"This reminds me of the home we'll never have."
"Berea Fest V. A celebration of national and local DIY music and the community it creates. With support from all who are involved, we can create something that is relevant on our own terms. We all have the ability to inspire and impact each other and the world around us."
"$5.00 for each show. We take pride in the fact that there are no sponsors for this event. The existence of this event is supported by the people who attend. Some of the money goes to pay for gas for out of town bands. The rest of the money is a fundraiser for the Berea Children’s Home. Last year we raised $2525.00 for them! Let’s top that!!!"
We walked in just as the first band of the day, Signals Midwest started their set. I had never heard them before, but they were fucking awesome. Each band was given twenty minutes to play and then the sets were divided by a ten-minute set-up time. They went five minutes over, but it all worked out in the end. I slowly started seeing everyone I knew and saying hi, high-fiving, hugging a lot; I recognized more than half the people there, even if I didn't know them. It was interesting to see that the same couple hundred people are the arteries to this mid-western scene. Slingshot Dakota played second and I had to leave everyone to make sure I saw it. It was such a good set. Seeing them for the third time now was a magical experience. I bought a shirt from them after and they gave me a free giant patch with a kitty cat on it. They're so nice. We hung out with Chris and found out Cameron had refused to come for some reason. Over in the corner of the room there was a table of packaged fatty snacks and three giant bins of homemade vegan cookies. I ate at least ten of them and then got a can of rootbeer. On this trip, I had lost my taste for just about every soda but Faygo Moon Mist and rootbeer (of any brand, really). A ridiculous band called Spooktober played, equipped with cheap Casio programmed beats, and people began throwing toilet paper everywhere. We went outside to enjoy the nice weather for the time being and ended up playing a game of Four Square that eventually attracted several strangers and other friends. I finally got into the game and tried playing since we had a ball that was inflated this time around. It is now probably one of my favorite games ever; I have no idea how I survived as a child without it. A really good vegan soup was served to everyone in a giant pot with another pot of white rice. I'm not sure what vegetables were in that soup, but it was fucking delicious. The local chapter of Food Not Bombs came and tabled, but they brought practically nothing to contribute other than some dumpstered bagels and bread. Eric Ayotte played a really great set and then I sat out for three bands. I saw Tesla from Philadelphia and Melissa and Brett from Delaware and we all joined the front of the hand-built stage for Algernon Cadwallader's energetic set. Imperial Can played and it was just as fun as all the other times these past two months that I've seen them. Madelina Ava finally showed up, a little late, and had hitched a ride with some stranger all the way from Tennessee who posted online. I told her I had a bone to pick with her about a few things I had found out and we made time to talk one on one together about these issues. It ended well and I absolutely adore her. Sometimes, I'll watch her from far away as she interacts with others or sings along with a band playing and completely zone out. That might sound totally creepy, but it's a lot like when you can't stop watching a cute animal do something.
Standing outside and hanging out with Chris and Kara and some others, Chris told me he wasn't sure if he wanted to watch Paul Baribeau because of all the horror stories he'd heard about him being a total asshole to people for no reason. I myself had heard a lot of similar stories. He was actually at that point the only musician I admire who I hadn't pursued meeting in person, solely because of these horror stories and how intimidating they make him out to be. So I told Chris I was going to ask him in person if he was indeed an asshole. If he was an asshole, he'd answer yes, if he wasn't, he'd deny it. At least that was how I rationalized the blunt question in my head. When I walked inside, I saw him down the hall and sitting on the ground, warming up on his acoustic guitar. I stood hesitantly by the water fountain and replayed how I'd ask him over and over again my head. Then Madeline came up to me and I started talking to her about some things. Then I made my move. "Mr. Baribeau, may I have a moment?" He said yes unenthused. I prefaced this with, "Big fan, blah blah blah. I have a question," and then went on to ask, "Are you an asshole?" He chuckled a little bit and said, "The thing is that I'm not afraid to be an asshole. So yes and no." And then added, "People are good at getting on my bad side." I asked him if I was on his bad side and he said, "Nah, you're good." So he wasn't an asshole. At least not to me. I walked away and told him I'd spread some rumors that he wasn't an asshole to combat the ones that says he is. His set later that night was one of the most emotionally intense things I'd ever witnessed. The first time I saw him was truly magical in every way. But this night, he really put his all into it. There was a certain aggressiveness in his singing and playing and this time he was actually amplified. At that point, the time schedules had gotten all messy. The time he played was technically the time at which his set should have been ending. The whole room sang along. He played some songs from the new album and some older ones, too. I was particularly glad he played "Blue Cool", "Strawberry", and "Christmas Lights". He played my favorite song, "Never Get to Know", and by the time he ended the song with its final lines, no guitar and just his angry voice, "'Cause I've been let down by the people that I love, but I will not let down the people who love me," I was crying. I don't cry, ever, let alone form a movie or song. But my eyes were welling up with tears by the time he finished that song.
On the door to the giant room where the show was happening inside the church, there was a sign-up sheet separated into two sections, one for people in need of a place to stay and one for people who had a place for people to stay. Someone had written on it that they had a big backyard with tents, pancake mix, freezepops, a pool, and a small dog. It sounded too good to be true, so Kara texted the number that was added to the end of it. The girl's name was Lauren and she said she could drive us to her place after the show in her minivan! We met her later that night. She was a gay girl with short hair who looked surprisingly average for this type of event. Her house was in a town ten or so miles outside of Berea. So after the last band played that night, I walked far off into the parking lot with Madeline and had a really deep conversation with her about some things I wanted to talk with her about and then went to get all my stuff, along with Kara, out of Ardilla's car. We were the only two people riding with her back to her place and about fifteen other people were meeting us there. She was really cool and nice and we listened to Laura Marling together on her iPod. She was all excited that I even know who Laura Marling was. We pulled up to a big, beautiful house on a cookie cutter suburban street. A car turned off with some people in it waited in the driveway. We walked into her backyard to a large back patio and an above-ground pool. It was spacious and people started loading their things back there right away, setting up their apartment-sized tents. Myself and some other strangers started trying to get a fire going. There were some blocks of wood, but no kindling and no dry leaves since it was so clean back there. But we made do with what we could. I donated bug spray to everyone there and even used it to try and ignite a decent fire, even though it obviously burned right up. It took a while, but a black kid named John with three X's tattooed on the back of his left arm got it going eventually. I asked him if he was still edge and he told me he was. He was a pretty cool dude. Everyone brought a little something to the group and we spent a little while sitting around the fire together, impaling frozen pretzels and vegan hotdogs and roasting them over it. I think the roasted veggie dog was better than any hotdog I'd ever had microwaved or boiled. There was chips and salsa, iced tea; Lauren was really taking good care of all of us. It was a lot of fun. There was a strong Wi-Fi connection there, so I got online up on the patio. Kara was being really bitchy to me, probably because her mouth was full of sores and they hurt from whatever that thing she got from Ardilla was. Everyone had a tent big enough to defeat the purpose of camping altogether, but Kara and I only had a tarp and sleeping bags to use. The grass was kind of wet, but it was okay thanks to the tarp. I laid everything out while Kara sat on my laptop, trying to cool down from how angry she had just made me by being needlessly mean to me. We went to sleep together somewhere around 4 in the morning. Mostly everyone was still awake at that point.
