"Sorry. My brain doesn't have room for that question right now. I'm gonna need a nap first."
To Re-Kill

“DISTANCE FORMS PERSPECTIVE,” the girl told me. She was handing out flyers for a strip club. I stood there silent, staring at her, my camera limp in my hands, wondering how she knew to say those words. I had told her nothing about my journey.

I was in Las Vegas doing photojournalism work on porn stars at the worlds largest Adult Entertainment Convention. I looked down at this girl’s 4-inch-high stilettos, the roar of the expo overbearing and nearly tangible. Her long black hair was cut perfectly and draped over her shimmering cheeks. It fell down her shoulders, nearly reaching the belt of her short skirt, which, I may add, was modest attire compared to the swarms of naked, glittered girls parading around with troupes of photographers, a battle for exposure.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My name’s Ray. I’m a writer―and a musician.” She looked away briefly, “Mostly a musician, though. But, being a musician means you’re more of a business person, which means a lot of writing―all the time.”

“A writer?” I asked dubiously, “Then why are you working here?”

“Well, you’re also a writer.”

“How’d you know?”

She pointed to the credentials hanging from my neck. “It says right there.”

I laughed.

“Regardless, your question is an insipid question.” As she said this, her eyes flashed. “I’m here for the same reasons you’re here.” Pausing, she looked around, then continued, “I’m here for a change of pace, for something different; new stimuli, a perspective shift.
“Then why’d you say, ‘Distance forms perspective?’ What the ‘ell did you mean by that?”

While her face moved very little, almost expressionless, her eyes reflected her emotions, and were nearly closed from exhaustion.

She stepped closer, the explosions of music from all the massive stages hindering our conversation. Each stage was a mini dance-club, with huge speakers and slick DJs. Flesh and blood porn stars, naked and famous, stood in front of thirty-foot-tall posters of themselves. Their billboard faces, wide open, were seven times larger than life, towering over the reality of who they actually were.

She started to speak, but looked away, then finally back at me, said, “Earlier, you spoke of how you felt your life was a contradiction.” She took a deep breath, cracked a slither of smile, and finished, “That’s bullshit. There’s no reason you can’t be a― what was it?”

“A bike racer?”

“Yeah. There’s no reason you can’t be an artist and a bike racer.”

My eyes narrowed, pensive. I had, in fact, not had a conversation with this girl about being a bike racer. Regardless, I made the connection and said accusingly, “You must have overheard the conversation I had with that guy earlier. That’s how you know I used to race bikes, right?” She didn’t answer. I continued, “That’s how you know I quit racing to do what I’m doing now, right?”

She looked at me hard. I didn’t know how to react. She didn’t care, and she answered, “I get the feeling that it’s the contradictions that push you. It’s the tension between your seemingly contradictory lifestyles that creates the motivation for you to excel at both. Your conflict is necessary.”
“You’re ‘effing crazy!” I shouted, my eyes dripping with incredulousness.

She took a step back. Keeping her composure, she shook her head slightly.

“No, no!” I exclaimed, “I’m sorry, don’t take that the wrong way. That’s intended as a compliment. I mean you’re crazy smart!”

The misunderstanding slid from her face, replaced by laughter. She rolled her eyes back, pointing behind her. She had to return to the hustle and bustle of being a promo girl in Vegas, one of the many costumes she wore.

“I don’t know how-ya do it,” I said, touching her shoulder.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” She turned around, leaving me among the swarms of people. Just like me, they were all searching in the wrong places for answers they already knew.

“Wait,” she shouted, “One last thing. Drink water, you’re dehydrated.”

Damn, I whispered to myself, and walked away stroking my cracked lips. Little did I know that three days later, I’d be in Ray’s apartment.

* * * * *

On November 1st, armed with six months of meticulous, secret preparations, I quit my jobs and sold almost everything I owned. I left bike racing, my friends, my family and my lovers. I packed up my little 40-year-old pickup truck and headed out for a yearlong adventure, determined to wander around the good ol’ USA with the goal of leaving my old “self” behind. I was searching for a new identity. Artist? Writer? Vagabond? Anything but a bike racer.
I have always fantasized about the drifting 1950s, a life full of rushed novels, innocent freedoms and unhindered exploration. I was 17-years-old when I first began a pattern of spontaneously escaping my life through hitchhiking, long bike trips, hermitage in wild mountains. I believed I could run away from whatever haunted me and find time to reset and reflect.

My current adventure began by heading south, along the untamed coast of Highway-101, through dense forests full of ghosts and creaking limbs and into the rotting streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district where I sat on curbs conversing with crack addicts and prostitutes. From there I escaped down Highway-1, to the endless seaside cliffs of Big Sur, where I trekked up mountain peaks, finding hot springs, campfires and solitude.

Then, I headed further south to the unobtainable glamour of Los Angeles, where drugs and sleepless nights made me insane, nearly destroying me before I hightailed it east on Interstate-8 to the Southwest; a barren landscape full of plants shaped like predators, miles of empty trails to run through and yes, the sanctuary of desert desolation.

On this journey, I hoped to find out more about myself by trying to understand the identities of others. Along with porn stars, I’ve met cage fighters, drag queens, transsexuals, disenchanted actors, wise tow truck drivers and amblin’ street kids.

I met a person who was walking from Oregon to New York. I met rappers, DJs and hipsters who were too hip to be hip. I met a skateboarder, infamous for his explosive antics and accidental run-ins with the FEDS.

And what did I find in these people? I began to find myself. Everyday I would wake up, whether it was on a stranger’s couch, or on the side of the highway, and I would crave one thing: exercise.

I had thought that the drugs, the alcohol, the illicit sex and endless “artistic” nights were what I had to adopt. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not escape my identity. I thought in order to be an artist I had to kill my athletic self.

* * * * *

On the floor of Ray’s apartment, tucked in the quiet hills of Las Vegas, as her and I laughed and rolled around within hours and hours of conversation, she stopped and looked at me and said, “You’re looking for answers everywhere when you should be looking for the right questions.”

I had no answer for her. But, I was beginning to understand my questions were leading me back to racing bicycles, to shaved legs, to five hour training rides and to quiet nights tucked in front of a fire place with wild ideas in my head and a pen snug in my hand dreaming of where the next adventure will take me.

For often I have to kill what I love to determine if it is worth reviving.