least, and you know, look at me, I’ve got nothing of value to get out. No coins to cross the river, nothing to bargain with. 

And that kind of thing gets to you. At first, you think you’re being crazy, you’re scaring yourself, you’re so devoid and deprived of mental stimulation that your head starts turning on you, like a final fuck you. This goes on for so long that by the time you do pass another car or cow or hear the rumbling of a plane overhead, even through you can see it, and maybe even feel it if you stopped and climbed out you still don’t believe what’s happening. You think it’s just another trick, and it’s freaky. 

So yeah, that lasted about a year following perhaps 5 years of solid driving. Even now though if I don’t see anybody for a couple of hours I need to stop, get out the car, feel the ground beneath me, listen to the sounds of what’s around me, and remind myself I’m not the last one left alive. 

I was having a little episode kind of like this before you came along. I guess I could have switched the radio on, I think that’s broken, too. 

So I suppose it’s good you did, hey? 

Okay, I definitely recognise this place. I remember that burned-out car. I remember the retro KFC on the corner, even that fucking pothole looks familiar. Oh yeah, fuck this intersection. It’s a total nightmare. The red light is something ridiculous like 3 minutes, maybe more. God damn it. I swore I’d never come back here, and if I did, I always said it’d be 10 years too soon. Now, I understand it’s a hundred years too soon, maybe a thousand. 

But at least I’m sure there’s a place to eat around here if you’re into some good ol’ home cooked American food. The coffee’s good, too. I - Hey! Learn to read a fucking road sign, dick. Sorry. - I remember a diner a little ways down the road that does, I think, the best coffee this side of the 66. But I’m just one guy, the milkshakes are pretty great, too. 

I’ve seen her before, too; the one holding the baby there only there was no baby last time. The last time I was here, she invited me over to hers with the promise of some fun, or that’s what it seemed like. I told her I had somewhere to be, though, that I had somebody I’d promised to meet I hadn’t seen in months. I told her how excited I was, I couldn’t contain myself, it just spilled out, and this woman on the corner saw how giddy I’d gotten, she called me Sugar and wished me luck. 

But we already know how that story ended and how my girlfriend, the first and as yet only love of my life never showed up