‘Hardly a single attraction, in its current form, Chamber, Illinois has officially given itself over to the life of F.G. Williams, a former resident who passed away in 2017. Among the many Williams exhibits, one might puruse ‘The Williams Museum,’ which exists in the man’s former home and archives his belonging in the rooms where he left them. One might take the F.G. Williams walking trail, which consists of a circuitous path around town, hitting the liquor store twice, and takes up most of a day for several hours-long sits on local benches, where one is encourage to pass out or weep. If the time is right, one might engage in the F.G. Williams Pageant, an event that consumes the attention of the entire town’s population for months previous as they decide upon which theme of Williams’ life they will be highlighting and how, through song, dance, and short plays, they might convey those themes to the baffled outsiders who sprinkle the bleachers when ‘Williams’ Month’ begins in full. 

Casual fans will be impressed with the library’s collection of Williams’ works, including the original written copies of ‘The Long Lonely’ and ‘Dying Cat,’ two of his darkest memoirs of life living alone. A Williams’ gift shop exists as something of a black sheep on the edge of town, selling booze and tasteless t-shirts and doing what it can to remind people that F.G. Williams, while around, was kind of an asshole and that nobody in the town did a thing to help him.’

I’ve only read Williams’ first book, The Bleak Years, so I enter chamber with something of a handicap in understanding what all the hype is about. It was a tough read, only because I’ve battled with the same feelings that eventually killed Williams. I recognized myself in some of his writing and stopped while I was still in the mood to self reflect and well before I began to ruminate. I don’t know how the people of chamber can live with his stories year-round.

Several statues of the man slump about town, his sad eyes and wild hair captured in metal and stone. I drive past the cemetary where his plot is obvious by its decortation. I see several Williams look-alikes stalking through the park, and wonder if they’re outside fans or residents preparing for the pageant next week. I’ve chosen to skip that, instead, paying an exhoribtant price for what is basically a depression-themed AirBnB, advertised as being ‘in sight of the Williams’ Museum.’

When I pull into the driveway I’m greeted by yet another F.G. Williams, who stalks out of the door and unhelpfully directs the camper up near the garage. 

“You’re late,” he grumbles. I check my watch and see that I’m actually early.

“We don’t need to do the acting part if that’s cool,” I say and the man immediately straightens, removes his beard. 

“Ah, all right. I, uh. My wife’s from here and we just moved into town. Still getting a feel for it.”

“Seems sad.”

“Wait till you see the inside.”

The house is a mess. Empty pizza boxes and beer cans litter the kitchen. Several cat boxes are crammed into the bathroom. Clothes litter the floor of every room.

“This is all clean,” the man explains, “We replace those pizza boxes every week or so in case the cardboard smell is too much. We get a lot of complaints about the cleanliness, actually. Not real enough or what have you, but we can’t just put people in with rats, can we?” He pauses long enough that I wonder if he’s looking for an answer. “Anyway, these rooms are modeled after ‘The Williams House,’ down the street there. You’ll recognize the mess. These are all Williams’ brands. Local pizza place named a pie after him even before he was gone- their claim to fame. Uh, any questions?”

I kick a can gently across the floor and the man picks it up and puts it back where it was. “I’m good,” I tell him. 

There are a few copies of Williams’ books stashed in the drawer near the bed and I flip through them again, all long rants about his current difficulties and his loneliness. Occasional pointed jabs at the very people and businesses that idolize him now. As the sun is setting I begin to hear music from the pageant grounds. Three people weep and pull their hair outside ‘The Williams’ House’ while their spouses film. I close the shades and turn it for the night. 

It’s what Williams would have done.

-traveler

Not unlike ‘The Cactus Maze,’ I’ve been holding off on visiting ‘The House in Reverse’ for a year or two, but a recent announcement- that ‘The House’ had changed ownership and would soon be implementing a reservation system, lit the fire that has finally landed me on the doorstep. Even now, I am careful. There are signs of recent activity about. Mostly literal signs, indicating that ‘The House in Reverse’ will soon be a bed and breakfast. They’re waiting on a few repairs to be finished and, reading between the lines, they’re still not sure how long that might take. 

