Star-Spangled Gypsies

By Gregory Samsonite

The outrageous autobiographical account of two vagabond 20-somethings who shucked life to the cob and headed west in search of whatever godforsaken glory befell them. This is a tale rife with the hills and swales of reckless abandon. A real piss in the wind on a blustery day. Twisted, beautiful, disjointed life drunk on your most shameful whiskey. Characters ebb and flow from existence as they are wont to do. Spastic nights of ecstasy are not without consequence. Tornadoes, raves, zombies, and mushrooms. Jilted, jostled, wrangled, and ripped. A tonic of words, each filtered by sip.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gregory Samsonite
• Release date: Feb 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781540166470

Book preview

Star-Spangled Gypsies

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GREGORY SAMSONITE

Contents

1.  EJECT BUTTON

2.  OLD MAN CHICAGO

3.  TEARING AT THE MASK

4.  ONCE UPON THE STORMY PLAINS

5.  FUN WITH SUPERVOLCANOES

6.  WILD MOUNTAIN NATION

7.  ENTER STRANGEVINE

8.  BUMS OF GLASS CITY

9.  HAIL BREWTOPIA!

10.  THE JOKER-FACED BANDITS

11.  STRANGER IN THE NIGHT

12.  MASTERS OF STILLNESS

13.  ROUTE 1 SOUTH

14.  KINKS IN THE DESERT

15.  IF ONLY IN ZION

16.  RED RIVER JACK

17.  BLACK LAKE, COLORADO

1.  EJECT BUTTON

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It was just another Tuesday. Another day mechanized by routine. People came and went, doing this and that. Everything was spinning along just fine, I suppose. I was in Boston, living my Boston life, and so was she, the waitress who worked down by the wharf. She’d always liked the view from there; the cold ocean spilling into that old American harbor, the seagulls swooping down past the docks and the ships that’d just come to port. She liked to look out over the city, too. The silver skyscrapers always clung together in such strange and perfect symmetries.

She had invited me down there after work that evening. I remember it being cool and dim. The sleepy orange sky had just faded into night. White neon lights shined on the pier. Moony shadows stretched across pavement. My shadow seemed so much bigger than hers, for she was just a little thing. She’d come from New York not long prior, having recently graduated from college, but she didn’t intend to stay long. There was a whole world waiting beyond those buildings.

I’ve been thinking about leaving, she said, thinking about just going. She hadn’t looked at me when she’d said it. She stared at the water, spellbound by its movements. It swept up towards the pier in tiny, shimmering waves.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean, I chuckled. Where would you go?

I’d go west, she said softly. There are so many places I’ve never been to. I’m tired of just thinking about them. Tired of predictability. I’ve got to get in my car and just go. She turned to me, smiling. I was wondering if you’d come with me.

I looked her over good, searching her eyes for the punch line of a joke. It had to be a joke, I figured. She always had some little trick up her sleeve. But after several long moments I knew she was serious. There was anticipation in her stance. She was hanging on my words. She never hung on my words. 

Well, I, uhh, well, I don’t know. I’d need some time to think about it. I don’t really have much money saved up. Where would we sleep?

We could sleep in your tent, she said. Her grin broadened slightly. It was the kind of grin that can influence a man into doing just about anything.

That’s true I guess. I don’t know though. I’d need a few weeks to get some money together. You realize I’d have to quit my job. The thought of which was ridiculous. At the time, I was working as a Processing Coordinator for Tufts University’s Nutritional Research Center. It wasn’t exactly a career but it was a job nonetheless. It provided stability.

Sure, there were moments at work when I fantasized about jumping clean through the window, or torching my lab coat on a Bunsen burner. I was a monkey after all. I centrifuged blood samples and entered data into a computer all day; not exactly what I envisioned as my life’s work. Suffice it to say, this was not an era of mental enrichment or personal enlightenment. No great renaissance burned within me. Rather I was living for dollars and weekends, and neither seemed to last very long. I guess you could say I was in a malaise.

Nevertheless, the pragmatist in me screamed that I couldn’t simply leave the job without having another one lined up. No, no, not in this economy, I thought. Not without a safety net. I was twenty-five, I needed a safety net.

