Trip Across the Heartland of America (from Weathers)

This is a story I wrote in 1974 about the return trip from a visit to some large equipment manufacturer or another (Caterpillar?) in Moline, Illinois. Moline is one of the Quad Cities. The others are Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa which is just across the Mississippi river from Illinois. There is a fourth city but I have forgotten it, which is an easy thing to do.


We rented a 1974 Pontiac Grand Prix because it was the only car available. However, it cost only a little more to drive across Illinois than it does for two people to fly.

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We stayed in the Holiday Inn not far from the Quad Cities Airport. At night we went to the Holiday Inn bar and watched a group of country performers. There were two sisters and a man whom I assumed was their father.

The girls wore long skirts and one played guitar while hopping up and down to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”.

A. became fascinated by the girls who danced. Even now, he speaks wistfully about our time in the darkened bar where the girls wore long skirts and clogged and, the men wore suits and white socks, unaware of the dangerous Southern boys in their midst, full of bile and irony.

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We talked of this and that and watched the countryside go by. The farms were identical. Each had a white, two-story frame house, a barn, and three other outbuildings. Each house was surrounded equally on all sides by 192.3 acres of land. The land was wrinkled where there were no farms. Glaciers had pushed the ground into neat, parallel folds. I think the trees growing leafless from the folds were elms. I imagined that Indians were buried underneath.

A. cannot go far without beer. So we made flying stop at some unknown tavern off the interstate in the middle of an unknown field. While A. searched for beer through the maze of dark, nearly deserted hallways I found a bathroom. I had to pee all the way across the Great Heartland of America. For once, A. did not make fun of me and stopped whenever I asked. However, I did not bother him often and suffered a great deal in silence. Once, while passing a snowy pasture I dreamed of peeing in his beer.

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A girl with large Midwestern breasts, at a motel where we stopped to ask directions, led us astray and we ended up at Lake Michigan instead of the O’Hare Airport.

Lake Michigan was the color of suet and filled with rolling chunks of ice that ate the shore. Lake Michigan was filled with frozen vomit from the poorer sections of the city.

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We missed our flight and had to wait six hours. First we visited several bars then we went to the international terminal and watched people come through customs. Noses pressed against the glass like children we laughed as clean-cut young agents searched for dope and contraband.

A. got involved in a complicated discussion with a waitress about how to pay a bar bill. He wanted to use his American Express card but she wasn’t sure. Finally, it was resolved his way and that led to a discussion about how to steal credit cards and travel around the world.

There are 1,336 bars in the O’Hare Airport, one for every holiday, religion, and race. We spent most of our time in the Interdenominational Caucasian Christmas bar.

There is a giant room beneath the O’Hare Airport. It extends all the way under the city to Lake Michigan. They bring airplanes here to be painted with muddy water. It is also used to wind up stewardesses and businessmen.

The fog over O’Hare airport eats airplanes. They trundle down the runway beside the Christmas bar and are never seen again.

A. and I ran out of conversation and six p.m. The plane left at eight.