There is a calm in wondering how a ruined thing came to be. I look for that sanctuary in the brickwork of a chimney, the hollowed bulk of an old stone cottage that stands in the forest. The chimney’s mason took care in the arrangement, adding decorative arches where lines would have saved time and bricks. Someone, long dead, was fanciful in their work. It’s difficult for me to reconcile the gruff mason in my head with the person who would choose these patterns- two rusted stereotypes at odds.

The dissonance is enough to send ripples through my meditation and, in trying to reclaim it, I blow dust from the ridges of the old structure. My lungs whistle and I cough, sounding, to the trees, like a cackling witch for all my wheezing.

Looking at my shadow, you might think I was bent over in laughter.

‘The superstitions of street punks, hobos, and Gray Road theorists align on this point: there are places in the world that feel heavier than others and, in their heaviness, exert a sort of force. These points anchor whatever geo-mystical/philosophical network happens to be trending at the time- the waypoints of your non-denominational ley lines.

There is no dearth of research on the subject, though ‘research’ should in most cases be defined with a picture of a map, scattered with tacks and string and blurry pictures of the American countryside. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm of zealots only serves to confuse the research-scape, effectively diluting any truth in the matter. To layer the varied believer networks one over the other until they were all accounted for, well, we would be left with an opacity that mirrors the task.

Underneath the labyrinth of the American highways and the fractal systems of public transit, there are certain locations that surface more often than not- coherencies in the otherwise rabid fever dream. ‘The Cottage Out North’ is one of them, nothing but the ruins of an old house that gasp for air in the underbrush. ‘A magical place,’ say the witches. ‘A place to cook,’ say the homeless. ‘An example of lasting architecture,’ say the preppers (the soothsayers of our time, for the world will end, eventually).

‘The Cottage Out North’ appears on so many iterations of the mystical map that it’s difficult to disregard its significance in the Wayside. Hardly comfortable, it is, by all accounts, a benign place- a stone in the river that will take your weight in crossing.’

My breath returns to me and I gather my scattered belongings. The bike, framed in the doorway, clicks and groans in the warming air. Crossing the threshold toward it, I wonder if summer may be around the corner.

-traveler

The town of Redmond Bay was evacuated in 2013 when a fine cloud of feathers formed on the corner of Main and 3^rd, growing exponentially until it encompassed the better part of a the downtown area. This cloud has not since dissipated, though online sources suggest that an hour’s rain drives the cloud into the ground and grants a short reprieve from the noxious air.

It’s convenient, then, that I pass Redmond Bay as the Pacific Northwest’s early autumn heaves itself from the gray ocean, spitting and slobbering like a mad old man. Convenient to find the streets of this ghost town dark and gleaming.

I wear a mask, one of those thin, papery half-orbs you can pick up in any pharmacy having, vacillated between this and something several times the price (and undoubtedly more effective). The tissue barrier grows absurd in the shadow of a quarantine sign that has resisted the years of mossy encroachment. Its letters cut through the afternoon darkness, reflecting red in the headlight of the bike.

“WARNING: DISASTER AREA. AIR IS UNSAFE FOR BREATHING”

‘It would be three years before the displaced townsfolk of Redmond Bay would learn that the ‘1st Annual Pillow War’ was instigated by ‘Sleep-Time Tech’ for the sake of marketing- a secret sifted from the bankrupted ruins of the same company. Their flagship product, a pillow made of blended down, was a tough sell in this, the hypoallergenic age. How to get people to recognize the airy softness of their pillow filling?

Why not a pillow fight?

The iconic ‘Bilderberg Photo’ is associated with the beginning of ‘The Redmond Suffocation.’ Two men are frozen, center-frame, their pillows bursting at the base of a bronze statue- Edmond Bilderberg, who founded the town. A woman has fallen in the background, one hand on her chest. Behind her, an unidentified body already lies prone on the bricks of Redmond’s central square.