To hell with your job, she said. To hell with mine! Let’s pack up my car and hit the road like nomads. What’s the worst that can happen? Will we die? She lit up a cigarette to prove she meant business. With each exhale of smoke, new words spilled from her mouth, promoting this escape plan of hers. And that’s truly what it felt like. We can do whatever we want, she boasted, be whomever we want.

I suppose so, I laughed, and who will you be?

She paused for a moment, scouring her mind for a roadworthy alias. I’ll be Miss Rockem Sockem.

Miss Rockem Sockem? Nobody will buy it!

She flicked her cigarette over the pier and squeezed my hand tight. That’s the beauty, she said, nobody has to. 

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To some, that morning in late July was unusual, maybe even a bit frightening. On the banks of the old Susquehanna in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, two parents would remember that morning longer than most. They stood on their big suburban porch in confusion. They didn’t know why he was leaving or what he was thinking. He’d had it good in Boston, hadn’t he? They’d grown accustomed to visiting him up there. Boston was such a lovely city. It had such a rich history, such character. They’d been raised near Pittsburgh. They liked cities with character. Sure, the drive up to Boston was longer than they would’ve liked but at least there he was grounded. They knew where he’d be sleeping at night. He was making a living like the rest of the world.

But now this—this imprudent adventure. They gritted their teeth as they waved farewell, praying to Lord Almighty that he wouldn’t maim or defile himself out there. Where was he going anyway? They didn’t know. He didn’t really know either. He didn’t even seem to care. That was the worst of it, the rambling. They’d have to trust that he’d get it out of his system fast. They hadn’t raised him to be a vagabond. His home was the East. He’d remember that before long. People loved him there. He’d remember that after a few weeks.

This was all wishful thinking of course; for when he finally left, they went back inside only to hope and wait and worry and wonder.

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We drove past the sycamores on my street with that inherent freedom of a bright, new dawn pressed tightly to our chests. Familiar houses disappeared. Webs of obligation dissolved. The highway of America, rubber wheels spinning wildly along it. Yes, we were going, and in an instant we were gone, only echoes now, ghosts of a clockwork world. But we were alive, profoundly so, and finally free to roam the rollicking expanse of a big, bad country we’d always called home.

So roam we did. First to Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers converge, to the city that had its guts ripped out but kept its heart pumping. Remnants of the steel industry’s implosion weren’t hard to spot. Though revitalized, the grit had remained. Blue-collar living was still the proud culture. Not knowing what else to do, we gobbled down a few Primanti Brothers sandwiches, piled high with fries, and took a ride up Mount Washington’s Duquesne Incline for a view of the cityscape. Everything was coming together it seemed, all was right with the world. We were doing it! Looking out onto Pittsburgh, climbing those old weathered tracks, I made a supplication for things to continue, for this great day to persist.

And then, a sneeze. A jarring, horrible sneeze. Not my own, mind you, though it just as well could’ve been, given the result. My shirt sleeve had taken the brunt of it—that blast of swirling mucus. It was in that very moment that reality snapped back like a rubber band and I realized that I was indeed no Jack Kerouac, that this trip would not be On the Road with Dean Moriarty and the gang, and that my life was not destined to be some romantic escapade through the rigors and toils of a sad and amazing world. My path, regardless of direction, was bound to maintain its tight trajectory of situational misfortune and unique, if not absurd, circumstance.

I turned to the sneezer and winced. She was too ancient for discourse. In fact, they all were. Ostensibly, we’d caught the early-bird special to the top. Geriatrics as far as the eye could see; hair like mothballs. A formaldehyde musk wafted through the air, invoking a sensation of being buried alive. The cable car, as austere as they come, now had the feel of an economy-sized coffin that just so happened to be moving. But at least it was moving, and before I knew it we were back on the road, staring up at a sign that said, Welcome to Ohio: So Much to Discover! wondering if the irony was not lost on these poor people.