DAY TWENTY-NINE: Saturday, July 17th
We got up the next morning as everyone was collapsing their giant tents and getting ready to go. The second day of Berea Fest started at noon. We caught a ride there with Lauren. When we got there, we saw Chris and he reminded me that we had to do the tofu challenge. The tofu challenge was something he was once dared to try by Cameron and could hardly handle. Madeline and I told him we could do it no problem, so he challenged us to it. Basically, you take an entire block of raw tofu and try to eat it without draining it or anything in a single bite. He insisted that it was one of the hardest things ever. So we walked to the nearest grocery store, which was something like two miles away. At first, Kara had showed up behind us, following silently as usual, and I told her, "Kara, you don't have to follow me everywhere I go." She walked away immediately. I felt like a jerk, but she'd been following me like a fly for the entire month and it was honestly beginning to drive me fucking insane. We got to the grocery store, I got a rootbeer because the machine at the church was sold out, and Chris stole our block of Nasoya firm tofu. When we got back, I had already missed a few bands. A guy I didn't know and whose name I never even bothered getting, Madeline, Melody, and I then partook in the so-called tofu challenge. We sat in a circle on the ground outside and cut it into four quarters each. He counted to three and all of us but Madeline stuffed it into our mouths without hesitation. I got half of it in and bit down. It tasted like cold, moist Play-Doh and I instantly felt like I was going to puke it back out. So I used all my jaw strength and stayed down as I pushed the second half in and tried to swallow it all at once. I had to pinch my lips shut to stop it from being ejected out by my natural instincts to throw up foreign tastes. Chris was right, it was pretty hard. But by the time I opened my eyes from squinting and squeezing, Melody and the other guy had also conquered it. Madeline had taken a single bite out of hers like a chipmunk and continued to eat it bite by bite long after we all finished. Chris sat there with his eyes wide open. At 2:30, Lemuria was set to go on. I went up to Alex as he brought his bass drum into the church and asked him if he knew what the set list was looking like. He asked me what I wanted them to play, so I asked him if he'd be down to play "Yesterday's Lunch". He said they'd totally play it. It was so awesome of him.
Their set was fucking awesome, of course. As they played, several beach balls were thrown around. I hit one of them and it accidentally hit Alex in the face as he sang and drummed. I felt so bad. Carly from Slingshot Dakota played keyboards off the stage for one or two of their songs, too. Sheena looked super pretty in a cute little dress. I bought a t-shirt afterwards and threw it into Lauren's van with our stuff. While sitting outside in the shade underneath a try after, Lauren asked us if we wanted to join them on a ride to Chipotle. I had just said to Kara, "I'm so hungry," so it seemed like divinity. It was us and a couple others. I had never eaten at a Chipotle before and I really didn't have the money to do so, but did anyway. I got a big burrito and Kara got a big burrito bowl. She gasped in pain the entire time because of the sores in her mouth and I didn't really like my burrito all too much. 50% of the time I pay money for food, I regret it. But it was nice to sit in air conditioning and ripping off free soda while we were there. When we got back, we gathered around for Toby Foster's set. And I sat out, all tired and extremely exhausted for some reason, while Theo Zumm from Defiance, Ohio and Nana Grizol played a rare solo performance. It was nice to sit back and listen to, even though I was about to pass out at any moment. I laid down on my stomach on the floor by the entrance doors for a little while and fell asleep, until I was woken up for Saintseneca's set. Kara and I had heard them for the first time ever in Lauren's van and were totally blown away. They were from Columbus and were the only band at Berea who played 100% acoustically. They switched between acoustic guitar, banjo, and dulcimer as one of the guys we slept over with the night before at Lauren's beat his hands against a plastic trash can as percussion and a girl dressed up all cute played violin. It was probably the best thing I'd heard the entire festival. I was completely blown away by them. I didn't have money or a tape player for their cassette EP to serve me, but I did stumble across a download code for it that blew its way onto the ground in front of me by their merch table.
(Above: Saintseneca; below: Super Bobby and Eric Ayotte.)
As the day slowly winded down, so did I. The inevitable end to yet another great trip, my longest trip away from home, in fact, was really starting to cave in on me and I it was as if the wind was being knocked out of me in slow motion. I just started feeling exhausted. Not from the shows and the traveling and all that, but just from knowing that tomorrow, I was going to have to start working my way back to Schenectady. I tried to stay alive, though. Me and a few others sat on the floor in the outer room and played a game of Russian Pebbles, a game Madeline showed us all. Basically, you take five tiny rocks of comparable size and roll them like dice. Then you try to push one of them between two rocks at once twice. When you're left with only two, you try to push them and make them collide. If you get that far, you then put all the rocks in your palm and throw them in the air, trying to catch as many as you can on the back of your hand. Then you throw what you caught on the back of your hand and try to catch them once again in your palm. Each rock you catch is ten points. It may sound stupid, but this game really keeps you interested somehow. I totally won, first to a hundred points. For an hour, people waited patiently for 'burrito fest', which had tons of burrito stuff coming in so everyone there could be fed. I got one before most other people from one of the members of Saintseneca, thankfully, and then waited in a line that stood still for over a half hour for Madeline to get her one, because I'm a sweetheart like that. A totally ridiculous band called Beast Infection played and were all dressed up in costumes, having the crowd go totally insane and throw garbage around. It was insane. Pheramones played a really fun set after that. Super Bobby, with Eric Ayotte as his 'hype man', put on probably the funnest set all day. It was so much fun. A hardcore kid was there wearing a black pair of Asking Alexandra shorts that said, "FUCK THIS," on the ass. I was confused as to whether it meant to fuck his ass or fuck something general and vague. Hardcore kids are stupid.
After that, I was seriously ready to pass out, either from depression or lack of enough sleep, so I sat outside. Lauren had to leave early, so she had us take all of our things out of her van. Everyone had somewhere to go that night but me and Kara. We tried to talk to people and find a place to go, but there were no rides for us and no room for us. That reality sunk in fast and, just like back at the end of Crucial Fun Fest, we knew everyone's lives were going to continue with an equal string of fun and adventure, while we were going to be returning to the dismal life that we lead back in the 518. I sat against a wall outside of the show with my backpack during Vacation, Good Luck, and Delay. After everyone cleared out, a few people tried to hook us up with ways outta there, but there was nothing. Tesla (from Philly), Melissa, and Brett all got their way outta there and I was so jealous. So we sat against a wall and watched everyone slowly clear out. Then we walked to the end of the church and laid on the concrete for over an hour, as cars and tour vans drove by us, out into the street and onto their next destinations. We were still planning on trying to use the Mormons to get home for free, but we had no way there and the nearest Mormon church was six miles away. Two hours later, Kara went and asked Delay or someone how to get there and they let her use a cellphone to write down directions. A nice girl named Maryn then told us we could stay overnight in a backyard where lots of others had set up tents. So we walked there and hesitantly walked into this backyard, where Kate from New Paltz and some other vaguely familiar people were sitting on a back patio. The grass was still wet from a short rain that had happened earlier that night, but we had nothing better to sleep on than our tarp and sleeping bags. Eric Ayotte came up to us and asked us how we were and then invited us to stay in this giant tent he was all alone in. So we slept on the other side of the tent he was in, which easily could have fit three to four more people. Eric's such a nice guy. I felt bad that Kara kept coughing. Before we went to sleep, I tried calling the number to the Mormon church we were hoping to use. They were closed on Sundays and Mondays. We were screwed.
