Road Trip 01: Falls and Fantasies

This will be a multi-part story about a cross-country trip of self-discovery and adventure, with several different stops and a story (or stories!) at each. I'm writing this as I go, though I have a good idea of what will happen as our hero heads west. The first, introductory chapter is a bit more on the short and light side, but I hope you'll stick with it as the trip develops. I hope to include stories from several genres in the overall series.

CHAPTER 1: FALLS AND FANTASTIES

She swam at me out of the dark, half-remembered, half-imagined. That moment, in the fading light with the breeze blowing and the slightest spray of mist and her eyes, and her body. And from there... from there my imagination took over, possibilities spin out like fractals, the paths that could have led from that moment, but didn't. I spun through them, faster and faster, urgently, my body making up for the failures of the universe...

Day 1 - Sunday, September 24, 2019

I was finally free. Headed north today, west in general. Windows open, wind whipping through my wavy, medium-cut brown hair, sunglasses on, jeans and a light, comfortable sweater over my 6'2, athletic body. I caught sight of my new, close-cropped beard in the rearview, and decided I looked good, even if my car - my dad's old 2011 Corolla that had seen more than its share of use - didn't. The car was just a means to an end. The end was a new life, a new start, and with any luck new and better people.

There had been plans. Sarah and I had always talked about the romance of it - leaving everything we knew, going west, setting up a new life together somewhere. We occasionally looked at apartment listings of places we'd never afford, on the beach or in the woods or anywhere, and we'd talk about what our lives would be like, and what we'd do to the rooms we saw, and what we'd do in the rooms we saw, and we'd practice that, and keep dreaming together. Maybe we'd do it - not those places, sure, but a little place together, starting new. Maybe those talks faded a bit over time, but not entirely. When my grandmother passed, the inheritance - not a fortune but certainly a good sum - became the tool we'd need to do it.

There had been plans.

But there had also been goddamn Todd.

Todd was - as in had been, past tense - my best friend, who had been doing his own practicing with Sarah, behind my back, for several months. We'd graduated college together two year earlier. For that first year after school, Todd and I had shared a place, and Sarah had been our most frequent guest. Todd had a couple girlfriends over that span, but nothing serious. Sarah and I had been serious, though, so when her building went condo, she moved in.

Todd worked from home, doing graphic design. Sarah worked from home, editing learning modules for online education programs. I left for work every day at 8am, and got home every day at 6, from my IT job at a local library.

After a while, things started to happen in our apartment, between 8am and 6pm.

They'd been careful, sure, but it unraveled when she sent me a text meant for him, about missing him and not wanting to "wait two more days" when he was out of town. I confronted her when I got home that night. She never tried to deny it, which I suppose I appreciated somewhere in the back of my head. I moved back to my parents' house, they stayed. I never asked for more details about when or why. I didn't want them. I wanted to go.

And now, here I was, going, driving a shitty car across the country to start a new life of unknown dimensions in Seattle, trying to think more about the road ahead than the road behind. I'd left my home north of Philadelphia early in the morning, the trunk of the Corolla packed with most of my clothes and a few other belongings. I could get the rest when I arrived: against my parents' advice I'd put that inheritance into my checking account for use on this trip. And then I set off, knowing the destination but having only a vague plan of the route or the schedule. I knew I wanted to meander, and that I wanted to see things I'd never seen, the notable and the small. I wanted a trip that would build in my mind a gulf between the life I left and the life I arrived at. I wanted a vast landscape of memory between me and them.

I'd worry about work when I got there - plenty of tech jobs in the area, after all. I still didn't know why I'd chosen it - maybe the weather appealed to my mood. Maybe I lied the idea of the mountains and the ocean. Maybe it was random. No matter why, that was the destination I'd chosen. I just didn't know, exactly, how I'd get there. Or what I might do along the way.

In the immediate sense, that answer was: drive, listen to music, listen to podcasts, listen to nothing. Stop for gas, or a piss, or a snack. In general, I didn't want to spend all of this trip on the road; I was hoping to build in stops that made it so I never drove more than three or four hours at a stretch, though I knew when I got west of the Mississippi that would start getting harder. But today was a long stretch, because today I was going to Niagara Falls.

