Marc, Avgusto 26, 2008 - Unexpected Weekend, Part Two

Having been unconscious for most of the taller parts of our roadtrip made it much easier to deal with the sheer distance that we had been travelling. Annica had told me that it was three hours away at most but it turns out that it was much further than that, at least four or five hours distance, and by the time I woke up I learned that the car was in dangerous need of fuel. I was concerned that we would end up stuck in the mountains with no fuel and no simple way of getting to a gas station (though I have hitch hiked to gas stations before with no problems) but it turns out that Jonah had known how to deal with the situation and had been coasting the entire time during our descent. We found a gas station and filled up the tank before heading into the small mountain town where the jailhouse was located. It turned out to be a somewhat simple and beautiful drive once the ravines and cliffsides vanished from view, though it later wound up that getting my dear friend Annica into jail would be quite a bit more difficult than getting her to the jailhouse itself.

There were all sorts of metal detectors and wrong buildings and misinterpreted directions, and once we managed to find the jailhouse itself it turned out that we had to wait half an hour before they would even process her enntrance. It struck me during that time that if someone was meant to go to jail in a distant town then there should be somme sort of state funded transportation to facilitate their arrival, instead of relying upon said inmate having friends with enough to free time to the job themselves. It should also be a quick and simple process that is also funded by the state and furthermore the inmate should not be required to pay both her way into a jail cell (processing fees) and her way out of said jail cell when her time is finished. Not that I support the prison complex nor do I support my friend being a victim of trumped up punishments for otherwise minor infractions of the law, but it just seems to me like there is something more than a little bit wrong with the way the whole prison system works.

Irrational flaws in a government sponsored industrial machine? Never!

After our thirty minute wait a large and mean looking officer of the law came to take my friend away from me. She was shorter than me but much more imposing and she did not seem amused when I joked to Annica about not being hardened by her time in behind bars. Instead the woman officer glared at me with the most authoritative gaze I have ever experienced outside of dunegon walls. Once again my mind wandered only this time it wandered into the realm of handcuffs and nighsticks and consensual violence. My mind does not wander there so much these days and so I let my imagination enjoy itself for a little while before securing directions back home from the desk clerk. We had decided on the longer but more flat route home which pleased me. Less time cringing away from terrible high places and more time speaking with Jonah while enjoying his companionship. Together we returned to the car and gave the prison one last look (although we would be returning in just a few days) before hitting the road toward home and an almost too comfortable bed.

The rest of the trip took a very long time and also took us through several small towns that could have been quaint tourist destinations were they not so unkempt and dilapidated. This was a good thing in my opinion and I expressed such. It meant that these were real communities with real people doing real living. Jonah began to go on about the virtues of living off the grid, and explained for the hundredth time his plans for someday living on a farm and doing so in the most self-sustaining manner possible. He told me about his belief in people only having children if they live on farms or ranches and need the extra labour and I began to think about the Mennonites again, picturing that simple sort of life in which everything revolves around the provision of food, other necessities, and the maintenance of communal ties with one another. I mentioned this to him and we both agreed that it sounded perfect except for the absolute sacrifice of personal inndividualism in favor of harmonious communities. Neither of us could get behind that particular set of social values. Our conversation slipped into silence not long after that and had I not been driving I would have jumped him right then and right there. I love it when he goes on like that.

But silence eventually gave way back to conversation and during the last leg of our trip he really won me. He started to go on about the women he had dated in the past and how very few of them had possessed the sort of backbone that he needed in a potential mate. "More women need to be like you, tough and unafraid of being themselves, no man telling them what to do and how to do it, doing what they want to do and doing it with pride." I would have told him that this was not always the case with me but he seemed so enamored with his understanding of who I am that I could not bring myself to correct him. Besides which I was somewhat enamored with the statement myself, and I was also under the influence of a second high from the joint he was smoking in the passenger seat. I felt pleased with what seemed like a perfect moment and I wanted to make it last. Why tell him about the desperate lonesome nights I too often shared with no person but myself, the suicide attempt, or the obsessive tendencies toward low self-esteem that have plagued and ruined more than a few cherished relationships. No man needs to know all the shortcomings of his woman, after all.