The Great American Roadtrip

The Great American Roadtrip was one of many contemporary legends. The freedom of the open road, mile after mile of asphalt that crisscrossed the continent like bicep scars. A place where dreams came true, love blossomed and teens would come of age into fully grown adult human citizens. Across the decades, the highways were romanticised from films like Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise and Vanishing Point, setting the scene for a hip new generation to burn rubber and find themselves in a country that had sacrificed itself to the automobile. For an American, going on a road trip was a pilgrimage with no destination. It was their own form of opera, a cultural expression built around oil, speed and individualism. It was as American as it got, so much so, to remove the road trip from its societal memory would be to deny the very essence of what it meant to be American.

 

You didn't need to leave your car to get food, be entertained, go to work or even sleep. Since the 1940s, government officials have designed cities around the automobile than the human being. They envisaged the car as a kind of mech that would transport a human pilot through the urban environment, with sidewalks and parks being replaced with multilane highways and car lots. The issue of verticality would be solved by a simple ramp system, with plans later on that cars would enter entire sections of road that would go up and down as an elevator, but instead designers realised they could just keep piling roads on top of each other. Mile after mile of interstate was suspended in the air on concrete columns that mingled with power lines and chimneys that formed the outer crust of industrial areas. You could sleep, work, live and die in your car. The car was the ultimate expression of human ingenuity. The car is among the pantheon of the gods of the United States, along with money, guns and short form video content. Long live the American automobile!

 

The wavey film footage clicks, the image is still, lines of static appear along the top of the frame. The vintage film was being projected at a Drive-Thru Multiplex Cinema, though for some reason the projectionist had simulated as if the film was from an 80s Betamax by editing it in Adobe After Effects, although the film was more stylistically similar to the futurism of the 1950s. Was the projectionist smoking crack?

"Hey man, that's an anachronism! What gives?" I yell from the open door of my Hyundai. I try to leave the outdoor cinema, but reverse into the car behind me so that the driver starts beeping and yelling. I wave at them, then drive the car forward and into the back of another car. Its alarm starts going off as I keep driving the car back and forth and bumping into the cars around me. Somebody knocks on my window.

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." They say.

"Okay." I say, shrugging. "Is that J. G. Ballard?"

"Its the opening lines to one of my favourite video essays."

"Try reading a book once in a while, you might learn something. Fucking dork." I say, ramming the car into the one in front of me again. I begin shouting, rocking back and forth in the drivers seat, trying to push the car by pressing the accelerator all the way down so that the tyres start spinning and smoking and I’m shouting until I can’t breathe. I reach around into the backseat, finding a small cannister of gas with a mask attached, pressing it onto my face and taking some deep breaths. I had to calm down. Was I experiencing road roid rage? Or had I spent too much time in the Hyundai Sonata? I hit the open road to find out.

 

I’m speeding. I’m undertaking, accelerating between gaps, into incoming traffic, crushing signs and other bullshit beneath my wheels. Ever since the United States had removed the speed limit on the highway, the average driving experience between cities passed by quickly. It seemed a lot of other drivers hadn't quite caught on yet, instead honking their horns at me like they were mindless geese, but I knew the law. I kept flipping people off, shouting at them from inside my car. It was a shame the windows didn't roll down, as I'd be spitting on their cars as I drove past. I truly began to feel like I was one of the locals, honouring their regional customs and trying my best to not look like a tourist. And I think I was pulling it off. I drive the car diagonally across six lanes of traffic and cut in line at a drive-thru.

 

I was at Inside & Out Diner: The Burger King of McDonald. They specialised in inverted fast food, which I paid for with Klarna from my shitcoin wallet. One of the gimmicks of the franchise was that all the staff spoke backwards, though due to this training being delivered in microtransactions, the staff group had split between two ideologies. One thought that speaking backwards meant every letter would be rearranged back to front, so "Welcome to Inside Out." would become "Tuo edisni ot emoclew." These were known as orthodox backwarders. The other system was more simpler, simply rearranging the words back to front "Out inside to welcome." would be how the Reform backwarders operated. Unfortunately, I was met with an Orthodox backwarder on the intercom.