DAY THIRTY: Sunday, July 18th
When we woke up, I went inside the house and met someone's mother, who was listening to country music from her computer. I politely asked if I could use it real quick to write down directions. After that, we left and started walking the 1.5 miles to the on-ramp onto 71 North. I grabbed some cardboard and made a sign saying we were stuck and needed a ride up 71. It took about one minute to get picked up by some older guy in a Subaru. He was pretty conservative, despite the fact that Kara and I had stereotyped Subaru Outback drivers as liberal hippies. When explaining how bad of an area we were from was, he asked, "Are there a lot of coloreds?" He drove us about fifteen miles into Cleveland and dropped us off right outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. At first, we saw that we were surrounded by water and wanted to check it out, so we walked up and realized there was no way to the water unless you were getting on the giant cruise ship. There were tons of yuppies lugging bags in each hand of merchandise from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, mostly elderly couples and suburban family tourists. We saw Vacation's tour van parked, too, oddly enough. So we stood at the on-ramp to 90 East with our new sign with the sun beating down on us pretty hard. I let Kara sit in the shade underneath a tree. More families walked to their $10 parking in the garage next to us than cars passed by us. We stood there for over an hour before giving up. It was yet another hopeless Ohio attempt to escape it. People weren't even making eye contact with us. We crossed the street to check out the train schedule, figuring that maybe we could spange outside of the Museum and make enough to take a train. But when got over there, a sweaty black man asked us where we were trying to get to. Upon telling him, he told us that if we walked to Greyhound and told them that we were stranded and had no money to get home, they'd hook us up with a free ride as long as we had someone back at home they could call and vouch for us. He said they definitely did it and then told us that he himself has done it there several times, even transporting his girlfriend to him that way from somewhere else. According to him, Greyhound stations all over the country do it. He said we had his word. So we got pretty optimistic and walked a few blocks down through the ugly, stale city to the Greyhound station. We waited in line at the ticket counter and when we asked the woman about it, she said we'd have to talk to the supervisor and pointed us across the way to a fat black woman helping an old lady. We walked over and were ignored, so we set our things down and sat on the cold tiled floor, awaiting a comfortable moment when she didn't look so busy. She eventually walked away and never came back. We sat on that floor for about an hour before Kara went and found her. When Kara told her we were stranded and asked if they could help, the woman looked at her like she was stupid and then silently rejected her by shaking her head no, then adding, "There are charities for that."
So that was a huge waste of time. We turned around and walked back to our post by the Hall of Fame Museum. We made a new sign explaining we were stranded and trying to get back to upstate New York and sat in various spots outside of the museum, hoping the yuppie tourists who were already blowing money would maybe help us out with some change or something. We sat in a few different places in the twenty minutes we tried it. But these rich white folk just walked right by us. If we were lying there like we were dead, they probably would have stepped right over us. No one even looked down at us as we sat there. And they all could have helped, too. I watched as these people walked out with tons of FYE bags filled with useless garbage, people taking their wallets out stuffed with cash. We put on sun screen because sitting where we were actually hurt, like we were on top of a stone oven. We resumed standing by the on-ramp, even though we knew it was useless. By 5PM, five hours after we had been dropped off there, we threw the sign down and suddenly were getting picked up by a really pretty woman Jen on her way home from work. She had a really big, nice car and at that point I was surprised she was going to let two smelly people inside of it. She was really nice and said she wouldn't usually pick people up, let alone males with beards. She could only bring us another fifteen miles to a town called Lakeshore. She let us off at a Denny's where we went and ordered a lot of fries. I didn't want to move. I just didn't. I wanted to procrastinate and ignore the fact that we had to get back home. So we were there for a while. The waitress we had was knocking things over and looked to be having such a bad day. I felt so bad for her. By the time we left and paid for our over-priced fries, I only had some change left over to tip her with. A guy saw us contemplating from afar and called me over to give me a dollar. "Here ya go. Tip her with it. I know what it's like travelin'. Been there, done that." It was so nice of him. In the bathroom of that Denny's men's room, someone wrote in regular pen on the wall separating two urinals, "If I can't be my own, I'd feel better dead." We started walking the mile or two up the road to try and get back onto 90 East. I couldn't believe we had already been trying to get home for six or so hours and had only made it about thirty miles away from Berea. I was pretty sure we'd be staying the night in that town, Willoughby.
We walked along dozens of separated communities of condos and luxury apartments with fancy names paying homage to the nature they destroyed in order to build there. The town's motto was something like, "Where courtesy meets community." But there wasn't a community. The people who lived there all wanted to live in their own separate bubbles with central air and fake woods planted around them. We walked over a bridge that was covered in rust. Even the concrete sidewalk was the color of rust. It was strange. We sat at the entrance to the road for a little while, no one even really acknowledging us, until a cop pulled over and got out of his car, standing with his legs spread just to maintain balance. His large nostrils were filled with broken blood vessels and he could hardly speak or communicate. "What're ya doin' here?" I told him we were trying to get home. I lied and said we had been robbed in Lexington and therefore didn't have any money to get a bus home, to which he responded, "Well, poor planning on your part." He looked down at my bag first and foremost and quickly asked, "Got any drugs in the bag?" I told him no. He told us what we were doing was illegal, even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't. He tried to tell us that it was only illegal because we weren't on a sidewalk. He walked back to his car with our IDs and came back out to tell us it was our lucky day, because he could write us tickets, but wasn't going to. Then he proceeded to tell us to go back the way we came and maybe try holding a sign up that way, which wouldn't accomplish anything because obviously no one was going the right way down there. He said, "If you keep going up this road, you'll be getting into my city and if you do that, I'll write you a ticket." He mentioned writing us a ticket at least ten times. He was being pretty antagonistic, so we just obeyed and started walking away. We had no idea what to do from there, because at that point hitchhiking was our only remaining option and resource. We went to a gas station and asked the nice blonde girl working there for permission to hold a sign up asking for helping. I lied to everyone and told them we had been robbed in Lexington, since simply not having money while traveling wasn't enough. We made a sign and sat there. The girl inside let me fill a free soda and we drank it while sitting right next to the entrance door with our sign and bags. Not many people looked at us at first, but then things started picking up and people started showing us a different side of Ohio.
Some middle-aged women drove by in two cars from Dayton to buy some alcohol and ice and the one woman just couldn't stop giving. She ended up donating $14 to us in spare dollar bills, change, and winning lottery tickets. She told us not everyone in Ohio was like the people we had already experienced. A few others gave us some spare change and a few bucks. A scene kid asked us if we smoked, because he was going to donate some cigarettes, probably the last thing we could possibly need. Then a couple in a van with a child pulled over and asked us our story. They told us sadly that there was no way they could help us. They weren't going in our direction and had just spent their last $3 on gas. They pulled away three times and kept stopping. We could tell they wanted to help us so bad, but weren't sure how they could. Then they drove back over and the woman, Sarah, called her mother to see if a church would put us up for the night. The once pink sky was being devoured by these scary charcoal black clouds above and some drops of rain were beginning to fall onto us. There was a festival happening nearby for the town being put on by a church she said would give us a place to stay for the night. So we hopped in their van and drove to it with them. The rain started coming down on us as we drove. When we got to the festival, she jumped out and spoke to an officer who she knew through family. When she got back in the van, she said we were told to go to the Willoughby police department and that they would give us a free stay in a hotel! All we had to do was go in, answer a few questions, tell them we were transients and show some ID, and boom, they gave us a voucher for two free nights at the local Travelodge, funded by a program run by the Salvation Army. It was so fucking awesome and we couldn't thank Sarah and her husband Keith enough. On the drive to the hotel, their child Anthony kept grabbing Kara's face and screaming into ours as we tried to talk to his parents. It was so fucking annoying, but a small price to pay. As we bid farewell and thanked them some more, they told us to call them in a few days if we still had no way home and Keith would drive us all the way there. He said he used to travel and go to festivals when he was our age and knew exactly what it was like to be stuck with no money to get back home. It was so incredibly nice of him, but we decided we would never allow him to do that for us even if it was all we had left to get back home by the 23rd. So we had two free nights in a really nice two-bed room in a Travelodge. How fucking awesome is that? I turned the air conditioner all the way up, showered, and we went to sleep comfortably that night after using the free Wi-Fi and going through our bags.
