Going Somewhere: A Bicycle Journey Across America by Brian Benson Read Free Book Online Page A

the bikes, even if said bikes were in working order. And at present there was no reason to believe they would be. We’d spend the next few months breaking things, hitching rides, and finding someone else to solve our problems.
    My hand found its way to the Lump. It felt bigger than ever and lava hot. I was more sure than ever that something was in there, something more than blood cells and swollen tissue. I had no idea what it was, but it felt like an omen. I couldn’t control my body or my bike, let alone the miles that lay before us.
    I leaned against the wheel well and looked at Rachel. She had her arms spread across the bed’s rusty sidewall, her eyes closed. Her hair danced in the breeze, trailing behind her like a meteor tail. I had to smile. As a kid, I had loved few things more than riding in the back of Dad’s truck. Even when it was just parked in the driveway, I’d climb in and poke around the bed liner for treasures, watch Dad chop wood or just sit and daydream about going somewhere. We are going somewhere, I told myself. I closed my eyes and repeated the words. Once. Twice. Five times. And then, for a few moments, I thought nothing. Just listened to the engine’s muted drone and felt the wind tousle my hair.
     • • • 
    A half hour later, our chauffeur dropped us off at Hines Park, a pretty little spot that hugged the river running through Park Falls. After offering a few suggestions for what to check out and refusing our offer to give him some gas money, he gave us a wave and drove back in the direction he’d come from. I got the feeling he hadn’t really needed to go to Butternut, much less Park Falls, and was probably headed straight back to work.
    I moped as we set up the tent. We’d ridden a mere thirty-four miles, hitched another nineteen, and now we were going to pay five bucks apiece to camp in a cushy park with picnic tables, bathrooms, and barbecue grills. I figured we’d occasionally pay for camping, but only when we craved luxury after some particularly hard riding. Only when we’d earned it.
    “Ridiculous,” I muttered, loud enough for Rachel to hear. I wanted to make sure she noted my turmoil. “On the second day. This is so goddamn frustrating.”
    “It’s fine,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”
    “Yeah, I know, but I just feel bad. I mean, it’d be different if it was just me.” As I said this, I noted it was utter bullshit. Then continued. “But now you have to wait while I figure out why my bike hates me.”
    Rachel stood and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Brian,” she said, hanging on the
i
in the way people often did when I was making them feel tender or exasperated, “I’m fine. I mean, I wish you didn’t have to hitch to Ashland, but why worry? This is a beautiful park and we get to check out a new town.”
    I considered this. It
was
a pretty nice park, with bathrooms, picnic tables, and barbecue grills. And though I’d grown up close to Park Falls, had watched their basketball team destroy ours on a regular basis, I’d never seen the town.
    “Want to take a walk?” she asked. “We can set this stuff up later.”
    We threw everything in the tent and locked our bikes to a pine. Just north of the park was a bridge spanning the river, and we crossed it, staring up at a wall of concrete. The entire eastern bank seemed to be property of Flambeau River Papers, whose logo was pasted onto an array of profoundly drab buildings, most prominent among them a windowless mill that looked not unlike a prison. We continued past the mill and into town, passing the standard beacons: grocery store, post office, seven bars. As we walked by an old theater, which, owing to a neon marquee that spelled out “Park,” looked like the world’s classiest parking garage, a man on a bike rode past, towing a yellow trailer containing one bag of groceries and one tiny child.
    Rachel gave me a pat on the ass and mouthed, “Go.”
    I caught him at the intersection, where