"Esaelp redro ruoy ekat I nac?”

"Huh?" I yelled, lighting a cigarette.

"Esaelp redro ruoy ekat I nac?”

"Gimme the classic Stacker with an extra portion of burgers." I say from behind the glass.

I then drive as fast as I can to the order window, get my phone out and start filming myself having a tantrum.

"What the fuck, I just ordered my food and it’s not been cut up and fed to me. What the actual fuck is going on?" I start shouting. I then flip the phone round and start filming the staff.

"Have you seen this shit? I'm being deadass right now. Get me my fucking food! I want my food!" I keep yelling. The food arrives, I have to open my door to collect it, then I speed away, nearly hitting a family of children leaving the diner as simple pedestrians. I park up in the car lot and look at the sorry excuse for a meal. The burger is a piece of bread sandwiched between two pieces of beef. The fries are sticks of salt with crushed up potato starch sprinkled over the top. The drink is mostly coke with just a single ice cube in it. I eat thousands of calories, chainsmoke cigarettes and listening to the radio turned up so loud its just a mechanical roar. Afterwards I sit amongst the detritus of greasy paper, trying to meditate but was unable to centre myself for some reason. There was something on my mind that made it hard to focus. I slide the car seat backwards, running over a burger I had dropped earlier so that it squirts in two, interior roadkill diagrams. I watch street fight videos on my phone and drift off to a dreamless sleep.

I wake hours later. It was night time, I was a few miles west of Jacksonville. I drove along the empty road and a car approaches me. The headlights were too bright. I held my hand up to try and block it, but the light was so bright I could see it glow through my hand. Thousands of megawatts were being pumped into the road like a flood of candlelight. I pulled a laser pen from my top pocket and started shining it in the other drivers eyes, though it seemed to have no effect. Thats when I realised the driver was dead. His car autonomously drove itself across Florida, pulling itself up into electric vehicle recharging stations, self-driving itself like a hearse through endless rush hour traffic, lonely nights speeding across the interstate as crickets and frogs sang in the background. Judging by the decomposition of the driver, it had been doing this for several months, if not years. As our cars passed each other, I could swear that the driver turned to look at me. In the backseat was Armitage Shanks. I gagged in fear, almost crashing the car against the rail separating the roads. I came to a stop, skidding and turning 180 degrees and burst into tears.

Train Exploration, Carolina Style

If actions speak louder than words and words speak louder than thoughts, then what are thoughts louder than?

Nothing?

I was at the Pee Dee Regional Transport Authority regional offices in Florence, South Carolina. The Executive Director was showing me a map of the different routes they ran with a huge map that dominated a wall, with lines of lightbulbs spilling from Florence, past the boundaries of the state in the shape of a slime mold.

"The Governor has announced a twenty billion dollar contribution to the great Pan-American railroad. Florence is going to be the main hub for the East Coast." He explained. A string of lightbulbs switched on, showing lines across the country and along each coastline.

I look around at the Directors stood behind us. They were from Darlington, Bennettsville, Mullins. County and City representatives wearing bespoke suits and their arms folded in front of them, all giving out big smiles and row upon row of perfectly straight, white teeth.

"Why does this country hate trains so much?" I ask, unscrewing one of the lightbulbs, throwing it in the air, bouncing it on my elbow and catching it. All the Directors laugh in unison. 

"The airline industry has ruined rail travel in this country. But picture this; you're riding through the great American landscape. You have legroom, you can sit around a table, you can get off or on wherever you want. The train represents true freedom in this country. We built thousands of miles of railroad across America once upon a time. We need men and women to return to building the biggest and best rail system in the world, so help me God." 

Fans embedded in the walls turn on, lifting the silken Stars and Stripes mounted on interior flag poles. Everyone in the room, besides me, places their hand in front of their hearts and sings the anthem. 

I'm riding in a train cabin, sat on the Driver's knee.