DAY THIRTY-ONE: Monday, July 19th
We slept in really late. When we got up, we decided to spoil ourselves to a nice dinner at the local Red Robin. I'd never eaten at one before, but the night before I checked out of curiosity and discovered they serve vegan burgers. It was a two-mile walk both ways, but it was nice out. We each got a burger. I made mine a 'Monster', which means two patties on one, and we planned on taking advantage of their bottomless steakfries. When they brought our burgers out to us, we were surprised at their size. They weren't regular sized Boca burgers, they were the biggest burgers we'd ever eaten. I had to take my second patty off just to be able to bite into it. We ate until we were sick. The owner came over to apologize to me because they at first brought me out a burger covered in cheese, saying, "I'm sorry. If it went by me, I would have known you didn't want cheese!" and then he asked if we were full vegetarians. We told him we were vegan and he went on and on and on about his garden back at home that he's so proud of. He was so cute! We walked back to the hotel, feeling bloated and sick. On the way back, Kara found $4 on the ground! We watched a movie called Uncertainty on my laptop that was pretty good. Kara fell asleep during it. I got online and wrote down the numbers to every nearby church within a two-mile radius. It was such a nice day, just relaxing and enjoying free stuff. Things are just better when they're free, ya know?
DAY THIRTY-TWO: Tuesday, July 20th
We were woken up by a maid knocking on our door. Check-out time was noon, so we started getting packed and I started calling every number on my list. The Mormons weren't answering. Four church numbers later, one finally picked up! I told their secretary that we were two kids stranded in Willoughby and that someone local had told us talk to a church because they might be able to help us get home. She put me on the phone with the father there and he told us to walk down and talk to him in person and that they'd try to figure something out. We walked a mile up the road until we found out. Right before we got to the parking lot, a woman in an SUV pulled over and asked if we needed a ride anywhere, then handed us two cold cans of orange soda. It was an episcopalian church, whatever that means. When we walked in, I wasn't expecting much and I was pretty pessimistic about what it would add up to in the end. Plus, I felt very uncomfortable about talking to a priest, because I fucking hate priests. But when we got into his office, he was a really nice guy who wasn't very priest-like or intimidatingly religious. We explained to him that we had no money and needed to get back home in Schenectady. Coincidentally, he had grown up in Albany! So he knew exactly where we were talking about. He had only been living in Ohio for a couple years at that point. Within minutes, he was on his laptop, paying for our Greyhound bus tickets home. He even drove us back to Cleveland in his giant, expensive car to get there. He told us that the church gives him a giant fund that is supposed to be used to help people like us, but they, "hadn't been helping people, so it'd gotten pretty big." He left us with a, "God bless!" or two and we went back in to get our will-call tickets. It was only 2 or so and our bus wasn't set to leave until 10:15 that night. That was the only downfall. But again, we couldn't complain.
We walked to a nearby Starbucks and sat online for a bit. I watched as a little bug crawled all over one of their baked goods behind the glass before realizing there wasn't a single thing there that I wanted. So we just loitered for a little while until I found directions online to a Chinese restaurant. When the Google review someone wrote said, "Your prototypical greasy Chinese food," we knew it was right for us. So we walked to that and ate there. Their giant plate of tofu was perfect and it was so great eating some nice, firm, sesame tofu for the first time in over a month. We sat there for a while to kill time. A crazy black man with piercings outside was doing karate by himself, spin-kicking the air, talking to an imaginary enemy, and using his cane as a weapon to fight off the invisible. It was so weird. In the corner of the room where we sat, a balding older man sat by himself, with his briefcase in the other seat, labeled, "PIANO LESSONS." He came up to us once and asked if we were waiting to meet someone. I watched him as he sat there for another hour, occasionally crying to himself. It was pretty sad. Then we went back to Starbucks and sat in their upstairs room on the computer until 9PM. When I walked back in, one of the female baristas came up to me and asked, "Is this your phone?" I had apparently forgotten my cellphone when I left earlier. It was a good thing I came back. We waited in line back at Greyhound for an hour. Within minutes, we had inspired twenty other people to finally get in line. When the short, balding black man driving the bus got out, we were all standing. I hadn't heard him say anything and then all of the sudden, he yelled, "TODAY, PEOPLE!" When we walked up to give him our tickets, I said to him, "It's not our fault this is your job, man." He looked up, stunned, and said, "What?" I responded, "There's no reason to be rude." So he told us to get out of line. I refused at first until he threatened to get security. We stood off to the side as he said, "Am I being rude now? Am I being rude now?!" I calmly said back, "Yes, you are." But he had the authority, and to compensate for a job he hates, he needed to flex his authority. I wanted to bash his fucking skull in, but didn't want to make matters worse. And then he added, "There's another bus leaving at 2:15. You can get that one!" When the line finally cleared, I walked up to him nonchalantly like I was about to get my ticket torn. He yelled, "GET BEHIND THE DOOR, SIR!" I mustered a half-ass apology and he walked away. I talked to another man who told me, "Just chill. If I tell him to let you on the bus, he won't drive it, and then you'll hold up everyone on it." It made no fucking sense. That man was an employee, not a boss!
So we stood there until the little asshole came back with an officer and said to me, "Listen. I'm going to tell you something that you probably don't wanna hear: I'M IN CHARGE!" He looked like he was sweating from how angry he was. It was actually kind of sad how desperate he was to display his authority, when all he was was a sad, pathetic bus driver who will be riding in circles until the day he dies. I stood there and nodded, swallowing my pride. He continued, "And when you said I was rude, you were basically telling me I'm a fucking asshole!" He said if we made any fuss on the ride to Buffalo, he would throw us off, then let us on. We luckily got two seats together. I was so mad, I could barely speak. I don't like being spoken to like that by peons. I put my headphones on. A little bird had flown onto the bus. Everyone was freaking out like it was a pterodactyl or something. The bird was obviously terrified. When the driver got on, a fat bitch stood up as the bird flew by the overhead light and grabbed it, contorting its wings. He screamed a painful collection of chirps and she stood there at first like she was about to kill it with her bare hands. Then the driver told her to get it off the bus and she walked over to the door and tossed it like it was garbage. It was a disgusting site. The drive wasn't totally unbearable, but I couldn't really sleep. I just sat and listened to music. We didn't have any layovers, just a few stops. A crazy woman got on and told the driver she was going to Newark. She was on the wrong bus with hospital bracelets on, but wouldn't listen to them when they told her to get on the bus to New York City. She said she had two husbands, both of whom were on the bus, and that she had been kidnapped. Everyone laughed, even though this woman was very obviously fucking crazy and in a sad state of disrepair. Several Greyhound employees had to get on to explain the same thing to her over and over until she got off the bus. Then a sheriff came on and asked every single person on the bus individually if they were citizens of the United States of America. It was so annoying.
We got back home the next day a little after 9 in the morning. My grandmother picked us up and brought us back to my place. I wasn't happy at all to be back, but I was glad we got home in time for Kara to make it to her appointment on the 23rd. We fell asleep on my painful bed when we got back. She eventually got picked up by one of her parents as I kept sleeping sometime around 3 or 4 and I slept until 6:30. Back to my miserable life, once again.
SLINGSHOT DAKOTA!<3
VEGAN COOKIES GALORE!<3
FOUR SQUARE!<3
ALGERNON CADWALLADER!<3
HILARIOUS GIANT METAL HAND!<3
A GIANT SPIDER ACROSS AN OPENING IN THE NET AROUND LAUREN'S TRAMPOLINE! :(
SLEEPOVER AT LAUREN'S WITH A BUNCHA STRANGERS!<3
TOFU CHALLENGE!<3
BEACH BALLS DURING LEMURIA!<3
SHENNA FROM LEMURIA!<3
RUSSIAN PEBBLES WITH MADELINE AND SOME OTHER STRANGERS!<3
SUPER BOBBY AND ERIC AYOTTE!<3
The scary clouds in Willoughby, before we were whisked away by our two heroes in a van, Sarah and Keith!
