My Bruce Springsteen Road Trip
A week after I got back, a tour bus with forty French people on their way south hit strong winds that sent the mammoth bus skidding across 101. It collided into the barricade which peeled the roof back like a sardine can, scattering bodies, living and near-dead, across the highway. Only a few actually died. It could have been much worse. But it was a grotesque sight on the evening news. I think I actually saw one of the casualties in a body bag courtesy of the skycam. But my road trip was safe, simple. No near-misses, no close calls. If it hadn’t been for a jackknifed rig, somewhere halfway between nowhere and even farther, the whole driving aspect of the trip would have been uneventful, a sidenote in the narrative of a rock and roll roadtrip.
I say ‘a’ rock and roll road trip, like it’s a common practice. Really, I had never road tripped to a show before even though Bruce Springsteen shows had long been a tradition in my family. I had seen him many times over the years, spanning from the eighties to the present. When we went to the Born in the USA tour, I was eight. It was my first concert ever. As we walked out after the three(plus)-hour show, my mom said, “That’s the best time I’ve ever had with my clothes on!” I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but gauging from the reaction of her friends, I knew that seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert was potentially a life-changing experience.
But this tour was different. Mom had been gone for over a year. The pain was less intense, different. Springsteen shows were a great respite from the ugliness still inside my head. Memories of the last weeks, days, minutes. The most terrifying moments, even years and years later, would remain the most vivid, the most difficult to shake. But when the house lights went down and the band took the stage, everything was easier for a few hours. Feeling the words and notes, I was transfixed by the beauty and tragedy of it all. Certainly, my brain fed on all the American Dream stuff. The myth of a classless American society. Skepticism about real equality. Apprehensions about the freedoms we so fervently defend against foreign enemies. Everything I needed to know about social activism and/or Marxism I learned from Bruce Springsteen. But, ultimately, these lyrics preached about the ecstasy and the agony, the triumph and the terror of life. It was never one or the other, but always a balance of both. I heard him say once that he didn’t like to write happy songs because people didn’t like them as much. I think he was right. There always has to be that underlying pain, fear, vulnerability. It doesn’t have real impact unless there’s a chance you might fuck it up this time.
I left early that morning, a six-hour road trip leaving plenty of hours for pre-partying in the parking lot. Even though I was going alone, I still bought a twelver of Tecate for the cooler in the trunk. There’s nothing more useful for making strangers into friends than a surplus of beer. Along with a bunch of Diet Cokes, some chips, some candy. A little bit of Mom would always be with me on days like this. She would have been the one prepared for anything, with a Diet Coke in her hand and a sweet thing in her pocket. The one to spontaneously let out a squeal, barely able to contain her excitement. When the screen on my satellite radio lit, I was glad to see Cleveland ’78. The Darkness tour. That insane version of “Backstreets.” What a lovely day for a drive. With a reliable car, a huge amount of hope, and a Bruce ticket for that night, I made my departure.
This could have been a two-show trip if I hadn’t had to teach my night class at the community college the previous night. After class, I rushed home, turned on the computer and played the late-night live show on satellite while I reviewed the setlist on the internet. “Raise your Hand”! What?!? I kept my fingers crossed even in my sleep, hoping he would leave it in the set for one more night. Even if he didn’t, seeing a show would save me from hours of suffocating loneliness. Plus, afterwards I will have gone to my first show by myself, braved the awkwardness of sitting by myself, standing in the beer line by myself, running to the girl’s room by myself. I’ll know if I’m truly strong enough to endure it all.
“This is for Joey, Tommy, Mikey and all the Cleveland boys . . .because I love ‘em so much” he said as he began the rough, guitar-driven intro to “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Luckily, the ’78 shows were pretty long, so since I started right at nine, this show alone would take me halfway to L.A. I had never driven down there, ever, much less by myself, but I knew there was a lot of road ahead and a whole lot of nothing to look at. What most non-Californians probably don’t know about our great state is that most of the vast space is completely desolate. There are many areas that are densely populated, towns like Santa Cruz where the living spaces are so impacted that I know when my neighbors have sex or stuffy noses. But so much of the rest of the state is so desolate and dreary that even just driving through makes me want to kill myself. As I crossed vast spans of nothing, I found many of these little towns tucked between rolling hills and oil fields. Some had evolved into elaborate truck stops, one even had a gas station called Bruce’s, but most remained steeped in nowhereness, the signs identifying their names only exacerbating the loneliness. One was named Lost Hills, clearly founded by some allegorical poet. I know if I lived there I would end up going on a murderous rampage. I’d give in to the meanness of this world.
