Picton, New Zealand • March 2007
On the road, out of Picton, I meet two young travelers living the bygone hippie dream: a girl from Massachusetts and a guy from Inverness, Scotland. They met in a hostel and rented a Volkswagen bus and left. They saw me on the road with all of my gear and pulled over honkingly.
I crawl into the back of their van. I clamber onto large lumpy mattress covered in travel detritus, the payloads of two rucksacks erupted. Loaves of bread lie smashed. Travel guides splay with spines broken. Shoes support each other like Stonehenge dolmens. Clothes flop and unfold in crime scene silhouettes. I lie back on all of this.
The guy floors the van around curves, accelerating into them, laughing as the van skids and wiggles. The girl asks me, “You’re just hitching around? That’s so cool. Have you heard Bob Marley? He’s marv. So much marvy music from that era.”
They lean in and kiss blindly, the van swerving where it will. I grip the sides of the mattress, ready to roll myself in it like a pig in a poke as the van tumbles side over side.
“Which one is the politician slash freedom song?” the girl asks.
“They’re oll ‘politician slash freedom’ sengs!” The guy laughs. He winks in the rearview at me. “God bless you Yanks.”
They offer no weed, nor smoke any, so maybe my vibe’s not right, too observant, not participatory enough. I lean back and watch out the windows.
They argue over the definition of “redundancy,” she arguing it’s an abstract noun, he arguing it’s a workplace term for someone who’s about to be fired. I tell them it can be either. They accept this, disappointed.
They shut off the Bob Marley. They ask me, “Have you ever heard Dane Cook?”
“No,” I say, fingering my own headphones.
They put on the Dane Cook. I lean back in the van and place my own earbuds in. I hear only a burst of Dane Cook before my music drowns him out. I listen for their laughs and laugh accordingly.
We pass sun-washed hills, hairpin curves, background mountains, and mussel farms.
I do not learn their names, because names are not important. We share an experience, an experience best seen through van windows. The best comments are short observations, acknowledgements of the beauty and experience without. These comments are succinct and sincere, unprofound and true.
They wish me the best, and I wish them the same.
To Verb 