‘Abandoned for twenty years in the unrelenting weather of Northern Colorado is ‘The House in Reverse,’ which seems to be repairing itself piece by piece rather that deterioriating, as all good and natural things should. The earliest pictures of the house do indicate a skeleton of the building- a foundation and a few men standing about. For many years, these pictures were mistaken for construction, but a closer look has indicated charring on the wood and morose looks on those men’s faces. ‘The House in Reverse’ seemed to have burned down in the early 1900s and subsequent pictures, correctly aligned, reveal its slow return to health. 

By the 1980s, ‘The House’ was standing again, though its roof was sunken in as though by snow. By the 1900s, it was dilapidated but whole. By the 2000s it was only the dated and ruined interior that kept it from changing hands.

Now, those that recognize the pattern wonder if they shouldn’t engage in home ownership. Isn’t this a miraculous house? One that repairs itself? One that only gets better at time? Those pessimists among the Wayside believe ‘The House’ is not entirely in reverse, so much as it is caught in a cycle. They believe the house will reach its perfect state and then burn again, like a phoenix, unable to remain new for more than the blink of an eye. 

And among the pessimists are those waiting with bodies, to bury in the ashes of the house and to see what its magic will do to the bones.’

I have not brought bones or any intent to meddle with magic or buy real estate. My only intent is to spend the night in the house- to witness what others have reported seeing: dust falling upward, cracks in paint healing over. I’m here to witness and to leave nothing behind. 

The doors open easily and the house echoes with my presence. I call a tentative ‘hello?’ into the dark, in case there are others like me or even the new owners. I’ve learned that, in many cases, it’s better to announce myself early on and risk an awkward encounter than to come upon somebody in surprise. I’m happy to be escorted from the premises. I’m not angling to get shot. 

Nobody answers. 

The house is empty and old. The shades on the windows and the sheets on the bed are musty. A bed makes itself while I’m not looking. A creaking stair squeals and then squeaks no more. 

I had planned to camp in the living room, thinking that the bedrooms seemed too personal and much more likely to be maliciously haunted and much harder to escape if the house begins to burn. But there is a pile of dead mice on the floor, stacked like a neat pyramid. I kick it over and find skeletons underneath and then a new mouse runs into the room and joins the pile and dies. My skin feels dry and tight. I worry that ‘The House in Reverse’ is drawing power from living things or else that its chockful of some ancient asbestos-adjacent substance that causes brain damage in mice. Both equally likely in my mind.

This is what the Wayside does to you.

I spend the night in the camper instead, making sure I’m well off the property line. 

-traveler

Autumn takes on a great deal of winter’s chill the nearer one gets to Canada, which makes me thankful for the camper on those nights that I have to camp and makes me wary on those days where snow falls early and slickens the roads. North Dakota has seen snow in the last week and it hasn’t warmed enough, yet, to have melted it. The drifts crowd the road and I find myself claustrophobic even in the oil fields where the pumpjacks move darkly against the pale ground. 

I suppose ‘The Blank Space’ has gotten under my skin already. 

‘Theoretically accessible everywhere, but practically only visible in a square-mile or so of desolate North Dakota acreage, there is an section of visible space that is entirely blank, meaning, it seems to hold no stars or planets. Even satellites tend to avoid ‘The Blank Space,’ and, though this would take a little more proving, it has been reported that birds refuse to fly across it, preferring circuitous routes around the sky hole and generally preferring not to exist in the acreage under any circumstances. 

Several videos have circulated regarding ‘The Blank Space,’ none of them particularly convincing on their own but, as a mass, certainly telling of something strange. Most record satellites that just skirt ‘The Blank Space,’ usually with a background of disappointed travelers who hoped to be the first to document something cross it. One video records the release of a captured pigeon, which hurriedly hops across the field and out of range before attempting to fly. Another is an attempt to interview a parakeet that has been trained to talk. Visibly stressed, the bird only whines for its owner.

Of semi-recent interest is the uptick in disappearances following the migration of Swifties to ‘The Blank Space,’ it having gained some popularity in lieu of the hit song that shares its name. The number of visitors to the field increased a hundredfold in 2014 and several of the people making this pilgrimage never returned, a phenomenon local police attributed to them being ‘young people.’’