When the tour was first announced, the idea of going to shows by myself still seemed pretty absurd. The travel. The expense. A woman, all alone. The sobriety factor—how would I get back to the hotel after all the drinking I planned to do? The awkwardness of sitting in the seat by myself, all the coupled, grouped, people nearby eyeing me with suspicion. But, when I weighed the alternatives, it seemed like the best option. When Mom went to the hospital for the last time last spring, we had tickets for the April show in San Jose, which I reminded her about every time she woke up. It was something to look forward to. It was already the second leg of the Magic tour, and we had already seen two dates in the fall. Those fall shows were a challenge. Even from disabled parking, we had a long walk to the venue. Then there were the stairs, two flights to get inside, another two to get to our crappy seats, Mom panting the whole way. She was able to walk it herself at that point, though a wheelchair would have been a big help. As long as she went slowly, she was able to catch her breath at the top. Of course, the crowds made it worse. I guarded her from the pushy people rushing by and would have carried her over my shoulder if I could. But she was determined and insisted that she would go to those shows regardless of her disease. She would enjoy the life she had left. On the way home that night, she drove with me beer saturated in the passenger seat and when the bonus track came on, Bruce’s homage to an old friend who had recently passed, I sobbed like a kid, telling her how I wished I could write a song like that for her. I’d write about how she used to be. So young and hard. For a moment that night, we both admitted to each other and ourselves that she was going to die. Then, she hit the skip button, returning to the driving rock anthem that began the CD, and we pretended it never happened.
I was nearing Soledad, a town full of highway patrol, so I stopped to grab some gas, hit the girl’s room, stretch a little. I found an exit with five gas stations, eight drive-thrus, and nothing else but the local population barely subsisting off the agricultural economy. I went inside to pee first before pumping the gas and found a surprisingly clean gas station toilet. The webbed skin between my ring finger and pinkie had split. It wasn’t actively bleeding at the moment, but when I washed my hands with soap the sting reminded me it was there. No bandaids would stick to that spot. As I pumped gas, a blue truck with three Mexican guys inside pulled up behind me. When I looked back, an unintentionally pleasant look on my babyface, all three smiled. I returned the smile intentionally, appreciative of the uncomplicated gesture of kindness. Of course, it was possible that inside the cab they were talking in Spanish about my tetas grandes, my puta, and how they would like to fuck me, but at least on the surface they seemed gentle and benevolent. I’d take whatever I could get.
Once I was back on the road, I took a long look across the low hills on the horizon. I thought of the Spanish missionaries who once traveled this King’s highway in search of Indians to convert. I thought of travelling these great expanses on horseback and the wolves, coyotes, maybe bears who threatened the Californios on their journeys. I also thought of the many frontierspeople, who, like my mother, had ventured into this wild territory to escape. For many, maybe most, California was a place to reinvent yourself, to produce a new future out of a complicated past. At times, I thought about going farther West out into the Pacific, Hawai’i, maybe Samoa, some place I could go to reinvent myself away from all these sad memories. But as I glanced in the rearview, scanning for police, I spied my rapidly graying hair, rolling my own eyes at myself:
Shut the fuck up, lady, you’re way too fucking old to just do something nutty. Sure, the vagabond idea is romantic, but you’ve worked so hard for so many years, you can’t just piss it all away now. Keep the life insurance money in a conservative CD, collect the interest each year and blow it on something frivolous—Mom would love that—but otherwise, be reasonable, rational, do what is “right” and shut up. You’re not a kid anymore and there’s no one to bail you out if you fuck up.
My tires shrieked a little as I barely caught the right exit. Luckily, I had the post-it with directions stuck to the dash. If I hadn’t been periodically glancing at it for the last three hours, I would have missed the rural highway that connected one big interstate to the other. That was one of the complications with taking road trips alone: no one to remind you of where you were, to keep you focused on the proper direction in uncharted territory. I soon realized that this was one of those roads that would be terrifying alone at night. Dry and desolate, abandoned farmhouses occasionally interrupted the emptiness, but for the most part this two-lane road brought the only semblance of life to the area. No rest stops. No gas stations. No titty bars. Just road and nothing. Except roadkill. Most of the it was so obliterated by traffic a veterinarian would probably need DNA to figure out what kind of animal that used to be. Except birds, there wasn’t a living animal in sight. A few turkey vultures circled above the low hills, capitalizing on others’ misfortunes. Along with the roadkill came a wide variety of odors, ranging from gross to horrifying. One smell was so terrible it made me cough for five minutes until I finally gagged. With eyes watering, road blurry, I rifled through the glove box until I found a single cough drop. The mentholyptus action provided a little relief. Like sticking one of those air freshener trees inside your head.