The occasional resurfacing of the ‘Bilderberg Photo’ draws tourists to the outer-limits of the quarantine zone. More than one morbid pilgrim has been pulled, alive, from the dark city in the years since its abandonment. Countless missing are presumed to have entered and remain unfound.’

A storm passed over Redmond Bay just before I arrived, tearing at my gas-station parka on the ride up and dwindling to a drizzle as I approached the quarantine. It’s a gamble, already, to take the advice of the internet in matters of breathing so, while many speculate that a light rain is enough to keep the feathers out of the air, I set a timer for half an hour and promise myself I won’t walk more than 15 minutes away from the line of safety.

When I was a child, maybe eleven or twelve, I spent the night in the library- part of some initiative to keep kids reading. It was your typical pizza and junk food shit-show with most of the kids being assholes or getting homesick, but when things wound down and the lights went off and we were all supposed to find our own nook of the library to curl up in, well, that was something special. To see that place in darkness and to find peace there- it’s a memory I hold like a security blanket decades later.

Redmond Bay is like that. Though the tones are admittedly grimmer, I find the same peace in its corners, the same darkness behind the glass store fronts. I let myself into a grocery store where much of the stock remains and consider the harm in taking a few cans of food for the road. My meddling stirs the dust from the shelves, a dust that has settled on every surface. I cough twice, comparing the nutritional benefits of two chicken-noodles, before a pin-prick pain in my chest alerts me to danger.

Outside of my reverie, the dust has collected into a thin, white fog, the torn feathers having crept into the store in the five years of abandonment. I try to hold my breath but the prickling in my lungs forces another cough through the mask, a wet, red cough.

Things blur as I try to run. My legs buckle as I round the old bakery and I see the body of a man in the checkout aisle, a candy bar gripped in his desiccated fingers.

‘He played this game before me and he lost,’ I think.

‘I’ll show him,’ I think.

And the world goes black.

–//–

Rain wakes me, my body saturated and cold. My lungs play a sickly harmonica. Each breath is a battle and the sky above me is gray.

Consciousness returns in waves, building to a coherent high tide. My shirt is pulled up over my chest and gravel scrapes at the bare skin of my back. As I try to make sense of my surroundings I realize I’m still holding the can of soup. I let it roll away and the noise of the metal on the pavement brings my inching travel to a halt.

After a few quiet seconds, as I fail to find the energy to do anything but breathe, the friendly tug pulls me another inch toward the edge of town. In the long hours of wheezing and dragging I catch glimpses of my shadow, splayed weakly in the growing dark. It has been playacting all these months but now it wants to live.

And it needs me.

-traveler

‘‘The Great Scrupulizor’ is a statue in the style of gaudy highway cowboys, built from the crotch up and hunched over a hill to hide the birds that live in the empty stumps of its legs. His shirt, once a deep navy, has faded to baby blue and the jolly red handkerchief about his neck has run pink in the sun. ‘The Scrupulizor’ holds a magnifying glass above the desert wastes, the thick fingers of his left hand prodding the sand for something he lost eons ago.

Locals tell the story of a woman who was immolated under the glass, evidenced by a dusty, black stain on the ground. They say she was a witch (implying ‘The Scrupulizor’ serves as bait and trap for vampires, wayward spirits, and other sun-sensitive evils). They say she wanted to die, that she was good, in life. They say she was beautiful and wanted the best for others. They say she was ugly and as hollow as the great statue that killed her.’

I dig in the sand under ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ glass, my back itching under the scrutiny of his great, magnified eye. Not a single grain of it turns up black, not after thirty minutes of scrabbling. A man across the highway takes note of me and stares from the diner parking lot, leaning on the cab of his semi and lighting new smokes with the butts of old ones. The ground becomes hot and the sun collects in prisms around me, shifting like the aura of a man possessed.

I give up before finding any evidence of the immolated woman and scrape the sand out from under my fingernails with the latest of Alice’s picks. When I’m through, I check the bike to confirm it still won’t start. The speedometer waggles in the direction of ‘The Great Scrupulizor’ and settles weakly to ‘0’ when I switch off the ignition.

