The least enjoyable sort of destination for me in all of this are the little businesses or attractions that are clearly run out of a person’s home. The Midwest is rife with these sorts of places and a certain type of person might find the idea charming or comfortable, a sort of shotgun-hostiness and a dash of American entrepreneurship. I wonder how a person’s mindset changes about the things or the places they own in order for these places to come about. When does a collection become something you’re willing to show off for money? When do you start wondering if you can make money off of local rocks? A man can only own so much rose quartz, after all.
My stomach sinks when I see the first sign advertising ‘The Museum of the Common Man’ as just fifteen miles away. It’s hand-painted and well worn, held to a tree by several long, rusted nails. Expectations were already low, to be honest. The name of the museum doesn’t go very far toward inspiring enthusiasm. Somebody who takes it upon themselves to erect a museum to the ‘common man’ is going to be political or philosophical in the worst ways and now they’re going to think I’m interested in hearing their spiel. I’m paying to be there after all.
‘The Museum of the Common Man is the brainchild of a guy that thinks he’s one of the less common. It’s a shrine to the intellectual ego, built before the proliferation of the online communities where modern egoists go to commiserate or knock each other down. This man, left alone, has built a shrine to himself and accidentally fulfilled his promise. Do not visit expecting to enjoy yourself.’
A low bar, as I said.
The museum grounds are just off the highway, the sort of place that retains a year-round dusted look from the constant passing of semis and the glare of a sun without obstacles. A house sits in the front, too small (god, I hope too small) to be the museum. The likelier place is the extended barn-type building out back where somebody has maintained an optimistically sized parking lot.
A human-shaped cloud of dust pulls away from the porch as I pull into the lot. The man has the look of someone prematurely aged- his hair has maintained a golden brown but his face has the deep, downward sloping lines of a chronic frowner. He walks up and leans on the fence at the edge of the lot, gesturing me into parking like the place is crammed full.
“Here for the museum?” he asks once I’ve stepped down from the truck.
He’s a spindly guy, rail thin under the flannel shirt and jeans and I’ve got more than six inches on him. There’s a knife in my back pocket, a flip-open thing with the modern sort of safeties that I’d probably fumble with during a fight. Probably most important, I’ve got my running shoes on in case I need to get out quick. These are the sort of precautions that keeps a guy alive when he follows strangers into barns.
“Yep.”
“Right this way, then.”
The path out to the barn is lined mostly with low, dry-looking brush but occasionally we pass by an old piece of farm technology, long rusted, and each piece has a little sign that describes what the thing used to be (tractor, backhoe, etc.) and what they are now: ‘Failures of the Common Man.’ Looking at all those signs I start to think maybe this is all a big joke which, in my mind, might make this experience a little more worthwhile. Could be this man’s the cynic’s cynic.
“What’s admission like here?” I ask and he spits.
“Fi… er, ten dollars. Year pass is a huhnerd.”
Is that another joke? I try to chuckle but by the time anything comes out the moment’s passed. I mask it with a cough.
“Dusty out here,” he says as we reach the barn door, “I’ll have ter go turn the place on ‘round back, won’t take but a minute.”
He stands silent until I realize he’s waiting for payment. I hand the man his ten bucks and he disappears around the side of the building.
My stomach rumbles and I check my watch. It’s just past noon, about the time I’m usually scouting around for a place to grab lunch. I flip through Shitholes to see if there’s any recommendations nearby but it’s got nothing in the way of food for a couple hundred miles. There’s a bag of jerky in the truck that I bought out of a guy’s shed. His was a shriveled Noah’s Ark, two of each animal, vacuum packed and sealed. Mine was a purchase of whimsy, a veritable sampling of all God’s creatures. I wonder if I’m allowed food inside the museum, but then, the truck is so far away now.
A generator coughs itself to life behind the barn and the gray smell of exhaust reaches me before the man does. He’s changed clothes, or, he’s thrown on a jacket that has the name of the museum embroidered over his heart. On the other side it says his name: William.
“William’s a common name for a guy,” I say, trying to conjure the half-joke from before.
“Go by Will, mostly,” he says, “Say it takes will to rise above the common pitfalls and passions o’ the folk ‘round here. Step inside when I call ya.”
Will slips in through the barn doors, careful that I don’t peek in and spoil the surprise. A smarter man than me might seize the opportunity to escape, leave Will with his ten dollars and the smug assurance that I, as a common man, simply grew too afraid of facing myself in his philosopher’s mirror. Who could have guessed that the burden of humanity would fall on the shoulders of Will, a Midwestern-
“I said come in, boy,” he yells.