Approaching the outskirts of L.A., I got a little nervous about the traffic, the crazy drivers. I did notice that people followed close, too close. Every car was driven by an impatient madman who didn’t want to be in front. The madman wanted to be behind you in case there was a ChiPpy around the next curve, so you would be the one to get the ticket. And you were never going fast enough. No matter what. But the directions were clear, the signs straightforward. Overall, it was an easy trip.
The cheap hotel I booked online turned out to be surprisingly classy. The surrounding blocks looked very industrial and dirty, but it was LA and no one walked here anyway. The Hollywood sign loomed above on the side of a low hill. I don’t think I had ever seen it before. Inside, there were beautiful, ornate rugs and tapestries, and the front desk people were very pretty and thin. “Checking in?” asked the ambiguously raced dark-haired girl behind the counter. Her lips pursed, clearly unimpressed by the windblown ponytail, the stretchy muumuu, luggage consisting of a fabric tote and a paper grocery bag. Home’s a long, long way from here. Once I checked in, I wanted to clean up and put a little makeup on. The shower was absurd. The floor of it was split into two levels. The lower level was closest to the spigot, but when I stood there, the water sprayed just above my head. The higher level was farther back, but to get my face wet I would need to crouch down. Plus, it was very narrow, the shower curtain liner always touching my hip and creeping me out. I wondered who was in the shower last and what other body parts that plastic might have touched. After getting as clean as I could under the circumstances, I dressed quickly, threw on a little makeup, and downed a couple of Tecates, a Lifetime movie with Eric Roberts playing for background noise. Normally, I would forgo the makeup; however, this was So. Cal, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to err on the side of pretty. Even the drive to the arena was simple and quick. Of course, by this point it was about six in the evening and the freeways were clogged with commuters. The hotel was close though, so it didn’t take more than fifteen minutes or so, leaving plenty of time for the trunk beers and to investigate the BTX pre-party that was mentioned on several chat rooms on the website.
Backstreets Ticket Exchange (BTX) was one of the many websites where Springsteen fans go to celebrate, bicker, and obsess about his music and live shows. When things had become too dark and I was lost in all the sadness, the site gave me much comfort. These fans, from different countries and cultures and at different stages in their lives, also felt invigorated by the music. It made them hopeful, alive. They too had experienced tragedy. They too had lost mothers, wives, children they also felt inspired by all those old songs, and even some of the new ones. Listening to one of those old bootlegs on satellite radio one day, I heard him say that he wrote two kinds of songs: “I write songs about hope, and about eternal damnation.” Even though, at first, I thought he was referring to all the sex songs, the ones from thirty years ago when he just wanted to get laid, a lot, later I came to realize that those songs about eternal damnation were about everything else besides hope. Because without hope you had nothing but your own personal hell to endure. The hell you built for yourself.
My family of Bruce freaks understood that, so once I read their entries last summer about going to Kansas City, so full of excitement and expectation, I had to fly there. I had family in the area, after all. It wasn’t like I was just going there for a Bruce Springsteen show. Once the lights went out, I felt so much better, less alone. And he played “Sandy” that night, dedicating it to Danny and Terry. In my mind I might have heard him say my mom’s name also.
When my cousin and her redneck husband picked me up from the airport, they asked if I should call someone to say I had arrived safely, maybe my friend Becky?
“No, it’s Ok—No, I’m an orphan now. There’s no one to call.”
“Oh, you’re no orphan, kid, who said that?” Mike said, grabbing my bags out of my hands, throwing them into the trunk, pulling out the cooler with some tall boys for the drive home. I love white trash people.