I'd been once, but when I was very small, so small that I wasn't sure whether my memories of it were mine or reconstructed over time from descriptions and old family photos. I wanted to see it again with adult eyes. I'd made a reservation at a nice mid-range boutique hotel within walking distance of the falls, hoping to see them in daylight and in the illumination show at night. After an eight hour drive - six and a half on the road, with time for food and to stretch my legs, I arrived around 5pm, and took the 20 minute stroll out to Goat Island.

It was busy, as I expected it to be on a beautiful autumn Sunday - warm, though not unseasonably, around 70 degrees. The parking lot was full, with cars circling like vultures, waiting for a spot to open. I started to hear the falls even before I could see them, roaring in the distance. The wind carried water up with it, which I felt more and more with every step I took. Terrapin Point was right at the end of the horseshoe falls, the iconic curved waterfalls that dropped the Niagara River 150 feet, as Lake Erie drained into Lake Ontario.

I leaned against the railing for a while, looking out into the roar of the water. The sun drew lower in the sky over the falls, the light dancing off the droplets being cast upward by the force of the river's collision with the rocks below. A stray thought hit me: Sarah and I had talked once about coming here. That was all I needed to get lost in memory for some unmeasurable amount of time, staring into the mist but seeing only the past.

I got pulled back into the present when I became vaguely aware of loud singing, but before I could turn to look, someone slammed into my side.

"Oh god!" A woman's voice, surrounded by laughter. I was turning in annoyance as she said it, shaken out of my memory and instantly on the defensive, but stopped when I saw her, reaching out to steady both herself and me after the contact. She looked just enough like Sarah to shake me out of whatever mildly aggressive response I was about to have: wide eyed, with dirty blonde, wavy hair, loose in a ponytail, a freckled and tanned face. She had on the blue poncho I'd seen on others who had gone on boat tours, as did her two friends, who laughed at her as she stumbled into me.

"You okay?" I took her arm to steady her.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't see you at all!"

"No problem, I'm all good. What were you doing there? Did you run into me backwards? You were moving fast." Her friends collapsed in laughter at that. "I'm missing something." I said.

"No, sorry, yes, we're..." she looked over at the two other girls, both of whom looked to be nineteen, twenty, "we're doing a kind of challenge. Or I am, they're helping."

"Bowling for strangers?" That got a smile from Not-Sarah.

"It's a long story, it's stupid, but it's what we're doing, and I'm really sorry again!" And she waved to me, and the three of them moved off together. I watched them go for a few seconds, not entirely sure what had just happened.

After a little while longer at Terrapin Point, I headed off the island, across the bridge. There were other observation areas there, from where you could see a bit more of the horseshoe, though you were further from the falls themselves. I tried to take my time; alone, it felt like I shouldn't be lingering. I didn't have anyone to talk to about how amazing the falls were, how loud or powerful. I didn't have anyone to take photos with, or explore with. But I tried to slow it down, appreciate it. I had all the time in the world; I'd intentionally left this trip open in terms of schedules, so I could take as long or as little as I wanted at any spot.

I spent some time watching the boats pass down below, as people in those same blue ponchos got drenched near the bottom of the falls. I thought maybe I'd do that before I left tomorrow morning; I'd initially thought it wasn't for me, but the folks down there seemed to be having a good time, and now that I saw the scale of all this from up here, I wanted to experience it from below as well.

After a little while there, I walked on towards the Rainbow Bridge, across to Canada. There was an observation tower on the US side, but Skylon Tower, across the river in Ontario, was the much taller one, and I wanted to see the falls from that height, especially around sunset.

As I walked down the path toward the bridge, movement caught my eye to my right. When I looked over, I saw those same three girls from before. Not-Sarah was again at the center, this time standing on a park bench doing... a cheer routine? In an actual cheerleader uniform. I saw her do a couple of jumps, a spin, a very high leg kick, her short skirt flying up letting me see the form-fitting athletic underwear below. She had nice legs, at least in terms of what I could see from afar. Nice everything, really, I thought as I watched her chest bob while she moved. Meanwhile, her friends filmed it, laughing, even as a small crowd formed.

