A man went out to his car one night, started the ignition, inserted a Chuck Berry disc in the CD player, and drove off into the darkness in search of space.
He wanted to get out from under the street lights and the general overglow of the city, out beyond the tangle of freeways and the noise of rising and falling jets. It was an old habit of his, to just pack his bag and go off in search of the unfamiliar.
He’d been running from things most of his life, and had become expert in the art of retreat. By this time he could find the dead spots all around the country without an atlas. He knew how to follow rivers and find large bodies of water. He could feel the darkness drawing him like a magnet, and knew that where there was darkness there would be silence and space. There would be little towns thrown down in the middle of nowhere, towns where every home and business turned out the lights, drew the shades, and retired at a reasonable hour.
He’d roll down his car windows and any music at all –Hank Williams, the Four Tops, Jimmy Reed– would sound like the most abrasive punk rock drifting out into those empty streets.
There were reliably forlorn motels in such places, motels where he’d have to rouse the owner from bed and could back his car right up to the door of his room.
On such nights and in such places he could still be anyone or anything, and that was a feeling he’d been trying to hold onto his entire life.
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