Like a lot of these places, it’s easy to identify ‘The Blank Space’ by the fence that’s been put up to keep people like me out. The fence has been cut and twisted back by previous visitors, which saves me the trouble, so I pull the camper a respectable distance ahead, as though I had only pulled over to take a piss somewhere, and then I back track through the chill with my little folding chair and a thermos of coffee.

The stars are bright, tonight, and that makes their sudden absence all the more disorienting. The moon hangs low in the west, the big dipper looks twisted and small in the east, and though my astronomical knowledge is fairly lacking, I can’t seem to pinpoint any one star or planet that’s missing, per se. It’s just that hear, in ‘The Blank Space,’ they are pushed to the side. The universe gapes open where they should be, and the longer I stare the more often I feel my chair tipping forward, as though I’m resting on an invisible precipice and am pulled by some extraterrestrial gravity. It’s intriguing and not entirely unpleasent, the controlled vertigo of a carnival ride. 

I remember, a little late, that I’ve also packed my binoculars, and as I dig them out of my bag I notice a chair like mine not so far away in the field- some artifact left behind by a traveler like me. The longer I stare, the more I see: a bag, a lunchbox, and a phone on the seat of the chair. There is nobody around, as far as I can tell, and I recheck the area with the binoculars before allowing myself to scan ‘The Blank Space.’ There, high up and directly above the abandoned post, I see a body.

I don’t wait long enough to see which way it is falling.  

-traveler

‘Though increasingly difficult to experience, ‘The Marilyn Vent’ is a small piece of the Wayside wedged right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. ‘The Marilyn Vent’ is a subterranean infrastructural orifice that looks like any other but that garnered an amount of social media fame following a post that illustrated a consistent ability to lift skirts and dresses from the legs of those people who chose to wear them. Scripted videos soon followed- people of all genders wearing billowy bottoms and acting surprised when the air from below struck them. It featured as an entry on a fashion vloggers YouTube series. It received a very small mention in Vogue as a local fashion-related oddity. 

The trouble was that the vent was located along a fairy busy thoroughfare and the increasingly large crowds of influencers were becoming a nuisance to those business people who had been walking over the vent for years on the way to work and had never so much as blushed or blinked an eye. Soon, videos of ‘The Marilyn Vent’ took on a pointed turn- men in suits walking through a careful social media setup, brushing past would-be celebrities in a way that seemed decidedly un-accidental. 

A woman was hit by a car after stepping backward and away from one of these incidents and, mindful of litigation, the city attempted to block and reroute the vent. That same day, a room full of office workers in a neighboring building were found passed out in their chairs and the vent was quickly reopened. Plans for the city’s infrastructure surfaced, looking for all the world like the blueprints of a spaceship from a movie series with deep lore. Nobody could make any sense of them and nobody could quite tell why the vent existed or why bad things happened when it was blocked or even mildly diffused.

Finally, the city came to an out-of-the-box solution: they made the vent smell bad. When that didn’t work at first, they made it smell worse, and by the time they came to the sweet spot, the vent’s stench was so powerful that walking over it risks ruining a person’s clothes. 

‘The Marilyn Vent’s’ last claim to fame was the video of a woman determined to remake the first, only to throw up halfway through the process and to have her vomit blown back up at her and into the unlucky people who happen to be around. People don’t visit ‘The Marilyn Vent’ anymore.’

–an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

There are certain destinations on this journey that make me wonder whether the Wayside is aware of people like me, people who plan to see as much of it as possible, and I wonder if the Wayside, which is more of a concept that a place and much more of a place than an actual thinking entity, is mean. 

Take ‘The Cactus Maze,’ for example. Why would it ever need to exist except as a punishment for those of us who choose to explore the dusty corners of the nation? And why is it that the hardest or most painful attractions are the cheapest and easiest to access? I’ve driven past ‘The Cactus Maze’ a dozen times and I’ve always found a reason to avoid it- that it looked too busy or that it was too cold for something outdoors or that I had a small, fragile rabbit traveling along that would do poorly in such a pointed environment. 

This time as I approached, on my way to somewhere else entirely, I saw that the old, sun-word billboards carried a fresh addendum: the cacti are blooming it said. 

