Summer 20

[kingtycoon]

A couple of weeks ago in the depths of the quarantine I got pointed to this event - the socially distant & appropriate style event which I decided would be this year's trip. Last year there was no trip owing to the lingering & horrific death of my old father. This year it was Chicago-ish. There's, evidently a con in Chi every year about horror movies but it failed to manifest, as all things do in the plague year. But they had a consolation & a plan - they'd get Bruce Campbell to talk & take socially distant photos & give away pre-signed posters at a drive in movie theater pretty close to Iowa in Dixon IL.

So look - it was fine. Agatha figured out back during the deep quarantine that she really likes Army of Darkness. My little brother, bless him, was stoked to learn it as it is the name of his hockey team. He couldn't make the trip with us so it was her & me & the car that I rented to take a trip. We take a long late drive to Chicago on Thursday - kicking out jams & racing out west trying to keep up with the sunset - vampires on our trail, trouble following.

Whenever I rent a car, or go on an airplane they always give me a free better seat or car. They just like me I guess. Always more than I asked for. This time I got a nice pickup truck to drive & to camp out in for the day. We race in this li'l boy all the way to chicago which is shockingly vacant even at 2-3 in the AM. Quiet & with haunting streetsigns lining the highway "If you're coming from a Covid hotspot you must quarantine for 14 days". I don't think I'm in a hotspot. I don't think I am... Am I? Cuyahoga county is tough but hotspot means FLA right? AZ? The death zones?



IN Chicago we lean on the Disobeybie's hospitality. She'll always love me because of how I'm loveable. Even if I lack the qualities of good boyfriendship. Her new house is charming & good. We see it all & stay up late listening to records & having whiskey & vaping while Agatha makes fun of us. The next day we have time for breakfast & to meet her own yougn cub - a very small smallo & then to jet away to Dixon.

Shoot, I've got to figure out my tolls online. Glad to remember. It's pretty weird in rural illinois. Went past the supercolider - fermilab where once I wandered by accident - but this time, no stopping, no sleep, no rest until Dixon. Dixon is a dinky alright town that had real Akron vibes Then you leave it behind & find a cornfield & in it's a drive in movie.

Agatha is enraged by the poor quality of the walmart workers. She's a grocery clerk now, on the side, and is incensed by the poor performance she sees. I take in her judgements & am pleased by their virtues. Also walmart continues to mystify me by its persistence accross the world. I can't believe that people want to go to there or be in there or buy things from there. It's just the worst every time I've been. Which is - when you go to the country & only then. The country is a weird, hard place to be & probably be from. But they do have the only drive in movie theater still intact so that's points to the ceaseless green sea of growing food. A wild place.

It's like a long picnic all day in the bed of our truck & having hangouts & just checking the place out. It's small & nice. It crowds up & then there's the careful meeting with Bruce - Agatha finds this kid's missing toy's gun. Err - boom stick. These kids were all distraught about it & I was staring at the gravel for a while. "What would you think - what would it mean if you saw a stone or some stones & they had a pattern that repeated - like a texture in a game? Or if you saw a cloud that was the same as another cloud - perfectly the same? So many rocks & each is its own way. You think of a rock & it's just rock but then describe in your mind what about it is different from other rocks... Now it is a self - how does it gain agency from that self-ness?"

"Alright dad, just calm down." And then she found the dude's toy gun.



Bruce does a Q & A and is good - he's great with the fans. I'd seen him talk once before - I shocked A telling her she'd seen him as well - back at the first wizard world they did in CLE. He'd been there - they got their bigshots to launch the thing. Shatner - some people from some Wheedon show - you know the geek heroes.

Now A is a horror fan. Horror kid. I did not see that coming. Despite my love of monsters & will to invent them I don't consume a lot of horror-based media. Most of it's not for me. Evil Dead is though - and after Bruce talks to us till sundown we watch his younger self fight monsters (and Sam Raimi).



We watch movies till 3 & I drive back to our base in Chicago listening to physicists on the phone. I see billboards everywhere, drive through restaurants - the whole world that passes you by when you don't do cars. The ugly bad world, really - and unrelentingly bleak. Injured? This is your chance to escape a life of drudgery & sorrow. Get injured! All the billboard lawyers whouff. And worse besides but still. Notable.

Chicago for another day - it's peaceful & meant for resting - we just see a little of the northern neighborhood that the Disobeybie & her kiddo live in. No tourist destinations, no big-bean. It's Covid! You gotta stay in. So we do. Another late night of laughing & whiskey & my kid making fun of us. She goes into detail about her romantic situations - the breakups & broken-hearted exes crying in their cars - frustrated. Her story is relatable & funny - too many people not trying hard enough, not quite good enough to make an impression. The Disobeybie makes fun of me - says I'm living vicariously. I claim no! No. She relents but I can't tell if it's out of an accord or pity. Everyone likes stories of heartbreak & comical dating misadventures right? We all like that. Don't we? Ah, that kid - she'll beat her own path. I'm into her tale.

IN the morning - very early I skate out of CHI like a ghost in the night - sneaky tricks & departures before dawn. I make it home by the afternoon where we kind of collapse in exhaustion.

I still have this car - till next week actually - I gotta go to Amish country next weekend to do my old boy Kingbelligerent's wedding. Practice.