Free hotels are the best hotels.<3
"$5.00 for each show. We take pride in the fact that there are no sponsors for this event. The existence of this event is supported by the people who attend. Some of the money goes to pay for gas for out of town bands. The rest of the money is a fundraiser for the Berea Children’s Home. Last year we raised $2525.00 for them! Let’s top that!!!"
We walked in just as the first band of the day, Signals Midwest started their set. I had never heard them before, but they were fucking awesome. Each band was given twenty minutes to play and then the sets were divided by a ten-minute set-up time. They went five minutes over, but it all worked out in the end. I slowly started seeing everyone I knew and saying hi, high-fiving, hugging a lot; I recognized more than half the people there, even if I didn't know them. It was interesting to see that the same couple hundred people are the arteries to this mid-western scene. Slingshot Dakota played second and I had to leave everyone to make sure I saw it. It was such a good set. Seeing them for the third time now was a magical experience. I bought a shirt from them after and they gave me a free giant patch with a kitty cat on it. They're so nice. We hung out with Chris and found out Cameron had refused to come for some reason. Over in the corner of the room there was a table of packaged fatty snacks and three giant bins of homemade vegan cookies. I ate at least ten of them and then got a can of rootbeer. On this trip, I had lost my taste for just about every soda but Faygo Moon Mist and rootbeer (of any brand, really). A ridiculous band called Spooktober played, equipped with cheap Casio programmed beats, and people began throwing toilet paper everywhere. We went outside to enjoy the nice weather for the time being and ended up playing a game of Four Square that eventually attracted several strangers and other friends. I finally got into the game and tried playing since we had a ball that was inflated this time around. It is now probably one of my favorite games ever; I have no idea how I survived as a child without it. A really good vegan soup was served to everyone in a giant pot with another pot of white rice. I'm not sure what vegetables were in that soup, but it was fucking delicious. The local chapter of Food Not Bombs came and tabled, but they brought practically nothing to contribute other than some dumpstered bagels and bread. Eric Ayotte played a really great set and then I sat out for three bands. I saw Tesla from Philadelphia and Melissa and Brett from Delaware and we all joined the front of the hand-built stage for Algernon Cadwallader's energetic set. Imperial Can played and it was just as fun as all the other times these past two months that I've seen them. Madelina Ava finally showed up, a little late, and had hitched a ride with some stranger all the way from Tennessee who posted online. I told her I had a bone to pick with her about a few things I had found out and we made time to talk one on one together about these issues. It ended well and I absolutely adore her. Sometimes, I'll watch her from far away as she interacts with others or sings along with a band playing and completely zone out. That might sound totally creepy, but it's a lot like when you can't stop watching a cute animal do something.
Standing outside and hanging out with Chris and Kara and some others, Chris told me he wasn't sure if he wanted to watch Paul Baribeau because of all the horror stories he'd heard about him being a total asshole to people for no reason. I myself had heard a lot of similar stories. He was actually at that point the only musician I admire who I hadn't pursued meeting in person, solely because of these horror stories and how intimidating they make him out to be. So I told Chris I was going to ask him in person if he was indeed an asshole. If he was an asshole, he'd answer yes, if he wasn't, he'd deny it. At least that was how I rationalized the blunt question in my head. When I walked inside, I saw him down the hall and sitting on the ground, warming up on his acoustic guitar. I stood hesitantly by the water fountain and replayed how I'd ask him over and over again my head. Then Madeline came up to me and I started talking to her about some things. Then I made my move. "Mr. Baribeau, may I have a moment?" He said yes unenthused. I prefaced this with, "Big fan, blah blah blah. I have a question," and then went on to ask, "Are you an asshole?" He chuckled a little bit and said, "The thing is that I'm not afraid to be an asshole. So yes and no." And then added, "People are good at getting on my bad side." I asked him if I was on his bad side and he said, "Nah, you're good." So he wasn't an asshole. At least not to me. I walked away and told him I'd spread some rumors that he wasn't an asshole to combat the ones that says he is. His set later that night was one of the most emotionally intense things I'd ever witnessed. The first time I saw him was truly magical in every way. But this night, he really put his all into it. There was a certain aggressiveness in his singing and playing and this time he was actually amplified. At that point, the time schedules had gotten all messy. The time he played was technically the time at which his set should have been ending. The whole room sang along. He played some songs from the new album and some older ones, too. I was particularly glad he played "Blue Cool", "Strawberry", and "Christmas Lights". He played my favorite song, "Never Get to Know", and by the time he ended the song with its final lines, no guitar and just his angry voice, "'Cause I've been let down by the people that I love, but I will not let down the people who love me," I was crying. I don't cry, ever, let alone form a movie or song. But my eyes were welling up with tears by the time he finished that song.
On the door to the giant room where the show was happening inside the church, there was a sign-up sheet separated into two sections, one for people in need of a place to stay and one for people who had a place for people to stay. Someone had written on it that they had a big backyard with tents, pancake mix, freezepops, a pool, and a small dog. It sounded too good to be true, so Kara texted the number that was added to the end of it. The girl's name was Lauren and she said she could drive us to her place after the show in her minivan! We met her later that night. She was a gay girl with short hair who looked surprisingly average for this type of event. Her house was in a town ten or so miles outside of Berea. So after the last band played that night, I walked far off into the parking lot with Madeline and had a really deep conversation with her about some things I wanted to talk with her about and then went to get all my stuff, along with Kara, out of Ardilla's car. We were the only two people riding with her back to her place and about fifteen other people were meeting us there. She was really cool and nice and we listened to Laura Marling together on her iPod. She was all excited that I even know who Laura Marling was. We pulled up to a big, beautiful house on a cookie cutter suburban street. A car turned off with some people in it waited in the driveway. We walked into her backyard to a large back patio and an above-ground pool. It was spacious and people started loading their things back there right away, setting up their apartment-sized tents. Myself and some other strangers started trying to get a fire going. There were some blocks of wood, but no kindling and no dry leaves since it was so clean back there. But we made do with what we could. I donated bug spray to everyone there and even used it to try and ignite a decent fire, even though it obviously burned right up. It took a while, but a black kid named John with three X's tattooed on the back of his left arm got it going eventually. I asked him if he was still edge and he told me he was. He was a pretty cool dude. Everyone brought a little something to the group and we spent a little while sitting around the fire together, impaling frozen pretzels and vegan hotdogs and roasting them over it. I think the roasted veggie dog was better than any hotdog I'd ever had microwaved or boiled. There was chips and salsa, iced tea; Lauren was really taking good care of all of us. It was a lot of fun. There was a strong Wi-Fi connection there, so I got online up on the patio. Kara was being really bitchy to me, probably because her mouth was full of sores and they hurt from whatever that thing she got from Ardilla was. Everyone had a tent big enough to defeat the purpose of camping altogether, but Kara and I only had a tarp and sleeping bags to use. The grass was kind of wet, but it was okay thanks to the tarp. I laid everything out while Kara sat on my laptop, trying to cool down from how angry she had just made me by being needlessly mean to me. We went to sleep together somewhere around 4 in the morning. Mostly everyone was still awake at that point.