Alice doesn’t want me going anywhere.

I drink the last of my water and prod the earth near ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ left hand, near where its index finger disappears into a tuft of dry brush. Something shudders inside the knuckle and heaves itself up through the palm, shaking flakes of paint from ‘The Scrupulizor’ and shrieking.

The man across the way lights up again and coughs.

The bike won’t start.

Once the thing inside the statue has settled, I walk the length of ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ body and plod my way up the hill where a vulture clutches the statue’s right buttock, balanced on a copper rivet in the jeans. It spreads its wings as though to fly away but, seeing I’m no threat, reconsiders and wraps itself tightly in its feathers.

The legs of ‘The Great Scrupulizor’ are modeled through the thigh but taper off after the knee, his bleached denim giving way to rusted metal before terminating entirely in two, man-sized holes. The birds that inhabit this statue have mostly gone about their day but evidence for their numbers remains in feathers and dripping white stalactites. Nobody has thought to barricade these entrances, the dark of the inside of ‘The Great Scrupulizor’ should suffice in turning away any straight-minded visitor.

The treads of my boots gunk up pretty fast with bird shit which leads to a lot of slipping and brushing up against bird shit covered walls, but past the lower calf and in the shallow cap of ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ knee I have the time and the space to consider the climb up into his torso and the shrieking thing exists somewhere beyond.

The climb isn’t so bad, aided by jutting rebar and sharp corners. Would be a real cheese-grater on the way down, though, a real tetanus gauntlet.

Things flatten out in the ass, again. The claws of the vulture scratch nervously above, aware that something shifts beneath it. I rest and start to wonder if I could make a life in this thing- a thought that comes to me in any tight space. I wonder if it’s water-tight. I wonder if someone would find me eventually.

Stuffy, though. Like all tight spaces.

And there’s the shrieking thing, of course.

I’m a careful person, but I make mistakes. I make one when I bring my flashlight over the arch of ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ waist and lose my grip on it. I make a mistake when I leap forward to grab the light (this cheap, totally unworthy piece of plastic) and feel myself slide past any hope of stopping. My body bounces about the metal skeleton of the statue like a pachinko ball before settling on a course that takes me down the left arm.

Something screeches past me on the way down, going the opposite direction, something that’s all fur and wide-eyed terror. Then I hit the bottom, twisting my ankle something nasty on the inside of ‘The Scrupulizor’s’ curled pinky. Below me, the skeleton of a woman in a scorched dress has pulled its way up through the unfinished point of the index finger. Alice rattles in her picks, content in having me witness another like her- someone lost in the wayside.

-traveler

On a white-sand beach, my body and my belongings amount to so much refuse. I sprawl there, fish-belly torso visible from space and round where I wish it was sharp. My buttoned shirt parts down the middle, jagged like the edges of an open wound, exposing flesh that is tender, swollen, and red. I close my eyes but see myself through the eyes of those around me and I become bitter and small-  not at all unlike the ocean that shifts like a cat at my feet.

‘‘The Intimate Ocean,’ formed through the vigorous coupling of nature and performance art, manages to fit all the salinity and lunar movement of its larger cousins into an area just ten feet in diameter at high tide. Home to a small school of fish and a family of bluish crabs, the ‘Ocean’ hardly qualifies as a ‘pond’ in regards to size but makes up for it in questionable technicalities and the earnest condescension with which visitors treat the thing.

On any given weekend they arrive, visitors with knowing half-smiles and eyes that roll about in their heads to say ‘We, too, are in on it.’ They take up their small sand shovels or roll out lavish towels and, in the style of communal seating, cram together on the 31’ beach that encircles ‘The Intimate Ocean.’ They enjoy themselves, or, pretend to enjoy themselves, crafting miniature sand castles and reclining in mock worship of the sun.