"How fast can it go?" I say, staring out of the front window. The tracks merged together and disappeared around a corner. The Driver pushes the acceleration pedal slowly. The train speeds up, going faster and faster, beginning to tremble as its wheels ate up the tracks and every imperfection that made up its lines. I could hear some of the passengers begin to shout from behind the cabin door. I get up and lock it before going back to the chair. We fly through a train station that was going to be the next stop and it is gone before it is noticed.

"Speech without action is like telling someone a dream." I say.

"Action only exists in the present. It is through speech we relive action." says the Driver.

"To view the universe through linguistics disassociates it from absolute reality." I say, leaning forward so our heads are next to each other, staring out at the railway cut into a hillside.

"Both can exist and be true." Says the Driver, cranking the handle further, making the train go faster. Sparks begin to fly out from the sides.

"To equate the reality of action with the symbolism of language is foolish. It is action that silences speech." I whisper.

"No action is taken without speech."

"Animals act without speech, except parrots and certain crows."

"We wouldnt know what the other thought about actions and speech without some form of communication. Whilst this train may be the action, the railway tracks are what it runs on. Of course action happens without speech, but it is through speech, or, representations of ideas, that we comprehend what the train is doing. For one to exist without the other doesn't make sense."

"Well what about this, buddy?" I say, showing them a sketch of a train going down the highway, its metal wheels replaced with rubber tyres. 

"You are still using a way of communicating a concept using a visual language. There is no escape." They say, tearing the sketch from my hands and throwing it in the air.

"But what about this then?" I say, putting my finger on my lips. The train is hurtling down the track, lights and alarms are going off, we pass a road, a car brakes just in time, all the passengers are squeezed against the windows and in the Driver's cabin I slowly reach out my arm with my hand in a fist save for the index finger standing up proudly and place it onto the lips of the Driver.

"Shush."

Arrival 2

For the last three hours, an evangelical preacher has been giving a sermon aboard the aircraft. We were on our sixtieth hymn by the time we reached the East Coast. The wings had been 3D printed so they appeared covered in feathers, and a jet of water spurted from the front of the plane to create a halo effect as we flew through the air. As the preacher continued, I began to disassociate, imagining the landmass ahead of me and thinking that I was a part of it.

We land at JFK airport, with many of the passengers giving a standing ovation being thrown into the air as the tyres screech on the runway. I exit the plane, no passport, no luggage, no cigarettes. As I enter passport control I pull a fire alarm, shouting “Fire, fire!” and the tourists start to stampede, filmed in hilarious slow motion to be reposted on meme accounts ran by Russian spy networks. I join the running, pushing past people, squashing hats down onto faces, clambering up against security gates and through and out into the United States of America in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty five.

ICE agents wait outside. These guys are mostly ex police officers, fired for shooting civilians, promoted to the ranks of government approved fascist kill squads. One of them has a Pepe tattoo on his face, the other is watching fetish porn on his phone at full volume, the squeaking of rubber and groaning adds a sinister atmosphere to the area as I try to look inconspicuous. I was an illegal immigrant. I was coming to take advantage of government programs, claim benefits, commit minor crime and basically undermine the very constitution of America. I felt invincible, walking up to the ICE agents and asking them for a bottle of American soda. For a moment they raise their assault rifles at me, but once they see I’m white, they relax.

“Sure, here’s a root beer you limey son of a bitch.”, throwing me a bottle of Coca Cola.

“Cheers mate!” I say, shaking it up and cracking it open as they both laugh at my accent, drooling on themselves. I found out a week later that they had both died in a skateboarding accident, but it was no great loss. I flagged down a yellow cab, got in, and away we went.

New York. The big asshole. This city is like a reverse bear trap placed over your head and the key to escape is by acting like you’re the only person who ever existed. As the cab drove down the streets, rotting trash spilled over the sidewalks and steam leaked upward from floor vents. 

America. 

Famous for being one of the worst countries the world had ever seen. Mr Beast is running for president against an AI. Obese children smoke sawdust whilst gambling on iPads. You can’t even drink the water. The nation had sold its soul, got nothing in return, and spread their economics across the world advertised as freedom. It was a piece of shit country and I was stuck there.

I dodged the taxi fare, ran through Central Park, stole a phone from someone’s hand, hid in a bush. I had memorised my agents number.

