Across the Eye of the Indian

Picking up garbage and things

Two years ago, I rode the Rivendell from Lake Matthew across the eye of the Indian to Mom’s summer home on Lac Courte Oreilles, and that turned out to be the last time I saw her at the cabin.

I woke clueless about what I was going to do with another sunny ninety-degree day. Such days were dreamy when I was a teenager—days spent playing on the lake water-skiing or sailing Dad’s catamaran. I had promised Mom a visit, and she was there only two more days. I’d been thinking about bicycling. I checked the weather again, hoping the next day would be cooler, better for riding. WeatherBug predicted it would be cooler. And rainy. And windy. Strava predicted I’d cover the forty miles in three hours.

Trego Travel Center:
“Any gas or diesel?” The cashier looked up at me. 
I stood across the checkout counter from her, sweating in my bike jersey.
Two Gatorade bottles stood sweating between us. 
She laughed. 
I smiled. “Just these.” 
She smiled. “These are your fuel.” 
“Yep.”  
“Receipt?” 
“Nah.” 
“Have a good ride.” 
“Thanks.” 

Outside, I filled both my water bottles, then sat down next to my bicycle on the shaded concrete in front of the store. I drank the excess Gatorade, fished a melty Sweet’n’Salty peanut bar from my jersey pocket. It squeezed from its wrapper like chunky Go-Gurt.

Motorists were fueling vehicles and procuring snacks. Lots of snacks. Everyone was fat. Coincidence? I noticed me being silently judgmental and didn’t like the feeling, so I observed more intentionally. I sat munching my calorie-dense snack, drinking my sugary Gatorade. I was by no measure fat-free, but I felt like a portrait of fitness, watching the flow of adults and children between the fuel pumps and the store, fueling up for the drive home from cabins and campgrounds at the end of the holiday weekend. They were anesthetizing themselves and their children for the ride with Funyuns, Doritos, energy drinks, and big plastic bottles of Mountain Dew.

A slender young woman stepped out of a sporty SUV to refuel it. She squeegeed the windshield. From where I sat, she looked a lot like Elizabeth from my final division at 3M. Probably she wasn’t. Minnesota license plates, but most of them were.

For three years Elizabeth and I worked together. I had interviewed her for the job and agreed when my boss said she seemed the strongest candidate. She was my son Dane’s age. Smart but sometimes vaguely annoying. A fine example of the Millennial sort we Boomers sometimes complained about. She was capable and did good work. She seemed never to have encountered adversity in her life. From her resume and her conversation and her work style, it seemed everything had always fallen immediately into place for her, personally and professionally. She would get a little frustrated when asked to redo things, improve them, adjust presentation slides that she had believed finished. She was no perfectionist, but usually her work was pretty damn good. When she was ready to move on to another position within our division, Chris, the hiring manager, who had known me all the dozen or so years we’d been in the same division, asked me to provide an evaluation. I gave an honest and positive commendation. She got the job but kept her same cubicle, which shared a corner with mine, so we continued talking daily. She parked in my reserved parking ramp spot when I rode my bicycle to work. She called me her real mentor—the company had assigned an official one, but Elizabeth said she didn’t care for her.

The last position I tried to get before surrendering to enforced retirement was in Elizabeth and Chris’s department. She said while she was interviewing me that I’d be perfect for the job and she’d really like me to get it. Though she wouldn’t say so, it was clear she didn’t think I would. (I knew from my network that the other two finalists for the job were Millennials.) On my last full day at 3M, Chris was effusive explaining that he wished he had a place for me, but he’d been blown away—the applicants were simply the most qualified he’d ever encountered. (I learned later from my network that both the other finalists were hired for the one opening.)

Sitting beside my bicycle, I saw Elizabeth look over at me for a moment. I straightened up to be more recognizable—in case it was her. She resumed squeegeeing. I wondered what Elizabeth thought when she thought of me, if she ever had, in the two years since. When I rolled out to resume riding, she was sitting behind the wheel of her SUV. I didn’t have to go out of my way to ride right in front of her car. I would not stare or be obvious. Windshield glare anyhow—I couldn’t see her face.