The joke, of course, is that it is forbidden to mention the smallness of ‘The Intimate Ocean’ and outright blasphemous to suggest that, in regards to fun, the size of the thing is a limiting factor. As a society that has more or less embraced the ideal of the individual, the meta-climate of ‘The Intimate Ocean’ insists that we grit our teeth and smile when a stray foot collapses our moat or a careless elbow finds its way into our ribs because we experience the pain as part of a close, if temporary, community of beach-goers.

And when we do clear the sand from our eyes and look out over the ‘Ocean’ we see not the horizon, but the opposite shore.

And from a ways off, it does look nice.’

-traveler

I wonder, reader, if there may be a Medusa in me, for when I look upon others and see myself reflected there, I turn to stone.

-traveler

Sometimes the author of Shitholes, in an effort to invoke mystery or flex his purple pen, is scant on details that would, to a more traditional travel writer, be of some importance. Forgetting the sheer size and mobility of a carnivorous tree, for instance, or neglecting to mention a plague of sinkholes in a town that doubles as the last fairway of a golf course that spans the nation (Par 6).

With a length of dry rope in my hands and a groaning sickness in my stomach, I consider that the author seems to have done justice to the condition of ‘The Place Over Another.’

‘‘The Place Over Another’ is hardly a place (it being a rickety tire swing anchored to a dying tree) and what exists under it is hardly a place either (it being an abyss).

This is not to say that they are not impressive.

The tire of the swing once belonged to a tractor and, as such, can comfortably contain the bulk of a child and a small pool of stagnant water that exists there in perpetuity. The weight of riding has pulled the tree from the earth such that it now leans over the abyss and touches down on the other side with a dainty branch. Its vast root system is exposed save for a single, thick tendril that holds it in place and provides it with the nutrition necessary for survival. In the autumn months this tree is known to dangle apples in precarious places and to drop them noiselessly into the ‘Other’ as though threatening (or simply warning away) onlookers. The knot of rope that clings to the tire has fused with age and water into a great, brittle lump of fiber that creaks with warning under the lightest load- that creaks, sometimes, without instigation.

The combination of these things cannot be called safe except to say that it has not yet failed.

The abyss is impressive in an altogether different sort of way. It is deep enough to be endless and dark save for a pinprick of light in the center that riders of the swing say is a keyhole view to another world, visible only from the top.

Nobody who has made this claim has yet traveled downward.’

The tire hung over the center of the abyss and was absolutely without movement when I arrived. With a long prodding stick and the better part of an hour I was able to set it in motion and to catch it without slipping a careless foot over the edge. Now I stand, the sweat of my palms seeping into the rope.

And I place a leg inside.

As my weight transfers to the cracked rubber the tire begins to drag itself back to the abyss and I let it drag me along, sending the prodder through its hollow diameter and bracing myself for the edge. There is a stab of regret when it comes- the phantom ‘what-if’ that haunts moments like these but I will it away and stare determinedly down, seeking the glimpse of another world and finding, like those before me, that it is only a reflection of ours in a pool of water and apples.

Having performed my due diligence, I settle into the tire and find an unlikely restfulness in its movement. I sleep above the abyss and the pond and the reflection of our sky- a series of nested circles like a great eye, below.

-traveler

I stop on a hill in the outskirts of a city. Neither the city, nor its hill, are featured in Autumn by the Wayside. I rest in a patch of grass and shake one of Alice’s picks into my hand, turning it over several times and then bringing it to my mouth quickly, as an impulse.

Bitter, and understandably so.

The pick’s sisters jostle in their vial, warped from their soaking in ‘The Watery Grave’ and restless, I think, or blown by an otherworldly wind. The sun sets and the bitterness passes, giving way to the flavor of wood and a feeling of calm.

This has been a long trip- longer than I meant it to be. It has taken up time that may have been lent to better causes. I haven’t bettered the world. I have traded old burdens for new ones. I am physically less than I once was. I am, at times, mentally desolate. I often act only for the sake of acting.

Alice’s pick softens in the darkness. It wanders between the corners of my mouth, testing the air. It waits and it slowly dissolves and when I take a long, reflective breath, it leaps into the back of my throat and churns out a choking darkness that rises, in time, to blot the light from my eyes.