“Why did you send me to America?”

“You need to cover the downfall of the American Empire.”

“Look. Once upon a time, in Hollywood, I had fun. Big plates of food, big cars, everything is big, you know? I don’t need to come back here.”

“Penguin doesn’t agree. Penguin thinks you should do this.”

“Penguin can wipe my ass with a million dollar cheque, I want to get on a plane back now.”

“We booked you a plane. It’s in Los Angeles.”

“Ah. LA. That’s one hell of a city. But it’s on the other side of the country, two and a half thousand miles away. Get me back to Manchester, pronto.”

“Aren’t you interested in seeing how the States have changed? You haven’t been there in over ten years. You’re not curious?” they say. I hiss. My greatest weakness, my curiosity.

“Maybe a little.”

“Look, you’ll be fine. Just write what you feel. All the big publishers are starting a bidding war now they heard you’re involved.”

“I don’t care about money.”

“You might not. But you could give it away, think of the good you could do.”

“How much?” I ask. They tell me. I whistle.

“Okay. But first I need to see a doctor.” I say.

Two hours later I get my face redone. Lip fillers, botox, buccal fat removal, buccal fat injection. I get the surgeon to shave parts of my skull off and augment them with wax fittings, which would slowly melt and easily be absorbed into my body. Its organic. I look in a mirror.

"Do you think I’m gorgeous?" I ask, looking at my bruised, fucked up looking face. The surgeon gives me a thumbs up. I rate her five stars on the plastic surgery app.

The second part of my disguise was learning a new body language. How we hold ourselves, how we walk, the way we move our hands - all of this is easily recognised and would need readjusting. I had a lattice of muscle fibres placed across my ribcage and back, boosted with splints that gradually exerted pressure on my inner thighs and the inside of my forearms. I took a few steps, feeling as if I was moving inside somebody else’s body. The surgeon injected me with 20lbs of fat and my transformation was almost complete.

The CIA had their own version of the men from Queer Eye on Netflix. They did your hair, dressed you up, taught you how to speak, that sort of thing. I happened to know a set of makeover agents in New York as it happened, and they decked me out with the modern American look. Enormous denim jeans, a leather vest, some bangles – all the while teaching me the latest slang and trying to shape my personality to that of the average American male in his mid-20s. I practiced saying things like “That’s wicked.” and throwing up gang signs from different subreddits. I was ready.

A metal door rolled up, revealing the New York skyline around me. I was to travel across the country, learning where the United States were at in 2025. I rubbed at my face, it felt totally unfamiliar to me. Patting my pockets and finding a vape, I leant against the doorframe and looked out, shivering in the night. A great adventure lay before me. I would do a few more preparations and begin my journey.

The quest for the death of America.

MAN/EGCC

I arrive at the airport in a limousine covered in blood. I get out, light a cigarette, take a draw then flick it into an open sewer. I had been told I was covering the newest craze to hit social media: Bobo Homer. Youths would wait at airports with signs showing random names before taking unwitting tourists on wild joyrides before kicking them out of the car in some random location. All the way through this experience they would blast quotes from Homer Simpson at their victims head with a specially designed ‘speaker helmet’, hence the name. As you could imagine, I was excited to uncover this strange new fad that eroded societal norms quicker than a river of acid. Unfortunately, my handlers had an eviller scheme in store for me.

I met my contact, Jeshua, who gave me a guided tour of the airport. She gave me a little known security hack – visit the public restrooms, use the toilet to boost you up into the ceiling space and crawl past security. All this was well and good, with my recording equipment scraping over the ceiling panels and dislodging them as we moved.

“I thought Bobo Homer was done outside the airport.”

“We’re going to follow a group of passengers about to disembark. You’ll see what happens.” Jeshua said behind me. We crawled towards a square of light and dropped down into the captain’s lounge. The air smelt of cocaine, between concrete and disinfectant.

“Do all of your guys like to party, or just the cool ones?” I said, drawing a finger across a glass table and holding up the white residue.

“Step through that door.” she said, signalling to one of those bullshit pine doors they have everywhere. I rest my hand on it, feeling the tree it had come from, grown in rows in silent forests. Evergreen plantations where no bird or animal could live, the floor deep in brown needles. 