Two police were directing traffic at the Trego highway crossing. 
“Hot day for a bike ride,” the younger officer called to me while I waited to cross.  
“Yes it is!”
He signaled for me and the cars beside me to proceed. 
As he crossed the intersection to halt approaching cars, I found myself pacing beside him.  
“Hot day to be directing traffic!” I said.  
“Yes it is!” He laughed and pointed at himself—his dark slacks, polished black shoes, reflective vest (superfluous in the bright of day). “And I can’t dress for the heat like you can!” 
I laughed and said good luck or something, and he told me to enjoy my ride, and I said “Thanks—be safe!”  
We both waved and the short exchange felt friendly and nice. 

West of Trego the road was instantly rural. Two lanes, no shoulder, and if there’d been a painted fog line, it had long ago eroded, swallowed by dust and weeds. Tired old homes, some abandoned, some that looked like they should be. Distracted by some chickens crossing the road (no joke), I missed a road sign. Then, thinking I should be near my next turn and not seeing any on the longish stretch of crumbly asphalt ahead, I stopped to check my Strava map. After crossing through the chickens again, I found the missed turn. I’d mistaken it for a field’s tractor access when I’d gone past it the first time.

A mile or so down that road, an oldish, beat-up Toyota Tundra with a big US flag on a steel pole stuck in the back-left corner of the pickup’s bed came up fast from behind, then slowed before passing me. The truck needed muffler work and I was eager for it to get on ahead where I wouldn’t hear it anymore, but we were on a long descent, and the truck was barely going faster than I was. The pavement disappeared ahead where it rounded into a wooded area beyond the farm fields. After the truck rounded that turn its muffler noise finally faded away. I completed the descent and enjoyed the wide swooping turn into the wooded area. I saw as I came around into the cool shade of the trees that the pickup had not faded into the distance ahead but had pulled over to park beside a pond in the woods. As I approached, the driver stuck one hand out his window and waved for me to pass, as if the road were so narrow that I needed that signal. I went by and quickened my pace, hoping to leave the creepy patriot Tundra driver behind. Within seconds I heard the unmuffled Tundra behind me again. He paced me for an uncomfortable few seconds, then accelerated and got past me, disappeared around another curve. As soon as I rounded the corner, the Tundra was waiting at the side of the road again, same as before. This was beginning to feel wrong. I was miles from anywhere, really, and while there had been plenty of holiday traffic earlier, the creepy Tundra pickup was the only car I’d seen in the miles since Trego. I came out of the wooded area into open farm fields and felt oddly safer, though there still wasn’t anyone else in sight as far as I could see.

Soon I heard the Tundra approaching behind me again. It came alongside and slowed to my pace. For a moment I felt like I was pedaling through a warped version of the opening scene in the novel I had been working on, except that instead of riding down a steep suburban hill with a lot of car traffic during a heavy rainstorm, I was traversing a flat and fallow Wisconsin countryside on a scorching sunny day with just one creepy pickup truck that had been checking me out for a little too long.

Resigned to confrontation, I stopped pedaling, sat up on my saddle, looked through the open passenger window at the driver. He looked much as I’d already imagined: Scrawny, sandy-haired, sun-burned, light-colored filthy muscle tee, though he wasn’t muscly. He smiled and was missing at least two teeth—one above, one below.

“I drive around and pick up garbage and things!” The man yelled.

“Good for you!” I yelled back, nodding and smiling for him to see.

The man grinned and waved across the open passenger seat, then nodded enthusiastically and waved some more before at last pulling ahead. I waved goodbye for him to see in his rearview mirror and he gave a final fist pump with his arm above the pickup’s cab as he sped away.

I drive around and pick up garbage and things!
I thought of how Graham would have loved and laughed about the encounter. I could hear exactly the way Graham would say it, quote the guy, tell the story and laugh about it after. For a long while after the encounter with the creepy Tundra driver—who was really just some friendly special-needs guy who had found something he could do and probably get some appreciation and encouragement about in his little rural town—I felt like Graham was with me. 
I drive around and pick up garbage and things! 
I could hear Graham exactly as if he were still alive, laughing, nodding right along, yelling Okay! All right, man, keep on picking up garbage and things, and have a nice day!