But later that weekend, I decided to call Becky. It had been a long, crazy weekend with all the travel and the concert. So much had happened, and I still wanted to call my mom so bad. I was barely over that stage of grabbing the phone and mindlessly scrolling down to her number, forgetting she was gone for a moment before I’d realize and have to feel it all over again. The night before I returned, everyone else went to bed early for school or work the next day, so I went back and sat in the rental so I could be by myself, in the dark, country night, listening to Bruce Springsteen. It was early still in California, so I hit Becky’s number. She always swore she’d be my new family. She answered and after a couple minutes of telling her about my day, the concert, how lonely and dreary Kansas was, she says that dinner is ready, so she needs to go. Dinner is ready? Are you serious? At a time like this you’re worried about dinner? Don’t you know what I’ve been through? But she didn’t and couldn’t. I hung up quickly and didn’t try anyone else. I just leaned the seat back, turned the volume up and tried to get used to the loneliness.
When I rolled into the lot, satellite radio was playing a 2002 show. Lots of hope in those shows. Lots of faith. I parked with the radio on, opened the trunk, popped a beer, and bullshitted with a few of the people parked near me. After a couple of trunk beers, I set out to find the BTX bar. No luck. Every building was a coffee shop or liquor store or gas station and I didn’t want to get too far from the venue. I grabbed a tall coffee and returned to the car. The Bruce show was still playing, so I opened the windows and lit the parking lot joint I had rolled the night before. The only person who approached me was a hippie with a Jesus beard who looked straight out of Santa Cruz. Smiling, he held out a postcard and asked: “Would you like this copy of my painting?”
“Sure, thanks” I said, smiling back. The postcard included his email. His first name was Josh. He’d painted a watercolor portrait of seventies-era Bruce wearing an undershirt and jeans, the silhouette of Clarence in the background in a pimp fedora. I wanted to offer him a toke of my joint. It would have made the whole exchange feel more like home. But, this was still LA. I wouldn’t want to take any chances.
I milled around for awhile, wishing I had someone to talk to. A few hours of relief. Once I went inside, I grabbed another beer and took my seat. The people beside me sat down soon after and chatted me up a little. The guy was fat and Italian. Sweaty. If I had to guess who had blown up the Chicken Man in Philly last night, I would have said it was this guy. His girl was this petite, dyed redhead with a big mouth. They had driven in from Vegas. He was the real fan—she was just the accessory.
“So, you drove for six hours by yourself just to go to a concert?” she said, squawking like a bird, brow furrowed, like she might still switch seats with the guy.
“Well, yeah, it’s Bruce Springsteen.”
“Funny, I just can’t imagine doing that by myself!”
“Well, I used to be the kind of person who never did anything on my own. I missed a lot.”
She smiled like I was insane and, shortly after, the concert began. After ten or fifteen great songs and a special appearance from an aging SoCal punk rocker, Bruce’s piano man began the first notes of “Backstreets.” The Vegas Mafioso behind me tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a high-five. When he asked before, I said that this was what I was hoping to hear. I wanted to believe that love lasted forever, that friends would be there through it all.
Leaving LA in the morning, satellite radio played the concert right after Danny died. He was the organist, an original bandmember who had played with Bruce long before the band existed. He passed only six weeks or so after my mother. Also, too young. Near the end of the show, Bruce began to sing the old spiritual, “I’ll Fly Away.” I rolled down the window, sped up, and held my fingers up to feel the wind. Everything will be alright. I adjusted the satellite receiver to see the date of the recording and I spotted a car ahead with the license plate WNDYCAR. Maybe she was named after the girl in Peter Pan, like my mother, or maybe she really liked “Born to Run.” I took a picture, sent it to a friend, kept proof so no one thought I was making it up. Then I cried for eight or ten miles. Lead-footing it out of Los Angeles, I let it all flood out, the wind blowing back my hair.
A couple hours away, the jackknifed rig on Highway nowhere kept me stationary for awhile. I asked the old cowboy behind me how long it would take if I turned back. He said a long time. I told him I had some cold beers in the back from the concert last night.
“Who was playing?”
“Bruce Springsteen”
“Was he any good?”
Before I could answer, the CHiPpies drove by announcing over their speakers to Get back into your car! I got back into my car and turned up the radio. “Jungleland.” I remembered loving that song from the very start. Before I could even understand the emotions involved, I was drawn to the romantic images. The soft rain. The girl on the hood of the sleek machine. I also remembered that one time we heard him play it together. I could see her in my mind, smiling and nodding as I mouthed the words: He’s not really playing this! But then Clarence began his solo and I came back into the real world. In the hot car, with the lukewarm Diet Coke, each window facing out to nothing. And it all felt so intense. I would later read that Clarence said that he didn’t play this part, that God did. I believed him. I knew it was all worth it. It was worth it to love something this much.
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