“I kinda hate this door right now.” I said, pushing it open. I am immediately accosted by three security agents.

They wrestle with me, shooting pepper spray in my mouth, stabbing me with syringes filled with fentanyl.

“Did the IDF teach you that, dipshit?” I say, as three men all kneel on my neck at the same time and they use a device on my hands. When they finally get off, I see it and groan. A 7x9 rubix cube handcuff, tricky to solve even if I had the use of my hands. Instead they were encased in the two Kevlar spheres at either end of the puzzle configuration. Was I going to have to solve this with my mouth? Just as I lean forward, they strap a Hannibal Lecter mask they had got from the airports fancy dress shop, pull a sack over my legs and force me to hop down the corridor.

“Where are we going?” I say, immediately hit in the ear with a cattle prod. It feels as though my head explodes. When I come to again I am being carried.

“Where are-“ I’m cutoff. Cattle prod again, this time between the eyebrows. In my daze I picture a venn diagram of electroshock treatment and electrocution weapons, but unfortunately my dad doesn’t work at a newspaper that pays me £126,000 a year to come up with a punchline. 

Soon enough I realise where we’re going. I’m outside. I’m on the tarmac. I’m being carried towards a plane. I begin to shout and wriggle, stretching my legs wide apart so that the sack begins to rip, smashing my handcuffs on the floor until the locking mechanism begins to crack. More guards have to come and grab me. Two more, three more, more and more arrive. They are six men deep and its still not enough. I have ripped myself from my shackles and fighting with them furiously.

“You’ll never win. Not if I’m alive.” I scream, throwing punches that break the sound barrier and make bodies tumble through the air like wet towels. I’m about to spin round and deliver a devastating elbow strike when I realise the opponent in front of me. The airport had hired children to work in security. There were three boys wearing high vis vests, blowing whistles at me.

“Stop right there!” one shouts. 

“Look, whatever you think I did, I’m innocent.” I say, wiping the sweat from my head.

“You need to get on that plane right now.” says another. I look behind me and see a 747.

“Where’s it going?” I ask. The boys begin to laugh, but it doesn’t feel authentic. It is the performative laughter of children who think that something should be funny and so they should laugh at it, rather than the actual humour of a well-placed fart (for example).

They begin poking me with toy trudgens towards the boarding ramp. People are staring at me from the windows.

“I don’t have any luggage.” I say. One of the thugs hits me on my shin, another keeps shining a torch in my face. I board the plane sullenly, giving one last look behind me.

“So long England. The home of Queen Victoria, the capital of the UK, and the best nights out you’ve ever had.” I say, beginning to weep as the door closes. I make my way to my seat in first class, turning to the person across the aisle.

“Where’s this plane going bossman?” I say, searching my pockets for a cigarette and coming up empty.

“Oh gosh darned it, this flyin’ metal tube here is gonna go to America!”

“You mean, Brazil? Mexico? Guatemala? Bolivia? Maybe even Anguilla?” I ask, hopeful. The passenger just blinks beneath his cowboy hat, rubbing some ketchup from his lip.

“I ain’t never heard o’them, are they some kinda make of foreign automobile?” he says. The blood drains from my face as the plane begins to taxi backwards.

“No, you can’t take me back there. Anywhere but there, please. You have to let me off. Please, come on! I can’t go back!” I begin shouting. The cabin crew rush to me, strapping me down in the (actually quite comfortable) chair.

As we take off all the passengers begin to start clapping and whooping. One keeps parping an air horn. They all begin chanting.

“Am-eri-ca! Am-eri-ca! Am-eri-ca!”

I thrash around in my chair, crying, begging for help.

“Just open the door, I’ll jump out.” I say. The Stars and Stripes unfurl from the ceiling, covering every empty space around us with flags. The door to the flight deck opens up and the pilots toast their cheeseburgers together, before turning to look at me and smiling with veneers that glow in the dark. I begin to convulse.

It looks like I’m going back to the United States of America. Stateside, across the pond. Land of the free refill. But something tells me, this trip is going to be a bit different from last time, comprendez? 

