Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas Read Free Book Online

“Ken, you’re going to be $32,000 in debt. What are you going to do?”
    “I told you what I’m going to do about my loans,” I said. “I’m going to fake my death. You already knew that.”
    I was joking, but I really did—if just for a moment—consider the idea. I thought if I yanked out a few teeth, scattered them in my car, and burned it to a crisp before shoving it into Lake Ontario, then maybe the loan collectors would take me for dead. Without an identity, I’d have no choice but to melt into undocumented, under-the-table America—perhaps landscaping alongside Mexican itinerants or living on the second floor of a dingy pizzeria. Or maybe I could just skip the country and leave my debt behind. I’d go to some exotic archipelago, some lawless corner of Southeast Asia where I could embrace a life of crime. I’d start small, but over time I’d become kingpin of the region’s drug trade. I’d develop a paunch, wear silk shirts, and maintain a tan. I’d be merciful, yet ruthless—a benevolent dictator of sorts, keeping obedient villages safe but crushing those late to pay their tributes with an iron fist.
    Unfortunately, my mother had cosigned the loans with me, which meant the burden of paying them off would fall on her if I disappeared.
    “Do you realize how much $32,000 is?” my mom asked. “You have two loans. The interest rates are 4.75 percent. If you don’tmake your payments, the interest will keep rising and rising, and so will your debt. Do you know what that means?”
    “God, Mom, I’ll be all right!” I said. “You’re acting crazy again. I told you not to worry about it.”
    “I can’t help but worry about it!” she cried. “What are you going to do?! Really, Ken… What are you going to do?” Suddenly, she put her head down on the table and wept. It was one of the few times I’d seen my mother cry. I looked on in disbelief.
    What
was
I going to do?
    “Really, Mom… Please don’t worry. I’ll pay them off.”
    Today, I realized, was the day I’d have to start dealing with my loans.
    My debt, I decided, would be the next mountain I’d try to climb. It would be my Blue Cloud. It would be an adventure.

3
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APPLICANT
    August 2005–May 2006 University at Buffalo
    DEBT: $32,000
    I SPENT MY LAST YEAR of college trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. Throughout my education, despite becoming ever more aware of an unforgiving job market and my impending financial crisis, I thought that I’d be okay. More than okay, actually. I imagined that Fortune would take pity and bequeath to me, and only me, a wonderful job and modest salary. Maybe it would all go down at the Home Depot, when I’d be loading drywall onto the bed of a customer’s truck, and the customer—who happened to be a philanthropic billionaire (who, for whatever reason, did his home improvement shopping in the sketchy part of Niagara Falls)—would see in me some quality that no one else could, eagerly hooking me up with connections in Washington to become a congressman’s trusty aide or inviting me to rehabilitate distressed seals in his secret underwater dome.
    But I didn’t know anyone with connections: no philanthropicbillionaires, no seedy uncles, no former employers. Maybe I didn’t know anyone, but I reassured myself that I was, in fact, an alluring job candidate. I could boast of a B.A. in history and English from a respectable college, a couple of internships under my belt, not to mention a long history of employment.
Who wouldn’t want to hire me?
I’d failed to realize, though, that my credentials were identical to those of thousands of other job-seeking grads. Not only that, but my résumé indicated to prospective employers that I was capable of little more than low-skill, low-responsibility work that no one else wanted. Before I was a lodge cleaner in Coldfoot and a cart-pusher at Home Depot, I’d been a paperboy, a supermarket cashier, a public skating rink guard,