The routine lasted another minute or so, after which she stopped and hopped down, to light applause and laughter. I realized I'd stopped in my tracks to watch just as one of her friends saw me, pointed, and laughed as they all waved. A little embarrassed, I waved back, clapped a bit, then went on my way, shaking my head, laughing again about whatever it was they were doing.

The bridge crossing was easy, and a nice walk, during which I paused a few times to take in the falls from a unique vantage point. The westerly sun created a cool rainbow reflection in the mist below. I took a selfie from the bridge that came out nicely, and threw it up on my insta - some quick caption about my cross-country adventure beginning.

I crossed into Canada relatively easily, my passport in hand, and got to the tower by around 6. I'd given myself time for about a half hour wait, and that was more or less correct; by 6:35 I was on an elevator up to the top, as the sun approached the horizon. It lloked cool, setting near if not directly over the falls, and I took it in silently, despite some of the noise around me.

And then it was gone. I watched the sky fade from orange to indigo before I made my descent, and crossed back into the US, through customs on the US side. By then, it was past 7:30pm, and I was hungry as hell. I wanted to come back for illumination later, but while the lights had just come on it wasn't yet dark enough for the full effect, so I went in search of food. I wound up at a little burger joint with an outdoor cafe only a block or so from the park. After getting seated outside, I ordered a beer and a burger, and checked my phone for a bit - a text from my mom, a bunch of reactions to my post. And then I heard one of the worst fake British accents I'd ever heard, behind me to my right.

I suppose I wasn't all that surprised to see them again. Not-Sarah had changed out of the cheerleader uniform, I noted with a bit of dismay, and was now in a hoodie and jeans. Her friends - a curvy brunette and a slim East Asian woman - were once again off to the side, the brunette filming... an interview? Not-Sarah was talking with a clearly bemused stranger, while holding a fake toy microphone.

"And wot do you think o' the falls here?" The accent was comical, on purpose it almost seemed. The stranger answered that they were nice but since they lived locally they usually left all that to the tourists. I made eye contact with the East Asian woman briefly.

"And wot do you do here in Niahhgra?" The stranger laughed and said he was a janitor at a local school. There were a couple other questions before the janitor finally got himself out of there, and the three of them started to laugh again.

"Okay," said the East Asian woman, "we need one more."

"Yes, I know, Vivian!" Not-Sarah said in mock annoyance.

I'd turned back around to my phone at this point, but then I heard Vivian say "Hey, your friend is over there..." in a low voice, and then suddenly there they all were.

"Hi there!" Not-Sarah said as she took the chair across from me.

"Hi - nice to see you without a head injury this time." My oh-so-clever response got a pity smile.

"I know I already accosted you, but... can I interview you for a minute?"

"Yes, but only if you explain what the hell is going on." At this point, my curiosity was overwhelming.

"Okay fine, I owe you that, but I can't take too long with it all, we're on a schedule." She checked the time on her phone. "So: my old high school cheerleading team used to have an annual contest run by the team captain. She'd give each team a series of odd tasks, and a location, and we'd have to complete them, in a set order, by midnight. The team that completed them correctly and with the most, uh, energy I guess? got a prize. Anyway I graduated two years ago but a bunch of use decided to keep it going after, a college edition. So I drafted my roommates to help me," she nodded at her friends, " and we've been going at it since this morning. Only six more to go, not including this one, which is to interview three people we'd never met before, using a ridiculous accent. So here we are."

"What's left?"

"Oh, uh..." her brunette friend jumped in.

"Next up is to find a road sign at least ten miles from here that gives a distance to here, and..." she looked up, looked at me, smirked, and continued: "have you hump it."

Sarah nodded, looked at me, and gave a shrug.

"Yeah, so that's what we're at now."

"Well, I don't want to keep you waiting on a hot date."

"Oh, you're a comedian, excellent," she said, moving the toy microphone to my face. "Keep being interesting, it'll get us better points on this." She looked at the brunette, who held up her phone and nodded. This time, it was a drawl of a high-society southern accent, again as caricatured as it could be.

