Since moving to Arkansas, I've only been to one other town, which isn't all that surprising when where I live is the metropolitan center and capital of the state. To put it simply, there aren't a lot of reasons to leave when everything you need is close. But staying put is a bad way to soak in culture, and, though the trip to Hot Springs was satisfying, it was a limited sampling of what the Natural State has to offer.
Sam asked if I wanted to tag along when she went to facilitate an outreach for underprivileged kids in Monticello, AR. I asked where it was. She responded, "Close to Mississippi," as if it were a sales point. And then she noted that we'd have to get up early. While I'm not prone to sleeping in much these days, the idea of having to be up early put me in a funk. But I wasn't going to be doing anything beyond playing Mass Effect 3 if I stayed home so what the hell.
The plan was to take a rental care because somehow it would be cheaper than taking her own car and getting the gas comped by the museum. We had to go pick it up at 8 AM, which was the same time I'd ordinarily be waking up. That meant I'd have to be up earlier than 8 that day. Before 8, I'm a pitiful creature, a more lowly-evolved being. Language is an effort. Thoughts manifest in single emotions: rage, confusion, disappointment.
Sam told me that Enterprise had a Corolla and a Focus available, which were also what she and I drove, respectively. But the rentals were undoubtedly newer than my thirteen-year-old red rambler and Sam's ambiguously aged vehicle (I think an '07?). The youth of the rentals had promise: most cars anymore have that most hallowed feature of an auxiliary port for a headphone jack. No more of this FM transmitter disappointment. A clean signal with no intrusion by gospel or public radio! Hell, if it was a new Focus, it might even have a USB port to plug in the iPhone. I was more excited about this than arriving at the destination, especially when I knew next to nothing about the town and Wikipedia didn't yield more information on it.
Sam usually wakes up earlier than I do for her job (my previous job didn't require me to be there until the afternoon, both blessing and curse), and this morning kept that routine consistent. Only this time when she got up, the sun had yet to do so itself. Since I'm conditioned to take darkness as an indication to sleep or panic, I shut my eyes and pulled the covers in such a way to hide me from her. If she couldn't find me, she couldn't wake me up, right? Then I heard the question: "Still coming with?" My response was not English or any written language, but translation was simple: "Too tired but okay." The long singular syllable that escape my sleep-salivating gob was what I could mostly muster at 8 AM. Understood or ignored, I got up and let the shower start my day.
We made excellent time, likely do to Sam's impeccable planning. We got in he car but not before I grabbed my FM transmitter and iPhone USB cable. But then I remembered the prospect of the headphone jack in the car, so I went back inside to grab that too. I also recalled an iPhone car charger that I was compelled to find right then. We had time. I spent five minutes looking in boxes and drawers before I realized no ounce of will on my part was going to make the damn thing materialize after the third time I looked in the end table drawer. I scooped up a cable and got back in the car, only to realize that it was some random USB cable and not the headphone jack I came in to grab in the first place. I ran the stretch of sidewalk between our apartment building and Sam's Corolla like a sprinter conditioning in a pea coat. The return was uphill. I was winded and a little sweaty.
There was no Focus or Corolla waiting for us at the rental place. Instead, we got a Chrysler that was the biggest car I've ridden in recent memory. The legroom was incredible--so spacious that I forgot what proper posture was. My body slipped down the curvature of the seat and my toes never once reached the edge of the legroom. For a long-legged individual, there are a few greater indulgences, especially when most of those that said individual holds close and dear seem to exclusively drive compact cars. Optimally comfortable, we hit the road.
We depended on the rarely-dependable Apple Maps app on Sam's phone, possibly reduced to less dependability since she still hasn't updated to iOS 7. I'm not the update's biggest fan after it temporarily bricked my phone, but if it gave us some sensible directions I'd consider patching up our rocky relationship. We had to forego the robot lady's directions when we saw signs clearly marked for an exit to Monticello, but the robot lady seemed confident that our turn was a couple miles further. She also seemed to disagree with the physical presence of the road that said sign had marked as our little arrow avatar on the app's display showed us on a lonely curve, no opportunities for turning off in sight.
This was the furthest south I'd been. The lay of the land seemed to shift. Here, the hills stayed uniform to those we have in Little Rock, but trees were more plentiful. These were the trees that stood tall and had most of their branches towards the top like they were playing a game of keep-away from the leaf-eaters on the ground. The lady at the car rental place warned that the hour-and-forty-five-minute drive was boring. A couple times driving that stretch could get samey, but with virgin eyes I stayed attentive. Breaks between the patches of trees presented a bleak picture of rotting fallen logs and grassless turf that intimated death and left little hope that green would return come spring. Buildings along the highway gave off the same vibrations: empty, lifeless windows like black eyes sockets in a skull. A tipped over laundry basket briefly shone like a flickering beacon of life but no clothes suggested either an aborted mission for clean clothes or that the basket served an entirely different and unknown purpose.
The sky remained a dismal gray with ever ambiguous intentions: maybe us clouds will spit rain on you; we're still mulling it over. This nearly echoed the trip to Hot Springs. That day too was cold and overcast, but then there was an excitement for visiting that town. Hot Springs has a fascinating history with a mostly preserved historical area and famous features (I think you can guess what they are). Early research suggested that Monticello was an inflated version of my hometown.
In reality, it was about that. There may have been an insular sense of community here, but it was the sort that no outsider was going to feel. I dressed differently from most of them. Lots of camo, lots of Carhart, all a stark contrast to my tattered New Balances and messy wool coat that was missing a button and was about to lose another. Cowboy hats and hunting caps to my unwashed, naked hair. I met eyes with none but I wondered if they looked at me the same way I looked at strangers back home: don't make eye contact but watch them closely until they do something interesting or dangerous.
On the way home after eating lunch at a local hotspot called Ray's, the thought hit me like a stray bullet: I'd never felt more like city folk. I wouldn't consider myself a country boy by any means, but I've never wanted to be around more people as I did then. Not so much to be among them as to be near them, to know there is hope for heterogeneity, some variety, something different. It's hard to just call it "culture." That just feels condescending.
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