Well, now I have no choice.

‘When most people think of a maze, they think of it mainly in two dimensions. It’s a matter of moving forward, and sometimes backward, and making left-or-right sort of choices until our simple logic is rewarded with an escape from a trap we set for ourselves. ‘The Cactus Maze’ adds a third dimension of play with the addition of carefully placed, ground-lingering cacti and bonsaied cacti that jut their arms into the paths one is expected to navigate in order to succeed. ‘The Cactus Maze’ expects a bit of up-and-down thinking, and it rewards those visitors who are willing to get a little hurt by making the experience that much shorter. Those who choose to draw the maze out will find their paths narrowing.’

The maze is beautiful, I will give it that. Regardless of the flowers, ‘The Cactus Maze’ incorporates a variety of species that I have only ever noted on their own. And the sheer density of cactus is something new for me as well. I’m used to considering the lone cactus out of the corner of my eye, stepping over as I traipse through some desert trail or avoiding as I veer off to piss in a bush. 

In ‘The Cactus Maze,’ I begin to hear the cacti. They bristle against each other in the wind. They scritch and scrape as lizards drag their scales between the spines. The cacti at the entrance have been vandalized, their skins thick with names and slurs. Past a turn or two, however, there is no sign that anybody has been through in a while. It’s an intimidating place, dark and near-silent in a way that makes a corn maze seem jovial. 

I come to a path made hopscotch by the growth of little cacti pups and navigate it with relative ease. I find the same pattern around the next bend, only a large cactus lays sideways across like a fallen log. I’d assume it was an accident, but I know better, and I make it across with a few small snags in my pants. I regret bringing my backpack with me. I worry I might not have enough water. 

I crawl through a narrow cactus tunnel. I clamber over a massive cactus, carefully placing my hands where its spines have been pruned away. I pass through a hall of cacti that look like men. People have clothed them: a doctor, a santa claus, a marine. I lend a bandana to the cowboy and things get a little easier after that. The blooming cacti are dazzling in the low sun. I find myself standing to admire them, not something I’ve allowed myself to do at a place like this in a while. 

After an hour, I recognize the sound of the interstate. The difficulty has eased and the forks have dropped off entirely. Finally, I turn a corner and find myself at a dead end, blocked by brutal, unblooming cacti. They hold a toy skeleton between them and it, in turn, holds a sign:

Sorry, pardner. Best head back the way you came.

-traveler

Where else would ‘The Nation’s Perfect Yard’ be but outside Vegas, in the desert where nothing else will grow? It is an oasis, of sorts, the sort of place a man might crawl toward if he had been lost, wandering for weeks on end, desperate enough to topple cacti for their scant liquid, suffering the pinprick wounds of its needles. It is lush green and perfectly manicured: a bonsai of short grass and carefully placed flowers. 

The perfection conceals a raging war between man and plant and insect and desert. 

The plants are not allowed to breed with one another, for starters. Perfect specimens are bred elsewhere and transplanted only when ready. In order to inhibit breeding, local insect populations are killed and repelled by a cocktail of aerosol poisons so potent that visitors must wear a mask if they wish to trod the stone pass that bisects the greenery- so potent, that a mesh is drawn over ‘The Nation’s Perfect Yard’ to prevent birds passing overhead from dying and splattering themselves on this pristine and captive nature (that is, it doesn’t prevent the birds from dying- it only catches their bodies before they land). 

The land is dry and unforgiving, salted in the formation of the Earth. For this, a massive industrial plant works day and night nearby, pulling water from the next state over, purifying and then re-poisoning it with a specialty mix of weedkiller. 

‘The Nation’s Perfect Yard’ has no attached house, no living space whatsoever, though it is home to a motley collection of lawn ornaments, each fashioned by the sort of artist who is inexplicably rich and successful and completely unknown except to those who devote their lives not to art, but to the artists themselves. The result is a series of pink ceramic triangles that its creator describes as ‘a flamingo, deconstructed.’ Horrible gnomes peer out from sculpted bushes, each an homage to the artists highly abusive family. In December ‘The Nation’s Perfect Yard’ sports a nativity scene compromised of living children in expensive costumes, these children being trained at great expense to remain still for extended periods of time and to ignore the gawking tourists, each of whom paid more for entry than these children will see for their work.  

