A clip

For Ryan and I, the road had always been our vitality. Richmond would bear down on us with its punk graffiti and same old scenery. It was going on the road, even thinking about going on the road that sparked our conversations into romantic summitry. A drab night downtown at the 3rd street Diner, 50’s relic restaurant of no refills on soda, and model like waitresses posing for tips in the neon, sipping our cokes and rubbing out the moment’s Camel Light would immediately become a swirling exchange of our collective excitements as we imagined how great the upcoming trip would be. Crossing the Missouri, or glimpsing Devil’s Tower became like hopes for deliverance, as already then we were working out the soundtrack for our long distance euphoria state spree, debating and usually agreeing completely on what songs were essential. Hell, even the idea of buying gas and a candy bar somewhere in Minnesota made everything we’d ever done in our lives seem so pitifully small. The most trite of our Eastern experiences seemed polished and new, like we were going to foreign soil, when we imagined how they’d be in the West. The West- the promise of centuries of expansionist propaganda, the poetic vision of Jim Morrison, the strumming remembrances of cowboys on the range we viewed in gunsmoke youths around UHF televisions.