DAY TWENTY-NINE: Saturday, July 17th
We got up the next morning as everyone was collapsing their giant tents and getting ready to go. The second day of Berea Fest started at noon. We caught a ride there with Lauren. When we got there, we saw Chris and he reminded me that we had to do the tofu challenge. The tofu challenge was something he was once dared to try by Cameron and could hardly handle. Madeline and I told him we could do it no problem, so he challenged us to it. Basically, you take an entire block of raw tofu and try to eat it without draining it or anything in a single bite. He insisted that it was one of the hardest things ever. So we walked to the nearest grocery store, which was something like two miles away. At first, Kara had showed up behind us, following silently as usual, and I told her, "Kara, you don't have to follow me everywhere I go." She walked away immediately. I felt like a jerk, but she'd been following me like a fly for the entire month and it was honestly beginning to drive me fucking insane. We got to the grocery store, I got a rootbeer because the machine at the church was sold out, and Chris stole our block of Nasoya firm tofu. When we got back, I had already missed a few bands. A guy I didn't know and whose name I never even bothered getting, Madeline, Melody, and I then partook in the so-called tofu challenge. We sat in a circle on the ground outside and cut it into four quarters each. He counted to three and all of us but Madeline stuffed it into our mouths without hesitation. I got half of it in and bit down. It tasted like cold, moist Play-Doh and I instantly felt like I was going to puke it back out. So I used all my jaw strength and stayed down as I pushed the second half in and tried to swallow it all at once. I had to pinch my lips shut to stop it from being ejected out by my natural instincts to throw up foreign tastes. Chris was right, it was pretty hard. But by the time I opened my eyes from squinting and squeezing, Melody and the other guy had also conquered it. Madeline had taken a single bite out of hers like a chipmunk and continued to eat it bite by bite long after we all finished. Chris sat there with his eyes wide open. At 2:30, Lemuria was set to go on. I went up to Alex as he brought his bass drum into the church and asked him if he knew what the set list was looking like. He asked me what I wanted them to play, so I asked him if he'd be down to play "Yesterday's Lunch". He said they'd totally play it. It was so awesome of him.
Their set was fucking awesome, of course. As they played, several beach balls were thrown around. I hit one of them and it accidentally hit Alex in the face as he sang and drummed. I felt so bad. Carly from Slingshot Dakota played keyboards off the stage for one or two of their songs, too. Sheena looked super pretty in a cute little dress. I bought a t-shirt afterwards and threw it into Lauren's van with our stuff. While sitting outside in the shade underneath a try after, Lauren asked us if we wanted to join them on a ride to Chipotle. I had just said to Kara, "I'm so hungry," so it seemed like divinity. It was us and a couple others. I had never eaten at a Chipotle before and I really didn't have the money to do so, but did anyway. I got a big burrito and Kara got a big burrito bowl. She gasped in pain the entire time because of the sores in her mouth and I didn't really like my burrito all too much. 50% of the time I pay money for food, I regret it. But it was nice to sit in air conditioning and ripping off free soda while we were there. When we got back, we gathered around for Toby Foster's set. And I sat out, all tired and extremely exhausted for some reason, while Theo Zumm from Defiance, Ohio and Nana Grizol played a rare solo performance. It was nice to sit back and listen to, even though I was about to pass out at any moment. I laid down on my stomach on the floor by the entrance doors for a little while and fell asleep, until I was woken up for Saintseneca's set. Kara and I had heard them for the first time ever in Lauren's van and were totally blown away. They were from Columbus and were the only band at Berea who played 100% acoustically. They switched between acoustic guitar, banjo, and dulcimer as one of the guys we slept over with the night before at Lauren's beat his hands against a plastic trash can as percussion and a girl dressed up all cute played violin. It was probably the best thing I'd heard the entire festival. I was completely blown away by them. I didn't have money or a tape player for their cassette EP to serve me, but I did stumble across a download code for it that blew its way onto the ground in front of me by their merch table.
(Above: Saintseneca; below: Super Bobby and Eric Ayotte.)
As the day slowly winded down, so did I. The inevitable end to yet another great trip, my longest trip away from home, in fact, was really starting to cave in on me and I it was as if the wind was being knocked out of me in slow motion. I just started feeling exhausted. Not from the shows and the traveling and all that, but just from knowing that tomorrow, I was going to have to start working my way back to Schenectady. I tried to stay alive, though. Me and a few others sat on the floor in the outer room and played a game of Russian Pebbles, a game Madeline showed us all. Basically, you take five tiny rocks of comparable size and roll them like dice. Then you try to push one of them between two rocks at once twice. When you're left with only two, you try to push them and make them collide. If you get that far, you then put all the rocks in your palm and throw them in the air, trying to catch as many as you can on the back of your hand. Then you throw what you caught on the back of your hand and try to catch them once again in your palm. Each rock you catch is ten points. It may sound stupid, but this game really keeps you interested somehow. I totally won, first to a hundred points. For an hour, people waited patiently for 'burrito fest', which had tons of burrito stuff coming in so everyone there could be fed. I got one before most other people from one of the members of Saintseneca, thankfully, and then waited in a line that stood still for over a half hour for Madeline to get her one, because I'm a sweetheart like that. A totally ridiculous band called Beast Infection played and were all dressed up in costumes, having the crowd go totally insane and throw garbage around. It was insane. Pheramones played a really fun set after that. Super Bobby, with Eric Ayotte as his 'hype man', put on probably the funnest set all day. It was so much fun. A hardcore kid was there wearing a black pair of Asking Alexandra shorts that said, "FUCK THIS," on the ass. I was confused as to whether it meant to fuck his ass or fuck something general and vague. Hardcore kids are stupid.
After that, I was seriously ready to pass out, either from depression or lack of enough sleep, so I sat outside. Lauren had to leave early, so she had us take all of our things out of her van. Everyone had somewhere to go that night but me and Kara. We tried to talk to people and find a place to go, but there were no rides for us and no room for us. That reality sunk in fast and, just like back at the end of Crucial Fun Fest, we knew everyone's lives were going to continue with an equal string of fun and adventure, while we were going to be returning to the dismal life that we lead back in the 518. I sat against a wall outside of the show with my backpack during Vacation, Good Luck, and Delay. After everyone cleared out, a few people tried to hook us up with ways outta there, but there was nothing. Tesla (from Philly), Melissa, and Brett all got their way outta there and I was so jealous. So we sat against a wall and watched everyone slowly clear out. Then we walked to the end of the church and laid on the concrete for over an hour, as cars and tour vans drove by us, out into the street and onto their next destinations. We were still planning on trying to use the Mormons to get home for free, but we had no way there and the nearest Mormon church was six miles away. Two hours later, Kara went and asked Delay or someone how to get there and they let her use a cellphone to write down directions. A nice girl named Maryn then told us we could stay overnight in a backyard where lots of others had set up tents. So we walked there and hesitantly walked into this backyard, where Kate from New Paltz and some other vaguely familiar people were sitting on a back patio. The grass was still wet from a short rain that had happened earlier that night, but we had nothing better to sleep on than our tarp and sleeping bags. Eric Ayotte came up to us and asked us how we were and then invited us to stay in this giant tent he was all alone in. So we slept on the other side of the tent he was in, which easily could have fit three to four more people. Eric's such a nice guy. I felt bad that Kara kept coughing. Before we went to sleep, I tried calling the number to the Mormon church we were hoping to use. They were closed on Sundays and Mondays. We were screwed.
