The Badlands

It feels like an oven, or a toaster, or some other appliance more creative than either of those. It’s one-hundred degrees, five in the evening, and smoky too. I’m in the Badlands of South Dakota. I didn’t know what to expect before coming here, but decided this afternoon, sweating, that badlands is an accurate way to describe this moonscape. All that is missing now is an orchestra playing a sad song a few hundred feet away. There’s ambiance here, but it’s a gloomy one, or perhaps I’m just gloomy. I’d have been alone here five years ago, but in the last five years the world has aged 5,000, and I’ve aged at least twenty extra.

The pandemic hit while I was running. I was in New Orleans then, working at a hostel leading pub crawls in exchange for a bed to sleep on and unlimited Costco vodka. I started some ‘little thing’ with a girl who was ‘technically a princess’ in Ghana. ‘But anyone that can leave Africa, does’, she had told me. She was way outta my league, I could tell by everyone’s looks as they watched her aggressively smother me with kisses in public. Her furniture was all inflatable -the couch, armchair, bed, bedside table- all of it. She didn’t have a tv, but a projector. At the end of it all when the pandemic hit and Bourbon street along with the world at large shut down, I drove her to Walmart so she could return all the inflatables.

That must've been April, early April if I remember right. Then, there were no more college students coming to drink their hearts and livers away for the weekend. Then, it was just me, the other hostel employees and a few homeless people who’d seized the opportunity of having a bed at reduced cost. One night, just before I left the hostel, a tramp from Mississippi sang an original song that still rings in my ear on hot nights, like this night. It went:

Let the good times flow

'Let the good times come

Let the good time roll

Let them roll until I’m done

Oh lord, let me have some fun

At least once more

Let the good times roll'

Tonight I, with the sweat dripping from my nose in the South Dakota Badlands, I see an RV in the distance flying our American flag. The generators are running.

I can’t help but think about what brought each of us here. How had all of these people each weathered the chaos of last year? Had they lost loved ones to the virus? Had they lost their job? Or had they not lost their job but instead the love for their job? Maybe, like me, there was a dark point where they had decidedly lost their mind. Or possibly, a few people had even lost their homes in the wicked wildfire that furthered the torture of last year. Maybe their throat still aches from the choking smoke in the latter half of last year on the west coast.

But, here we all are. In the Badlands of South Dakota. In fact, the air is smoky, the virus is making a cruel comeback, and -generally speaking- the world has seemed as bleak as ever. I guess that we are in a new phase of ‘climate catastrophe.’

But, out here in the Badlands, in the heat, in the smoke, with the virus, with all of it… out here we are okay. Paul, the man to my left in an RV is from Florida. He brought me a blue moon beer and we talked about trout fishing in Oregon. And there is a lesbian couple traveling in Odyssey van from Washington parked behind me a few hundred feet. They just quit their minimum wage jobs in search of adventure. In sure of something more, something better. I haven’t talked to any of the other people staying out on this public land because I’m feeling shy and tired tonight.

What’s important -the catalyst for me writing this- is the realization that whatever dividends America is not as powerful as what binds us. I have no idea who these lovely people out here voted for. I don’t know what they think about climate change, or the virus, or abortion, or war, or happiness or diet or or or… And, I don’t care. We are all out here tonight. We all saw a green light and hit the road. We are all content staying out in the sweltering heat around total strangers. It’s a primal thing being out in this desolate wasteland. But, the stars are sure to be bright tonight and with the stars will be cooler air.

What I mean to say is that out here the thing that binds us is green light. Whatever we are, whatever we were, and whatever we will be does not matter. This evening we all saw the green light of opportunity and left our homes to get some space. To enjoy the outdoors. Out here, failed wars, raging viruses and wildfires, intense elections, floods, mudslides, and and and…

The chaos doesn’t matter out here. We all saw a green light and hit the accelerator towards it to beat the yellow.