‘The Nation’s Perfect Yard’ is more a mirage than an oasis. A man crawling toward the grass would be shot before he was allowed to drink the chemical water that sustains it.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘There is a special sort of sadness present in ‘The Layaway Vault’s’ of western Illinois. The items there represent sadness on an individual level, of course, having been long abandoned by the families that hope, someday to afford them. This is compounded by the much more judgmental sadness that arises when an American pledges, but is unable to, complete a purchase.

This is not to be confused with the noble tragedy of a failed enterprise- it’s very noble to gamble and even to lose on money-making schemes, but to commit to buying something, say a comfortable armchair, and to fail to have the funds when the prescribed time has arrived is a pitiable thing. It represents not a failure of the individual, but a failure of the system which should, at least, have offered the would-be purchaser a high-interest loan or even a direct, parasitic siphoning of their monthly salary. ‘The Layaway Vault’ represents opportunities lost and the owners are determined to preserve them in this state, unwilling to open the packages or to contact the original layaway-ers or to consider the willingness of visitors to purchase said packages and have them delivered, belatedly, to said layaway-ers. 

There is a lot of shame wrapped up in the whole thing.’

Soft, quality bedding. Thick jackets. Kitchen sets. Toys. The items tucked away in ‘The Layaway Vault’ are all little luxuries- things that could likely be replaced with cheaper versions, that could be thrifted or done without entirely. They represent the then-dreams of the families that chose them. That comfort has hardened into something really quite sad in its abandonment. ‘The Layaway Vault’ has pledged that, for posterity, these goals will never be met. It’s a cruelty I imagine most of the families don’t even realize. 

I’ve seen a lot of sadness on this trip, but these goals, left dust-laden in the dark, fill me with dread. I’ve shelved so much in my life. I’ve left things behind me for longer than I intended. I’m not sure how much of it is still waiting for me. 

-traveler

‘Biologists agree: ‘The Fruiting Bramble’ is worse than its previous manifestation, and they have roundly apologized if their questions about the once ‘Fruitless Bramble’ have somehow, in a display of irony, prompted ‘The Bramble’ into this new phase of life.

“We much preferred ‘The Bramble’ when it was inert, a spokesperson said, “And, on behalf of the scientific community, we’re sorry for ever asking.”

‘The Fruiting Bramble’ now oozes a thick sap from its branches. The sap attracts and traps nearby wildlife and ‘The Brambles’ wet the ground with their blood. The sap does not prevent decay, not really, but it does seem to draw it out, creating a loose sinkhole of rotting insects and small mammals. It smells for miles around and has been known to kill birds who fly overhead. 

The fruits that have appeared are soft and white and plump. ‘The Brambles’ tear at their skin, revealing deep red innards, riddled with thick seeds. Nobody has tasted the fruit, which says a lot about ‘The Brambles.’ People taste anything- this is a universal constant. Nobody wants to go near enough to ‘The Fruiting Brambles’ to try it. 

Those brave and foolish travelers who have consumed the side-of-the-road bramble tea have largely been hospitalized since the fruiting. Nothing so dramatic as the growth of new brambles in their bodies, just a stubborn and wasting sickness of the bowels and a weakness of the limbs. The tea left something behind and it is killing them. 

Flowers of ‘The Fruiting Bramble’ are small and temporary and largely nocturnal, as pale as the fruit and impossible to smell over the rotten soil. Their petals glow faintly in the evenings and attract moths, half of which are shredded by the incessance violence of ‘The Brambles’ thorns and half of which escape, somehow, carrying a wicked pollen to parts unknown.

Local governments have reached the conclusion that ‘The Fruiting Brambles’ may be dangerous, that it may be time to take action. To do the right thing and see ‘The Brambles’ uprooted for good. The process is slow, though. Money is short. 