Click here to go to Contents

 

The City Of Angles

A dim bulb lights everything yellow in the small room I am in. A desk, a chair, a bed, a sink. A toilet is down the corridor and buzzes with moths. Through the wall I can hear a radio play. The street is lit with street lights, shop windows, car headlights and pollution, making the time appear not to matter, an endless day in Los Angeles. I'd landed at LAX, ate some breakfast at Denny's, then went to a car rental place. I picked a mid-range engine car that appeared stocky, yet did well with fuel consumption. It was white. I drove down a few streets and onto the highway, a Holiday Inn before settling down with some wine and aspirin. The Earth is turning, revealing the sun to appear towards the rest of America. I was as far as I could go West before Asia, barring Hawaii and parts of South America, maybe Alaska.

Los Angeles is often referred to in dance songs where the names of large cities are shouted out before a funny sound is played. Being one of the biggest cities in the world, Los Angeles is one of America's interesting developments perhaps only opposing New York in wow factor. The thirty thousand square foot urban zone rests on the coast of California and is home to roughly sixty million people, including some of the most valuable celebrities that we know of. Los Angeles is often called Hollywood (or the Sparkle City) in which a good proportion of films have been made over the last century, pretty much anything you can name was released through Hollywood. Steven Spielberg shops at the local Wal-Mart rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West and Channing Tatum. Films themselves are shot throughout the city, with large portions cordoned off as they create action set-pieces to be enhanced with computers at a later date. Car bombs, terrorist attacks, serial killers, police brutality, evil gangs and school shootings all take place amidst day-to-day life. Camera crews chase people into restaurants and nightclubs, crime scenes and production studios. Everyone you meet can't help but be in the film industry, sixty million of them constantly wear HD makeup and wear costumes daily, sometimes carrying props to and fro in the hopes that they may stumble upon the chance to be in a film! As well as being known as a city of fun it is also been known to be a city of danger. But politicians and police are working with communities to make Los Angeles a safer place for everyone.

A thick fog rolls in, making everything inky and seem unreal. I decide to walk as morning comes, everything 4:3 at 16:9. I hear cars but the road is quiet. I gratefully get into my own car and stare at the dashboard before pulling out. As I begin to get used to the pedals I am reminded of recurring dreams I have where I drive a car that often separates into several components before being reformed as a skateboard. What did this mean. Was I born to skate? I decided to check out a local skate park to find out. It was shut at first but I managed to get in before beginning to run up and down the ramps as fast as I dared. It was coming up to six and it started to get busy. Before I knew what was happening I was stuck on the freeway, honking my horn constantly. A man driving a bulldozer leaned out of his cab and shouted “Move it, jackass.” I was about to do the same before I saw they were shooting a film ahead. Tom Hanks was stumbling down the road with heavy wound makeup applied all over his body, including a missing arm. I then realised it wasn't a film, but a man who resembled the actor had been in a serious collision. The traffic eventually started moving again and I drove past the injured man, hearing the ambulances behind me. He looked at me as if to say 'Yes, I am a clone of Tom Hanks'.

Later on I sat outside a diner, drinking a coffee. I thought about why I was there. What was I doing. How did I feel and more importantly, who knew about it? I puffed out a tweet into the internet cosmos then began to sulk. Of course, I remembered why I was there. To write a ground breaking expose on Western society in the 21st century interlinked with finding myself whilst on a holiday abroad. I had an e-book planned and everything. I drank the coffee. I had some interviews planned, whacky places to visit and even a day in which I would go into the desert and pose for photographs. It seemed like a good idea. But now I was there, I hated it. I nearly cancelled the photoshoot when I received a phonecall. I answered it and listened to the silence.
“Hello?” I said. On the other end of the line I could hear animals breathing and a low buzzing sound. A door slammed shut. If I listened closely I could just make out some talking, but couldn't discern what any of the words were. The call ended. I held the phone in my hand and watched it intently, wondering if it would ring again, but it didn't. My coffee was cold. I decided to go back to my room and try to get some sleep, driving through the city, lost in it's busyness.