DAY THIRTY: Sunday, July 18th
When we woke up, I went inside the house and met someone's mother, who was listening to country music from her computer. I politely asked if I could use it real quick to write down directions. After that, we left and started walking the 1.5 miles to the on-ramp onto 71 North. I grabbed some cardboard and made a sign saying we were stuck and needed a ride up 71. It took about one minute to get picked up by some older guy in a Subaru. He was pretty conservative, despite the fact that Kara and I had stereotyped Subaru Outback drivers as liberal hippies. When explaining how bad of an area we were from was, he asked, "Are there a lot of coloreds?" He drove us about fifteen miles into Cleveland and dropped us off right outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. At first, we saw that we were surrounded by water and wanted to check it out, so we walked up and realized there was no way to the water unless you were getting on the giant cruise ship. There were tons of yuppies lugging bags in each hand of merchandise from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, mostly elderly couples and suburban family tourists. We saw Vacation's tour van parked, too, oddly enough. So we stood at the on-ramp to 90 East with our new sign with the sun beating down on us pretty hard. I let Kara sit in the shade underneath a tree. More families walked to their $10 parking in the garage next to us than cars passed by us. We stood there for over an hour before giving up. It was yet another hopeless Ohio attempt to escape it. People weren't even making eye contact with us. We crossed the street to check out the train schedule, figuring that maybe we could spange outside of the Museum and make enough to take a train. But when got over there, a sweaty black man asked us where we were trying to get to. Upon telling him, he told us that if we walked to Greyhound and told them that we were stranded and had no money to get home, they'd hook us up with a free ride as long as we had someone back at home they could call and vouch for us. He said they definitely did it and then told us that he himself has done it there several times, even transporting his girlfriend to him that way from somewhere else. According to him, Greyhound stations all over the country do it. He said we had his word. So we got pretty optimistic and walked a few blocks down through the ugly, stale city to the Greyhound station. We waited in line at the ticket counter and when we asked the woman about it, she said we'd have to talk to the supervisor and pointed us across the way to a fat black woman helping an old lady. We walked over and were ignored, so we set our things down and sat on the cold tiled floor, awaiting a comfortable moment when she didn't look so busy. She eventually walked away and never came back. We sat on that floor for about an hour before Kara went and found her. When Kara told her we were stranded and asked if they could help, the woman looked at her like she was stupid and then silently rejected her by shaking her head no, then adding, "There are charities for that."
So that was a huge waste of time. We turned around and walked back to our post by the Hall of Fame Museum. We made a new sign explaining we were stranded and trying to get back to upstate New York and sat in various spots outside of the museum, hoping the yuppie tourists who were already blowing money would maybe help us out with some change or something. We sat in a few different places in the twenty minutes we tried it. But these rich white folk just walked right by us. If we were lying there like we were dead, they probably would have stepped right over us. No one even looked down at us as we sat there. And they all could have helped, too. I watched as these people walked out with tons of FYE bags filled with useless garbage, people taking their wallets out stuffed with cash. We put on sun screen because sitting where we were actually hurt, like we were on top of a stone oven. We resumed standing by the on-ramp, even though we knew it was useless. By 5PM, five hours after we had been dropped off there, we threw the sign down and suddenly were getting picked up by a really pretty woman Jen on her way home from work. She had a really big, nice car and at that point I was surprised she was going to let two smelly people inside of it. She was really nice and said she wouldn't usually pick people up, let alone males with beards. She could only bring us another fifteen miles to a town called Lakeshore. She let us off at a Denny's where we went and ordered a lot of fries. I didn't want to move. I just didn't. I wanted to procrastinate and ignore the fact that we had to get back home. So we were there for a while. The waitress we had was knocking things over and looked to be having such a bad day. I felt so bad for her. By the time we left and paid for our over-priced fries, I only had some change left over to tip her with. A guy saw us contemplating from afar and called me over to give me a dollar. "Here ya go. Tip her with it. I know what it's like travelin'. Been there, done that." It was so nice of him. In the bathroom of that Denny's men's room, someone wrote in regular pen on the wall separating two urinals, "If I can't be my own, I'd feel better dead." We started walking the mile or two up the road to try and get back onto 90 East. I couldn't believe we had already been trying to get home for six or so hours and had only made it about thirty miles away from Berea. I was pretty sure we'd be staying the night in that town, Willoughby.
We walked along dozens of separated communities of condos and luxury apartments with fancy names paying homage to the nature they destroyed in order to build there. The town's motto was something like, "Where courtesy meets community." But there wasn't a community. The people who lived there all wanted to live in their own separate bubbles with central air and fake woods planted around them. We walked over a bridge that was covered in rust. Even the concrete sidewalk was the color of rust. It was strange. We sat at the entrance to the road for a little while, no one even really acknowledging us, until a cop pulled over and got out of his car, standing with his legs spread just to maintain balance. His large nostrils were filled with broken blood vessels and he could hardly speak or communicate. "What're ya doin' here?" I told him we were trying to get home. I lied and said we had been robbed in Lexington and therefore didn't have any money to get a bus home, to which he responded, "Well, poor planning on your part." He looked down at my bag first and foremost and quickly asked, "Got any drugs in the bag?" I told him no. He told us what we were doing was illegal, even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't. He tried to tell us that it was only illegal because we weren't on a sidewalk. He walked back to his car with our IDs and came back out to tell us it was our lucky day, because he could write us tickets, but wasn't going to. Then he proceeded to tell us to go back the way we came and maybe try holding a sign up that way, which wouldn't accomplish anything because obviously no one was going the right way down there. He said, "If you keep going up this road, you'll be getting into my city and if you do that, I'll write you a ticket." He mentioned writing us a ticket at least ten times. He was being pretty antagonistic, so we just obeyed and started walking away. We had no idea what to do from there, because at that point hitchhiking was our only remaining option and resource. We went to a gas station and asked the nice blonde girl working there for permission to hold a sign up asking for helping. I lied to everyone and told them we had been robbed in Lexington, since simply not having money while traveling wasn't enough. We made a sign and sat there. The girl inside let me fill a free soda and we drank it while sitting right next to the entrance door with our sign and bags. Not many people looked at us at first, but then things started picking up and people started showing us a different side of Ohio.
Some middle-aged women drove by in two cars from Dayton to buy some alcohol and ice and the one woman just couldn't stop giving. She ended up donating $14 to us in spare dollar bills, change, and winning lottery tickets. She told us not everyone in Ohio was like the people we had already experienced. A few others gave us some spare change and a few bucks. A scene kid asked us if we smoked, because he was going to donate some cigarettes, probably the last thing we could possibly need. Then a couple in a van with a child pulled over and asked us our story. They told us sadly that there was no way they could help us. They weren't going in our direction and had just spent their last $3 on gas. They pulled away three times and kept stopping. We could tell they wanted to help us so bad, but weren't sure how they could. Then they drove back over and the woman, Sarah, called her mother to see if a church would put us up for the night. The once pink sky was being devoured by these scary charcoal black clouds above and some drops of rain were beginning to fall onto us. There was a festival happening nearby for the town being put on by a church she said would give us a place to stay for the night. So we hopped in their van and drove to it with them. The rain started coming down on us as we drove. When we got to the festival, she jumped out and spoke to an officer who she knew through family. When she got back in the van, she said we were told to go to the Willoughby police department and that they would give us a free stay in a hotel! All we had to do was go in, answer a few questions, tell them we were transients and show some ID, and boom, they gave us a voucher for two free nights at the local Travelodge, funded by a program run by the Salvation Army. It was so fucking awesome and we couldn't thank Sarah and her husband Keith enough. On the drive to the hotel, their child Anthony kept grabbing Kara's face and screaming into ours as we tried to talk to his parents. It was so fucking annoying, but a small price to pay. As we bid farewell and thanked them some more, they told us to call them in a few days if we still had no way home and Keith would drive us all the way there. He said he used to travel and go to festivals when he was our age and knew exactly what it was like to be stuck with no money to get back home. It was so incredibly nice of him, but we decided we would never allow him to do that for us even if it was all we had left to get back home by the 23rd. So we had two free nights in a really nice two-bed room in a Travelodge. How fucking awesome is that? I turned the air conditioner all the way up, showered, and we went to sleep comfortably that night after using the free Wi-Fi and going through our bags.