I see a woman in the darkness, Alice, and she holds hostage my air until I agree to a list of strangled promises- petty things that would only matter to the dead. I cough and expel a cloud of blood and splinters.

Within a week I find a bored mechanic to fasten one of the five remaining picks to the speedometer, the needle of which hasn’t moved in a year.

It moves now.

-traveler

‘Let us reflect, for a moment, on the stubborn existence of the electronic shooting gallery. Let us, in fact, describe in plain terms what an electronic shooting gallery is.

In dormancy, an electronic shooting gallery is a man-sized diorama- a cartoon still-life of the American west riddled with bullseyes and sectioned off from the world by a row of battered guns (firing harmless lasers, no matter the make or model). Fed money, the gallery lights up and the guns activate- unlimited ammo for a limited time (the American bullet buffet). Fired upon, the gallery wakes and responds to the shots with any number of charming reactions: a farmer shouts, a bird squawks in fright, a can launches itself off a fence (and then returns to the fence unharmed, ready for the sharp shooter’s second go-round).

That’s the key to it, reader.

The essence of the electronic shooting gallery is contained in the returning of the can. It is an embodiment of the arcade machine’s manic naivety, an insistence that most actions are blissfully free of consequence. We know, of course, that the opposite is true; that every action is the harbinger of unspeakable consequence. We know this, even if it seems we don’t.

This instinctual knowledge is why the subversion at ‘The Nice House’ provokes such visceral reaction in those that play its game.’

‘The Nice House’ is situated like a lost window at the end of a short corridor to the bathrooms of a no-name convenience store. The window looks into a very normal living room where the mock-up of a nuclear family pays careful attention to a blank television screen. It’s strikingly different than your run-of-the-mill western gallery, with the exception of the guns which are, in turn, strikingly out of place.

I hesitate with a quarter in my palm. It’s been my experience that engaging a thing that is otherwise inactive opens one up to blame for what occurs in its waking and I have a hunch that this is a thing made to sow regret. I know, too, that I will play the game eventually and the arrival of several other interested parties pushes me over the edge. The coin drops and the TV clicks on to a news segment regarding a string of murders. Dozens of red targets shine to life in the living room.

With expectant eyes on my back, I pick up a gun and begin the awful charade.

-traveler

It’s rare that I choose not to pull off the highway for some oddity that might exist there. Much of the time it’s mundane- the artwork of an off-season farmer or the shrine of some unnamed enthusiast. More than once I’ve found an entry for Shitholes that may have otherwise gone overlooked, that had gone suspiciously overlooked, in fact (my certainty that the book is changing grows with the thing itself, now a paperback tome that drags on my shoulders). The pleasure of making these impromptu stops has ceded to necessity over this long trip. Pleasure is ceding generally, I’m afraid, like the brisk nights of late summer give way early to the fall.

Considering this compulsion, it’s strange that I exit outer Greenville (a detour for gas) and spot a statue across the median- the statue of a man looking off in the direction of the sunset (or, because it’s morning, where the sunset will be). Stranger still that the man is borne out of dirt, with little suggestion of a foundation to hold him in place.

I run across the highway, though there is not a car in sight.

‘There has always been a statue outside of Greenville, Ohio, the unassuming shape of a man with his back to the road and his-’

The statue shifts and I jump back, dropping the already-battered copy of Autumn by the Wayside in the gravel. Its pages curl in guilty smiles.

The statue is not a statue at all, but a painted man. A cardboard plaque at his feet fills in the rest, or, if not the rest, then some:

“ACTOR DONATED BY THE GREENVILLE LIVING STATUES TO REMEMBER THAT WHICH INSPIRED SO MANY OF US.”

The statue, the man, breathes heavily and leans away when I stoop to pick up the fallen book. People can be cruel, I suppose. He’s right to be on the defensive.

‘There has always been a statue outside of Greenville, Ohio, the unassuming shape of a man with his back to the road and his eyes set on the horizon.