It has become a game for local children to cover their faces with their shirts and look out over ‘The Brambles’ as though stargazing. They identify violent constellations in the flowers and return home with strange ideas. They dare each other to eat the fruit, but nobody will.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

What is most uncomfortable for me about ‘The Museum of Urinating Statues’ is that they are not displayed as one expects- outside as part of one large or many various fountains. The owners of ‘The Museum’ have instead organized them in separate stalls, all situated in a fairly enclosed, almost tunnel-like hall, so that each can (and must) be viewed separately from the others. Signs on the outside of each door describe the statue inside in some details and, where known, include the date of its creation, its original location(s), and its manufacturing process.

This is all good information, I suppose, and the door system does mean that nobody has to see anything they don’t want to (nudity being mostly necessary in this statue genre) but the result is very much like entering a massive public toilet and moving between occupied, but unlocked, stalls. The urge to knock is overwhelming and finding the actual bathroom is impossible.

‘Is it possible that the owners of ‘The Museum of Urinating Statues’ are run-of-the-mill art collectors who interests leaned innocently niche as the years went on? Yes. Is it much more likely that there is some sort of fetish involved, that it is the owners themselves staring down into the monitors of their unnecessarily robust CCTV system and watching visitors watch, in turn, these statues as they attempt to do their business in the privacy of their protective stalls? Yes, also, to that. 

It’s recommended that one avoid the 43^rd stall, which is kept empty for some reason but is also consistently occupied by a disgruntled man who, mid-urination, will turn to hapless travelers (they having opened this door like all the others, curious about the lack of sign and assuming that no person in their right mind would put themselves in the position of being caught pants-down) and be both angry and embarrassed and give just a small view of his genitals before shooing they, the also-embarrassed but also mildly-violated and suspicious traveler on.

On the other hand, it is recommended that travelers do not skip the 44^th stall, as they so often do in their reflexive attempt to place some distance between themselves and the urinating man. The 44^th stall contains the statue of a rather majestic horse and rider, hair swept back as though by the wind and both of whom are urinating into the same pot, mid-giddyup.

Not another one like it in the states.’

I waffle a little at the 43^rd stall and finally push it open with my foot, just wide enough that the man inside can grunt his annoyance and show me his dick and I can say ‘oops, sorry about that.’ I suppose it’s the perfectionist in me, wanting to see these places on full display, even when their fullness is… tainted. 

The horse and rider are absolutely worth the stop. 

-traveler

‘It’s said, or assumed anyway, that every part of nature has its place. The predators keep populations of prey in check. Prey consume and distribute seeds. The lowliest forms of life, those that feed on the dead, churn out fertile earth. Everything depends on everything else, this is a lesson we’ve seen realized again and again.

Everything except for ‘The Fruitless Bramble.’

There is nothing quite so frustrating to biologists than ‘The Fruitless Bramble,’ which covers a few acres in southern California and seems to do… nothing. ‘The Fruitless Bramble’ is so nearly inert that most people assumed it’s dead. The thick, brittle vines ribbed with stinging thorns are green only for about a day as they squeeze out new growth. Following that, they fade into a brownish gray and move no longer, hardly twitching under even the strongest winds. 

‘The Fruitless Bramble’ kills everything that enters. Mice and birds have not yet evolved to survive there and have difficulty avoiding the thorns. Their bodies litter ‘The Fruitless Bramble,’ rotting in the sun because the ground is so hardened by bramble roots that no natural decomposition can take place. ‘The Fruitless Bramble’ seems to forgo any of the nutrients it might receive from these kills. It needs next to nothing because it exhibits no seasonal change- no flowers, no berries, no leaves. 

‘The Fruitless Bramble’ has proven to be resistant to nearly every type of destruction. It has survived fires set by disgruntled landowners with adjacent property. It has been struck by lightning more times than seems right. It doesn’t respond to any form of weed killer or pesticide and the one time someone attempted to drive a bulldozer straight into the field, ‘The Bramble’ was able to work its way into the wheels and disable the attack before local authorities could respond. 

Sometimes nature turns out an evolutionary dead end and ‘The Fruitless Bramble’ appears to be one of these lost causes. It serves no purpose, makes no attempt to spread, but it persists all the same, baking angrily under the sun and howling in the wind and sometimes cracking, randomly, when one spiral of the bramble has become too heavy for bramble underneath. 

Avoid those stalls selling ‘Fruitless Bramble Tea.’ It isn’t good, or good for you.

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside