| Time and Gasoline By Jim Correale Dappled sunlight falls through the trees and down onto my car as the vehicle moves smoothly along a winding asphalt road. Speeding beneath the shroud of brilliant speckles is trancelike; how I�d imagine a religious experience would feel. The car windows are open, allowing the summer air to rush in from all sides. Compact discs are scattered about on the passenger seat, and the song playing is fitting for the moment, a nice combination of rising music and introspective words. I�ve been driving now for about an hour. It took a while to get out of the city, and then to get off the highway, and then to turn from the main road, and now I�ve found a narrow two-way thoroughfare that slices between flora or rolls past open farmland or the occasional meadow. Interspersed are houses, big and small. Frequently I ease my foot from the accelerator so that I can look more closely at something I�m passing. Occasionally as I am gawking I notice that there is a vehicle behind me�more than likely a local who knows the area and is agitated at my blocking the way�and so I move on, driving anxiously until I see, in my rearview mirror, the follower finally pull off, leaving the entire road to me. When I pass a farm store I pull into the gravel parking area and go inside, moseying around amongst the produce, gently squeezing the loaves of bread, reading the maple syrup and honey jars. I purchase some wheat bread, two cookies and a bottle of homemade cream soda. The beverage is tasty. I rip a hunk off from the loaf and pull the car out. For several seconds I stop and contemplate the road before me. I can�t remember which way I came from. It doesn�t much matter, as I am not heading anywhere in particular. Or rather, I am not heading to any specific tangible spot on the earth. My best guess is that I came from the right, so I turn left and continue looking at fields and trees and houses. Often, roads that are narrow and winding and empty will suddenly come to an end in a perpendicular meeting with a wider blacktop, or will merge with a busier one. Sometimes the surroundings will change from trees or farms or older houses to modern suburban tract homes, which stand out in the open, all trees apparently banished, looking like the structural equivalent of a well-scrubbed accountant in a dark suit and light shirt. I try to avoid the latter, looking instead for more interesting topography. Perhaps ninety minutes into my drive I come as close to the goal of the journey as I can hope to: I am on a deserted rural road with fields off to one side, my left, and rows of trees standing beyond, as if waiting patiently for the order to come marching across, toward the brigade of trees that form a wall on my right. I have no idea where I am, but that is inconsequential. I don�t believe that I could get lost in eastern Massachusetts, especially during the day. I would run into a marked route before too long and then following that would lead to another and, soon enough, a city. Right now, however, that is not what I am looking for, and I slow the car, wishing there were, perhaps, an area to park. Then I see such a place on the opposite side, and I pull the vehicle around, onto the road�s shoulder and turn the engine off. I place a small book in one pocket and the car keys in the other and follow a short path and in less than a minute I am at the edge of the large field. Not another person is in sight. To the right I discover that there is a wooden sign and I walk over to it. �Town Conservation Land,� it reads, and below that is a brief list of rules. A wide swath of sand forms a road that cuts through the middle of the field and I follow it. It is mid-afternoon and the sun is warm. The sandy road has tire tracks and leads me to a house that sits further along the road I drove by on. At the house there is a bigger sign, tilted in that way that information signs for tourists often are. Apparently the land was owned by a cranberry farmer and, to ward off development, the town eventually purchased it and decided to continue growing and harvesting the bitter red berries. I walk by the house, and it appears abandoned. The sign says that the cranberries had been processed in the structure, which had been built nearly a century earlier. On one side of the house is a pile of stone, the type that city curbs are made from, and some of the stones are covered with the shadows of trees. I pull the book from my pocket, a collection of essays on nature, and sit in the shade reading. Less than halfway into the piece, I notice, from the corner of my eye, an ant poking about on my stone. I stand and brush off my back, in case any of his colleagues are trying to establish a foothold there, then I laugh at the ridiculousness of a man reading an essay on nature being disturbed by an ant. I sit back down and return to the essay, but when I see that the ant isn�t alone, I rise again and move off, telling myself that it is time to get going. Soon I am driving again, enjoying the rushing air and the places I�ve never seen before, but it isn�t long before I happen upon a numbered route and follow it in the direction of the city. Then I am back on the highway, the car zipping along, but I have shut the music. I want to think. Why is it, I ask myself, that you drove out here today? Why is it that you do this every so often, drive alone to rural areas outside of the city and intentionally get lost, looking for forests and fields and trees and houses and people that you haven�t seen before. Looking, looking, always looking. What is it, I want to know, that you are looking for? The questions bounce around as I drive, and now the overwhelming feeling is that I want to get back to my apartment. I want to go back there and do something worthwhile, something of value, because this driving around stuff is crazy. It�s a waste of time. All of these towns you�ve been through, all of the roads you�ve driven on, all of the time you�ve spent, and have you found anything? Have you found what you�re looking for? Do you even know what it is that you are looking for? Maybe you should attack that question first, instead of wasting time and gasoline. I yell these questions at myself, if one can yell in the mind without opening the mouth. I continue yelling them as the skyline of the city appears in the distance and the traffic thickens and soon my car sits among dozens of others, waiting for a light to turn green. |