Or, that’s what is said by the few people who claim to remember.

In a span of time that has been narrowed to the last 50 years, the original statue was stolen and a local group of ‘living statues’ has stepped in to faithfully fill the absence. So swift were they in taking to this monumental task nobody is sure when the statue was replaced or how long the ‘Greenville Living Statues’ have paid their strange, silent tribute.

Strange because the ‘Greenville Living Statues’ don’t seem to exist outside of this task. Strange because only one actor seems to have been photographed all these long years. Strange, too, because nobody has witnessed a changing of the guard despite the occasional webcam project or marathon stakeout. The statue is flesh, this has been proven many times and many ways, but the humanity of it has been called into question numerous times.

The children of Greenville tell the story of a statue that was granted life it did not want (or could not comprehend). Their explanation is as good as any that has been put forth previous to this author’s visit.’

It hurts me to watch the ‘statue;’ it seems to strain under the pressure of my gaze. It struggles to remain still, holding its breath for long moments and quietly heaving the next. Its eyes creep toward mine and quickly turn back to the field before us.

It’s a strange world and people keep strange hobbies. I’ve learned not to judge, but there is a certain pity I feel for those, like myself, who find themselves so consumed.

-traveler

Something in the bike starts to grind just 20 miles out of Missouri. It’s nothing ugly at the outset, but I check Shitholes for the nearest likely pull-off and find a scene of autumn that has persisted well into the summer months.

A grove of dead trees stands at the border, tormented (and made greener) by thick ropes of manicured ivy. Clouds hesitate in the sky above, churning out a pink-tinged storm that looks like the underside of a sea creature. Two women toil in the grove with a hickey bar and a long piece of rusted metal. Together, they prop up the branch of something that could be an oak.

‘Maria Vasquez, owner of ‘Cold Grove,’ carefully avoids questions about her mid-west installation. Her acreage is thick with extinct trees- dead, of course, or they wouldn’t be extinct- held up and together with conspicuous pieces of metal and constant, obsessive maintenance by those in her employ. The sources of the unprocessed specimens is a mystery- the trees themselves are unlabeled and have only undergone amateur identification. The gates of ‘Cold Grove’ are opened inconsistently and trespassers face prosecution with an infamous zeal. It’s not friendly enough to be an educational center and it lacks the careful whimsy of art.

Former ‘Grove’ employee, Richard Denner, has famously (where fame is relative) accused Vasquez of occult motivations. ‘Cold Grove,’ he claims, has been erected to attract the ghosts of things long dead. Like columbine, which can be propagated as an invitation to humming birds, ‘Cold Grove’ requires no explanation because it is the means to an end and not the end itself. All said, there is evidence that Denner’s departure from the ‘Grove’ was an unpleasant one and he has since proved himself to be a man of little relevance.’

Finding the gates to ‘Cold Grove’ are open, I shake the bike a few times and leave with the vague idea that it might sort itself out over the duration of a walk. Inside, I see the women across the ‘Grove’ notice me and I pretend not to see them, taking on the guise of a non-intrusive passerby.

Despite care and rounded metals, the trees chafe at their structures, splintering and peeling where the wind has encouraged post-life movement. Something, rain probably (or wooden ennui) has led much of the grove to weep, creating dark, dripping stains where they bend in their death-permanent poses. A majority of their number stand like modern palm trees, great, barren stalks, and each is as cold and as hard as stone.

The trunk of one tree rattles as I pass; its structure buzzes under my fingertips. The head of a boring insect emerges for a split second, just at eye level, before retreating into the dark of the wood. The skin of the tree shifts, then, as a thousand tunnels fill with a thousand heads like the last. They wait and seem to watch me, clicking under insectile breaths.

“Grove’s closed!” one of the women shouts, and I skitter backward for fear of getting caught in a swarm.

But they have gone and the tree is silent.

Twenty miles out of ‘Cold Grove’ the bike makes a sound like an old woman’s cough and the grinding clears.

-traveler