Soon thereafter, an empty feeling crawled into the pit of my stomach. We had to drive across Ohio! Traversing Ohio in one afternoon is like jumping off a second-story balcony. Sure, it might not kill you, but it’s definitely going to hurt. We’re talking all farmland, all the time. And these aren’t pastoral farmlands either. There’s nothing bucolic about them. These are corporate lots. Roadsides are littered with massive agro machines. Everything’s a dusty monoculture, industrialized and robotic. Nothing’s even slightly captivating. Bland fields of agribusiness as far as the eye can see. It’s not exactly solitary confinement, but it might as well be.

For hours on end my speed topped ninety in an attempt to escape the monotony. But I was going to need more than velocity to get me west. Freedom had become entrapment, and I was starting to lose it, starting to go stone cold mad. Something had to give.

I’m starting to get a little stir crazy here, I thought out loud. I think it might be time for some medicine.

Sockem said not a word but rather guilefully grabbed a bloated plastic bag from her backpack. Don’t let the doldrums get ya down. It’s all about perception, she laughed, dumping a thimble-sized bit of the contents into her hand. This, my friend, will subdue the whole damn thing.

Feverishly she ripped at a dense little nugget, crumbling it into a powder. It had a strong odor of skunk and pine needles. Soon a lighter sparked and time melted away. To say this grass was heady would be an understatement. Ohio instantly became a wonderland of endless possibility. We’d reached Narnia. What a fantastic little trick to play on ourselves.

In the rearview mirror, there was only sky. Everything else was gone, far away, distant. The road and her was all that remained now. The road and her, that Miss Rockem Sockem.

2.  OLD MAN CHICAGO

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There stood Chicago, a beacon in the Midwestern night. Cars dashed around like ants at a picnic, desperate to arrive at the places that beckoned them. The whole scene shined with a soft electric glow, illuminating all of humanity’s persistence, and soon enough the congestion swallowed us too, digesting us into the belly of the great American metropolis.

We stayed at the Athenos Hostel, located above an ethnic restaurant in Greek Town. It smelled of new hospital bedding and damp woodchips. Though relatively expensive as hostels go, it was quite nice inside and our private room was more than spacious enough for two. After checking in, the pretentious hostel concierge insisted that we head to the Lincoln Park district for a late dinner, and like listless sheep we complied.

Lincoln Park was a twenty-minute bus ride away, and when we arrived we wandered aimlessly, depleted from the day’s haul. We came across a tapas bar called Bambara. It was set inside a white tent, draped with yellow Christmas lights. We stumbled on in and sat down.

The short rib tapas were legendary and the sangria kept pouring. Pouring, pouring, pouring. And the world kept rolling. Faster, faster, faster. Until finally, there we were, wobbling like poorly spun tops in Oz Park. There were statues of Wizard of Oz characters all around. The Scarecrow stood wise, having found his brain, the Tin Man proud, having found his heart, and the Lion brave, having found his courage. Then there was us, having found nothing but the blissful madness of too much booze on a hot summer night.  

Further into the park we frolicked, to a circle of hauntingly serene golden children statues. They had medicated glazes over their eyes and cult smiles. It was an eerie scene in the dead of night. They were frozen in the throes of a festive game of ring-around-the-rosy, but they were missing a link in the circle. Rockem Sockem, sloshed like a sailor, happily completed the ring, grasping their chilly metal hands. She danced along with them, kicking her legs into the air and giggling against the wind. She seemed to fit right in.

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Early that next afternoon, we ambled downtown to Millennium Park, where we rented matching tourist bicycles. Painted an embarrassingly gaudy purple, they looked more like goofy circus apparatuses than practical modes of transportation. There was nothing sleek about them, nothing worthy of respect. We were fated to be the pariahs, the perpetual laughingstock of the biking community. In addition, the rental company had only provided us with one bike lock. Perhaps they had simply made a mistake, or perhaps the mere thought of someone thieving these bikes was as much a gas to them as it was to us. Either way, I’d signed a contract goddammit, and I assumed full responsibility for both bikes. Hence, we found ourselves in a dilemma.

Near Hyde Park, we rode up to the Museum of Science and Technology, eager to spend the afternoon marveling at how advanced society had become. Ah, but what to do with the bikes? What to do with these bastard contraptions? After twenty minutes of finagling, we found a solution. We stacked those purple monsters like a work of modern art in order to fit the lock around both frames. They were twisted and contorted in all sorts of unnatural positions but ultimately the lock fit. From afar, a crusty hobo watched the whole scene and clapped with uncommon delight.

On our return trip to the rental hut, we rode a gorgeous trail that snaked along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, but to our dismay it was a trail fraught with the hardcore biking enthusiasts of Chicago; the kind of folks that loathe amateurs who fail to adhere to their esoteric rules and regulations. When the first spandex-clad, aerodynamic Lance Armstrong bastard whooshed by, barking, On your left!!!, I shrugged with apathy. That nutcase must be an exception, I figured. But as hordes of other serious riders cruised past us, yelling and flashing hand signals, I came to a realization. We were just two schmucks zigzagging our way around their racetrack, and that’s how they viewed it, as theirs.

Sockem, let’s stop off and take some pictures, I called out.

But we’ll lose the race! she joked.

We slowed down and pulled off to the side of the trail. There were no kickstands on these bikes so we violently dropped them to the ground. That’s where they belonged anyhow. I reached in my pocket for my camera, and as I did, a crotchety old man emerged from around the bend, pedaling like a bat out of hell. He slowed down just enough to harass us. No stopping on this path! No stopping!! You’re breaking the law! he screeched, and then he sped away before we could articulate a proper string of obscenities.

To hell with this! shouted Sockem. Let’s rid ourselves of these purple vices.

You’re right. There’s perfectly good whiskey waiting to be drank all over town. 

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Now every true whiskey hound knows that before engaging in the unholy sacrament of heavy bourbon consumption, a carbohydrate base must be stowed away. Thus, we moseyed on over to the renowned Gino’s East Pizza, famous for its Chicago-style deep dish with cornmeal crust. Two mountainous slices later, I felt like I was pregnant with Gary Coleman triplets.

After a bus to Lake Shore, we stopped at the first bar we saw. No waiting around. Well, it just so happened that this particular bar had a half-off all drinks special running all night. Danger Will Robinson, danger! It was a dark and dingy joint but man it was jubilant. The décor was that of a ruckus Margaritaville party gone haywire. Up front was a dusty stage crowded with hipsters and the like, but there was one snag: it was Karaoke Night. God help us.

Karaoke always frightens me when I’m sober. Someone who, at one time or another, dreamt of becoming a star, generally not even a music star, enslaves your hearing to a garbled version of some deplorable pop song. These unremarkable stage careers are grossly impassioned. These people don’t sing softly. They don’t know how to. The relatively talented ones treat their moment as an audition, desperately hoping for recognition and approval. Comments such as, Wow, you sounded like Axel Rose up there! or You really did Diana Ross proud tonight! light up their lives. Therefore, I generally try to toss them a bone as they exit the stage. In fact, I encourage them to continue. Why? Because soon I’ll be drunk, probably very drunk, and then things will be different. The torments of sober karaoke will give way to the fragile splendors of drunken karaoke. It’s a tried and true formula. That potbellied screwball with the bowtie and the titanium peg leg will really start to sound like Freddie Mercury. The beady-eyed ginger with pigeon toes and a rectangular ass will put Madonna to shame. These will be moments of unspeakable value if properly medicated. They will have me talking on Monday.

So down the hatch the whiskey poured. I’d drink these amateurs brilliant yet! And by midnight, low and behold, he climbed up on stage. He was a flamboyant Native American with dark flowing locks and he belted out a brash Lady Gaga ballad. He had the look of a Mortal Combat character with limp wrists. His signature dance move was a shoulder shimmy. This was a no frills performance. It meant a lot to him, you could tell. His eyes were steely and lucid. He’d been preparing this act for a long time.

I pictured him growing up as a gay Indian boy, wondering when he’d get the chance to move to Chicago to become a bonafide star. Well, here was that chance, and I tell you he was killing it. His theatrics were amazing and his falsetto was perfect. He was the sassiest thing around, and it all hit me at once—this absurdity, this ridiculous scene. A raging fit of laughter rose from my stomach. Tears began streaming