"Evenin, folks, Ahm here with this handsome gentleman who is eatin' awll alone here at Ni-ag-ruh Falls. Young man, what brings you here ahll alone?"

"Well, my girlfriend slept with my best friend, so now I'm running away across the country. This is my first stop." Not-Sarah kind of moved her head back in surprise, wondering if I was just playing along or for real.

"Oh my, well that's just awful, you poor poor man." She fanned her hand in front of her face for effect. "And did you see them Falls today? Quaht a sight?"

"They sure were, lots of good people watching there too."

"Oh ah don't doubt that fer one second!" She touched my forearm. "And where y'all off to next on yer sad adventure?"

"Down to Pittsburgh to visit a friend, then Chicago, then here and there until I get to Seattle."

"Well my my, that sounds like a wonderful trip for you. Ah hope yuh can put those nasty people behahnd ya, and have a great little trip."

"Thanks."

And that did it - Not-Sarah flipped back to herself, and got up from the chair, clearly in a hurry.

"Thanks," she said over her shoulder. "Was that story for real?"

"Pretty much, yeah." I replied.

"Well, they both suck. You're cute, and you deserve better. Thanks for playing along!" And then they were gone, again, right as my burger arrived. I ate, drank, and thought, and then paid my bill and was off.

By the time I'd finished the meal, night had fully fallen, so I walked leisurely back over toward the falls. I headed to the US-side Observation Tower, a smaller affair than its Canadian cousin. The lights under the water were fully visible now, a rainbow array all down the line, radiating out from under the cascading water, the sound somehow more peaceful now than it had been in the full light of day. The stars were visible now too, competing with the bridght lights from the Canadian side of the falls. After taking in that view for some time, I descended again and walked in the pleasant, cool air. Without the sun, it felt more crisp - not cold, but certainly cool, by now probably into the mid 50s. I sat on that same bench I'd seen Not-Sarah do her routine on earlier, and let the breeze blow over me.

It had been a night like this that Sarah and I had really fallen for each other, during Spring Break our sophomore year of college. Neither of us had gone away - I had signed up to conduct some college tours for extra money that week, and Sarah... well, I couldn't remember why Sarah had stayed, but she did. That was the night we'd walked away from a party that was turning ugly together, and just sat in a quiet part of the quad, drinking from a shared flask and talking, until one of us kissed the other - it would forevermore be a debate over who had moved first - and we'd started making out. The empty campus was quiet, and we were far from the busiest areas, and so we got lost in each other. I could still remember her skin, cool from the air, under my hands as I slid her shirt off, finding her bare underneath. I could hear her sighs as I kissed her, took her nipples between my lips. I could feel her hands on my back as my shirt joined hers, and then our pants, and we lay together in the grass in our underwear, touching and kissing and eventually allowing even those last shreds of clothing to go in the early hours. I could hear her urging me to keep going, even as I felt her shiver from the breeze over our naked bodies. I could taste her tongue, dancing with mine as I moved in her insistently, smell the grass beneath us as I felt her climax vibrate through us both. I managed to pull out and shoot rope after rope into the grass next to us, then fall to her again, until we both regained our senses, hastily dressed, and ran back to her room where we fucked again that night, and again the next morning, and again and again for the next three years.

I came out of my reverie. I looked at my phone, and realized it was almost 10pm; I tried to calculate how long I'd been sitting there, and stopped my internal count at "a while." I was hard, a reflex from the memory of it. I reminded myself of how it ended, and that took care of things fast.

The nightly fireworks would begin soon, a five minute show that ran through October. It was a Canadian show, but easily visible from the US side as well. I was hoping to see it from Prospect Point Park, so I made my way over.

As I walked, I saw them again. with Not-Sarah again having changed dress. Not-Sarah still had the hoodie on, but the pants were conspicuously absent - bare legs emerged from the hem of the sweatshirt, which ended a little below her waist. Vivian, meanwhile, carried a hula hoop. This would have to be one of the remaining few challenges. I figured it would at least be entertaining, so I followed them as they hustled down toward the railing. I hung back a little bit as they chose a spot, far enough from the railing that there weren't tons of people around them. Not-Sarah took the hula hoop from her friend, and as she leaned it against her side, checked the time.