I'm sitting in the passenger seat of a late seventies model
Cadillac.
Ryan, as always, is driving, and keeping a good pace at 110 mph. There's something about driving through all this
Indiana corn that makes you feel
invincible, like you'll never get pulled over, never clip some corn-fed animal lumbering out of the fields or nod off and end up in a field yourself. All those thoughts seem so far away on the highways of southern Indiana. We're headed north on interstate 55 and should arrive in
Gary, Indiana in about four more hours. The guys will be waiting for
us and the sun will probably be just starting to light up the sky. That's good, it's good to start a journey at first light. It's the right way to go about it, making it a fresh start with a new sun coming up clearing out all the stars in the sky and all the many daily
troubles that those stars stand for. We'll have enough on our minds without
worrying about home and all that's going on there.
Jeff Bates is sleeping in the back seat. Where he got this car that we've taken now nearly to Florida and back, I'll never know. It's not my place to start asking questions and we needed something to get there in
so I'll just let it slide. And anyway the question I'd really like to ask is why he's here in the first place. He doesn't hardly even know Jhasen, or rather didn't hardly know him, and now he's volunteered his services along with this mysterious white Cadillac, and that's got to make
you wonder what he's doing with a car like that and what he's doing here at all. And what any of us are doing here at all.
Chris and Rob are waiting for us in Gary, they left Holland last night. In a van, a big white van that they borrowed from someone and Nate and Mike Jipping and even Sally are stuffed in the back. All five of them
sitting in that van, waiting in some truck stop at exit 127, sleeping and waiting for me and Ryan and Jeff sleeping in the back and Jhasen strapped to the top all to get there right around first light. That's when we leave.
And by then Jeff should be there too -Jeff Plakke; he might be already. I figured that he'd a come being closer to Jhasen than most of the rest who had already volunteered, but it was still a big relief to hear him actually say he'd be there, meeting us in Gary, Indiana at first light. Somehow it makes it the right thing to do, having Jeff there. It seems that him consenting to it makes it the right thing to do.
But I still gotta wonder why he'd come down with all his classes going on, and it's the same story with most of the rest of them, and they all seem to be meeting us in Gary, Indiana at first light to go and bury Jhasen. And I wonder why I'm here too, a little. Shit, the only one I'm sure about is Jhasen. He's the only one with nothing left to hide.
-the gilded frame-
--Letters from a Savior; Offer for a few--
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