DAY THIRTY-ONE: Monday, July 19th
We slept in really late. When we got up, we decided to spoil ourselves to a nice dinner at the local Red Robin. I'd never eaten at one before, but the night before I checked out of curiosity and discovered they serve vegan burgers. It was a two-mile walk both ways, but it was nice out. We each got a burger. I made mine a 'Monster', which means two patties on one, and we planned on taking advantage of their bottomless steakfries. When they brought our burgers out to us, we were surprised at their size. They weren't regular sized Boca burgers, they were the biggest burgers we'd ever eaten. I had to take my second patty off just to be able to bite into it. We ate until we were sick. The owner came over to apologize to me because they at first brought me out a burger covered in cheese, saying, "I'm sorry. If it went by me, I would have known you didn't want cheese!" and then he asked if we were full vegetarians. We told him we were vegan and he went on and on and on about his garden back at home that he's so proud of. He was so cute! We walked back to the hotel, feeling bloated and sick. On the way back, Kara found $4 on the ground! We watched a movie called Uncertainty on my laptop that was pretty good. Kara fell asleep during it. I got online and wrote down the numbers to every nearby church within a two-mile radius. It was such a nice day, just relaxing and enjoying free stuff. Things are just better when they're free, ya know?
DAY THIRTY-TWO: Tuesday, July 20th
We were woken up by a maid knocking on our door. Check-out time was noon, so we started getting packed and I started calling every number on my list. The Mormons weren't answering. Four church numbers later, one finally picked up! I told their secretary that we were two kids stranded in Willoughby and that someone local had told us talk to a church because they might be able to help us get home. She put me on the phone with the father there and he told us to walk down and talk to him in person and that they'd try to figure something out. We walked a mile up the road until we found out. Right before we got to the parking lot, a woman in an SUV pulled over and asked if we needed a ride anywhere, then handed us two cold cans of orange soda. It was an episcopalian church, whatever that means. When we walked in, I wasn't expecting much and I was pretty pessimistic about what it would add up to in the end. Plus, I felt very uncomfortable about talking to a priest, because I fucking hate priests. But when we got into his office, he was a really nice guy who wasn't very priest-like or intimidatingly religious. We explained to him that we had no money and needed to get back home in Schenectady. Coincidentally, he had grown up in Albany! So he knew exactly where we were talking about. He had only been living in Ohio for a couple years at that point. Within minutes, he was on his laptop, paying for our Greyhound bus tickets home. He even drove us back to Cleveland in his giant, expensive car to get there. He told us that the church gives him a giant fund that is supposed to be used to help people like us, but they, "hadn't been helping people, so it'd gotten pretty big." He left us with a, "God bless!" or two and we went back in to get our will-call tickets. It was only 2 or so and our bus wasn't set to leave until 10:15 that night. That was the only downfall. But again, we couldn't complain.
We walked to a nearby Starbucks and sat online for a bit. I watched as a little bug crawled all over one of their baked goods behind the glass before realizing there wasn't a single thing there that I wanted. So we just loitered for a little while until I found directions online to a Chinese restaurant. When the Google review someone wrote said, "Your prototypical greasy Chinese food," we knew it was right for us. So we walked to that and ate there. Their giant plate of tofu was perfect and it was so great eating some nice, firm, sesame tofu for the first time in over a month. We sat there for a while to kill time. A crazy black man with piercings outside was doing karate by himself, spin-kicking the air, talking to an imaginary enemy, and using his cane as a weapon to fight off the invisible. It was so weird. In the corner of the room where we sat, a balding older man sat by himself, with his briefcase in the other seat, labeled, "PIANO LESSONS." He came up to us once and asked if we were waiting to meet someone. I watched him as he sat there for another hour, occasionally crying to himself. It was pretty sad. Then we went back to Starbucks and sat in their upstairs room on the computer until 9PM. When I walked back in, one of the female baristas came up to me and asked, "Is this your phone?" I had apparently forgotten my cellphone when I left earlier. It was a good thing I came back. We waited in line back at Greyhound for an hour. Within minutes, we had inspired twenty other people to finally get in line. When the short, balding black man driving the bus got out, we were all standing. I hadn't heard him say anything and then all of the sudden, he yelled, "TODAY, PEOPLE!" When we walked up to give him our tickets, I said to him, "It's not our fault this is your job, man." He looked up, stunned, and said, "What?" I responded, "There's no reason to be rude." So he told us to get out of line. I refused at first until he threatened to get security. We stood off to the side as he said, "Am I being rude now? Am I being rude now?!" I calmly said back, "Yes, you are." But he had the authority, and to compensate for a job he hates, he needed to flex his authority. I wanted to bash his fucking skull in, but didn't want to make matters worse. And then he added, "There's another bus leaving at 2:15. You can get that one!" When the line finally cleared, I walked up to him nonchalantly like I was about to get my ticket torn. He yelled, "GET BEHIND THE DOOR, SIR!" I mustered a half-ass apology and he walked away. I talked to another man who told me, "Just chill. If I tell him to let you on the bus, he won't drive it, and then you'll hold up everyone on it." It made no fucking sense. That man was an employee, not a boss!
So we stood there until the little asshole came back with an officer and said to me, "Listen. I'm going to tell you something that you probably don't wanna hear: I'M IN CHARGE!" He looked like he was sweating from how angry he was. It was actually kind of sad how desperate he was to display his authority, when all he was was a sad, pathetic bus driver who will be riding in circles until the day he dies. I stood there and nodded, swallowing my pride. He continued, "And when you said I was rude, you were basically telling me I'm a fucking asshole!" He said if we made any fuss on the ride to Buffalo, he would throw us off, then let us on. We luckily got two seats together. I was so mad, I could barely speak. I don't like being spoken to like that by peons. I put my headphones on. A little bird had flown onto the bus. Everyone was freaking out like it was a pterodactyl or something. The bird was obviously terrified. When the driver got on, a fat bitch stood up as the bird flew by the overhead light and grabbed it, contorting its wings. He screamed a painful collection of chirps and she stood there at first like she was about to kill it with her bare hands. Then the driver told her to get it off the bus and she walked over to the door and tossed it like it was garbage. It was a disgusting site. The drive wasn't totally unbearable, but I couldn't really sleep. I just sat and listened to music. We didn't have any layovers, just a few stops. A crazy woman got on and told the driver she was going to Newark. She was on the wrong bus with hospital bracelets on, but wouldn't listen to them when they told her to get on the bus to New York City. She said she had two husbands, both of whom were on the bus, and that she had been kidnapped. Everyone laughed, even though this woman was very obviously fucking crazy and in a sad state of disrepair. Several Greyhound employees had to get on to explain the same thing to her over and over until she got off the bus. Then a sheriff came on and asked every single person on the bus individually if they were citizens of the United States of America. It was so annoying.
We got back home the next day a little after 9 in the morning. My grandmother picked us up and brought us back to my place. I wasn't happy at all to be back, but I was glad we got home in time for Kara to make it to her appointment on the 23rd. We fell asleep on my painful bed when we got back. She eventually got picked up by one of her parents as I kept sleeping sometime around 3 or 4 and I slept until 6:30. Back to my miserable life, once again.
SLINGSHOT DAKOTA!<3
VEGAN COOKIES GALORE!<3
FOUR SQUARE!<3
ALGERNON CADWALLADER!<3
HILARIOUS GIANT METAL HAND!<3
A GIANT SPIDER ACROSS AN OPENING IN THE NET AROUND LAUREN'S TRAMPOLINE! :(
SLEEPOVER AT LAUREN'S WITH A BUNCHA STRANGERS!<3
TOFU CHALLENGE!<3
BEACH BALLS DURING LEMURIA!<3
SHENNA FROM LEMURIA!<3
RUSSIAN PEBBLES WITH MADELINE AND SOME OTHER STRANGERS!<3
SUPER BOBBY AND ERIC AYOTTE!<3
The scary clouds in Willoughby, before we were whisked away by our two heroes in a van, Sarah and Keith!
Free hotels are the best hotels.<3