So I do.
The barn door isn’t used to being opened more than a foot or so, just enough to admit a slim frame such as my own. The inside of the barn is dark, the lower level empty except for a stool in the center. When I stop to try to make sense of the modified ceiling above me I hear Will’s voice from the dark rafters.
“If you’d take a seat, sir, we will begin shortly.”
The stool is on a little platform, built into the ground and an arrow, painted on the platform says:
“Face here to begin.”
I sit on the stool and the legs give out completely, the shattered wood splintering as though under some great weight. On my ass I see the thing’s nearly turned into sawdust, that it likely was never anything more than cleverly stained balsa wood tubes. Tubes filled with sawdust. The barn door creaks closed.
“The common man is a trusting critter,” Will’s voice comes over a speaker system, “The first folly of the common man is a tendency ter follow directions.”
“Fuck you,” I mutter at the darkness above me but as I try to leave I find the barn doors locked.
“The common man don’t much like seeing hisself laid bare…”
It’s not so dark in the barn that I’m not able to see that the walls are lined with other exhibitions. A spotlight comes on above me and illuminates a dusty mannequin across the room and Will’s voice drones on, assuming I’ll catch at least some of it.
“It weren’t until man began to settle that a clear division began ter take place between the common an’ uncommon folk…”
An absurd scene lights up across the room, two cavemen representing some intellectual split that happened in time unknowable. I realize the first mannequin has a mirror for a face, no doubt Will’s take on poignancy. The added light helps me to spot the latch holding the barn door shut and I let myself out. Will keeps talking inside, his voice muffled by the thick wooden walls. The sun is downright blinding.
What an asshole.
I’m only a few minutes down the road before I start to get this ill-meaning itch, the feeling that I’ve somehow left without fully completing whatever experience Shitholes suggests (or at least documents). There’s a part of me that will always wonder what I missed. I make an awkward 3-point turn on the road and piss off a dude in a janky looking sedan and then I’m headed back to Will’s farm, determined to see what his deal is without having to further interact with him. I leave the truck about a quarter-mile out and walk a ways until I find a comfortable shrub to sit behind while keeping The Museum of the Common Man level in my thrift-store binoculars.
Will comes around the barn a few minutes later, still wearing his embroidered jacket. He eyes the barn door for a moment and fiddles with the latch. Then he looks up, up at the sky, and he stays that way for a long time, shoulders slack, breathing even, mouth slightly open. He stays like that for long enough that I start examining the sky myself but there’s nothing. I try to focus on Will, try to see if his eyes are open or closed or if he’s blinking at all. Finally, he just brings his head back down and walks to his house.
As I wait for the sun to set on The Museum of the Common Man I take a closer look at the surroundings. The path leading to the museum proper is carefully lined with old relics but the field out back has its share of scrap wood and rusted tin. A truck stops to exchange mail with Will’s box and putters away. A country mailman must have a lot of time to think during the day. Will emerges from his house as the truck disappears and shuffles a couple letters on his way back inside.
I sneak closer in the dark and wait for Will’s silhouette to give his location in the house away. When it does, when I see he’s in the kitchen, I move in past the socially acceptable limit of trespassing and start trying to catch glimpses of his home life. The light of the kitchen falls into his bedroom which has a clean floor but cluttered shelves. The living room looks dusty and there’s the impression of a man in the sofa. He’s still got a box TV.
Back in the kitchen Will is chopping tomatoes and throwing them into a pot on the stove. The knife is too dull and he crushes the tomato every time he tries to make a cut and then he ends up just tearing the mashed piece away and calling it good. Tomato juice leaks onto the floor before he pulls a rag from the fridge to mop it up. After a while, once the chopping is done, he stares into the pot like he did into the sky, occasionally stirring but mostly doing nothing at all. He coughs and doesn’t cover his mouth.
I’m strangely riveted by the whole thing and Will makes no attempt to conceal his home life. No shades are drawn, no cautious looks spared for the windows. He pours the pot into a bowl and take it into the living room to watch the evening news. He falls asleep on the couch, wakes up an hour later and stumbles into the bedroom. Under the covers he falls asleep again, his breathing even. It’s past midnight now and my own breath emerges in a fog.
What a miserable life Will must lead what with his being alone and being a shitty cook. The Museum of the Common Man truly was a shithole, but I feel at least a little better knowing the guy who runs it isn’t all that much better than…
Wait…
-traveler
