This Isn't Alabama So Don't Even Think About Trying to Marry Your Cousin Here

February 4, 2016

I have to wait behind a long line of people at the mini-mart attached to a sprawling truck stop on the far side of the freeway, but I don't mind because it gives me more time to stand with my hands wrapped around the warm breakfast sandwich I'm about to buy. I can't feel the end of my fingers after the half-mile ride over from the campground.

"Thank ya, angel," says the older woman behind the counter as I try to pick up the armload of bananas and trail mix and coffee we just bought.

We crank hard but slow into the wind. It's a north wind. It's a cold wind. But cold is now a relative thing. It's not in the low thirties; it's not overcast; there's not a layer of melting frost on every surface. In our layers of windproof clothing it doesn't seem all that bad. The same can't be said of the cars. Each driver is in a grand hurry like they've got a woman giving birth in the back seat, and yet they're just going to an office and a job they wish they could quit. They pass close and at high speed when all they'd have to do to avoid any chance of killing us is lift off the gas pedal for four seconds. I yell at the worst ones, those assholes and bastards and shitmotherscumbags.

I think they call this a marvel of modern engineering.

It gets better when we turn off onto side roads. The cars thin out and we start to ride among forests where the trees grow over the pavement and create an intricate patchwork of shadow and sun. Before we know it we're heading west and passing a big blue sign that reads Welcome to Mississippi. The slogan below it says, This isn't Alabama so don't even think about trying to marry your cousin here. Okay, it doesn't really. But that doesn't mean it's not true. You can in fact marry your cousin in Alabama – even your first cousin – if that's the sort of thing you're in to. I know that a law against marrying a family member isn't some high-water mark as far as modern civilization goes; yet I can't help but wonder if the worst of the unleashed-dog, car-on-blocks, dueling-banjo-soundtracked country is now behind us.

Then a car goes by making an awful flapping and grinding sound that makes it seem like they just had a tire blowout. But in fact it's the plastic front bumper scraping and then bouncing up off the ground in half-second intervals. The driver speeds by at sixty like all is normal.

Everyone in line at the grocery store in Hurley talks about how cold it is today. What we can't get over is how it's possible to sell four two-liters of Coca-Cola for five dollars, in terms of both profit and moral hazard. Out front a gruff, heavy old man walks past where our bikes lean against the building.

"Too colda be ridin' dem things today," he says as he shuffles past, like it's some indisputable fact. He doesn't wait around for us to answer.

We hear this stuff all the time. It doesn't matter what the weather's like. If it's not too cold then it's too hot. If it's raining it's too wet and why would we want to ride in the wet. If it's about to rain that means it's going to be wet, so people tell us we shouldn't be out then either. If it's the evening that means darkness is coming so we should get off the roads. In the early morning it's not light enough and we should wait around until the sun gets higher. And if it's windy, forget about it, we might as well just get a motel room and watch Judge Judy all day. Heading down some quiet Mississippi road I propose to Kristen a change to one of the key lines of the national anthem.

"Instead of The land of the free and the home of the brave," I tell her, "I think we should change it to The land of the free and the home of the can't be bothered to do anything until the conditions are just right, and if anyone tries to do anything different, be sure to tell them how dumb they are."

I'm not sure how that's gonna sing.

The grumpy old man wasn't even right. It's cold if you're standing in the shade facing straight into the wind, but by noon the sun is high and the chill of the morning is gone. We ride down flat back roads alongside beautiful swampy bayous, protected from the wind by the trees and warmed by the sun wearing shorts and a jacket. What wind does get through is a tailwind that makes the bikes feel light, fast, hooked up. It's a day that seems above complaint, even by the surliest and most jaded among us.

It's calm and peaceful riding until an old brown Ford Windstar minivan shows up. In my mirror it gets closer and closer, but when it reaches the point where every other car moves over, it doesn't. It just keeps on coming. That's the moment I should dive off into the rocks and grass at the edge of the road, but I don't. It's like I'm so stunned by what I'm seeing that I'm powerless to do anything about it and try to engineer some alternate outcome. This means I hold my line near the white stripe at the edge of the lane and the van comes within a foot of knocking me off the road. Then it keeps on going like nothing happened. For all I know the driver never saw me and I'm lucky he didn't drift a foot more to the right.

My adrenaline pumps. My heart pounds. The road in front of me gets very clear at the same time everything else loses focus. I crank hard without feeling any strain in my knees or my calves or my hamstrings. Then I see the van stopped along the right side of the road farther on, just short of the bridge over the Pascagoula River. My mind goes angry, aggressive, unkind places. I think about what I'd yell at him for what he did, about the horrible things I'd say about all of his shortcomings as a person, and about what I'd do to the windows of his car and the passenger-side mirror that almost destroyed my arm and shoulder with the pedal wrench that sits at the bottom of my left-rear pannier.

It's hateful and vile, the worst of my worst instincts. The closer I get to the van the more I realize how wild the thoughts surging through my head have become. And somewhere in the last ten seconds before I draw even with it I decide what to do. Or rather what not to do. I decide not to do a damned thing. One of the saddest parts of this culture is how many of us are willing to go straight into violence and hatred and revenge as a response to whatever wrong has been done to us. Road rage, screaming matches, fist fights, stabbings, shootings – so many of these awful things come from the same vindictive place, yet so few of the actions that precede them are worth that kind of response. The guy driving the van almost certainly didn't try to hit me on purpose. But what if I stop and ask him if he did and he says yes? Then what? Do I slash the tires of his van or try to pound his face in? Where does it go? Where does it end? I don't want that for myself. I don't want to fill my mind with those kinds of terrible questions. I don't want those feelings to determine the path of my life. I don't want to be that kind of person.

And so we pass the van in silence, but with a wide enough berth that we won't get doored if the driver decides it's a good time to jump out and take a piss in the weeds. When the van shows up in my mirror again a few miles down the road we just pull off early and let it pass. It's not what the movie hero would do. It's not going to make for a story to tell over beers some day. But if it helps keep me from becoming one of those bitter old bastards who always has a score to settle then I'm okay with that.

The town of Vancleave bustles. There are restaurants and a library and an elementary school that all look alive and healthy. The gas station parking lot is packed. When I walk up to the cash register the woman behind the counter asks, "Whatcha got there, sweetheart?" More than once I watch someone see a person they know, then stop their car, put down the window, and have a little chat while the engine idles. Strangers make small talk with us without being forced to. This isn't to say that Vancleave is a quaint town or a thriving town. There's nothing all that memorable about it. But after riding through so many places in Georgia and Alabama that were near death or beyond death, there's beauty and comfort in its strong sense of average.

The houses we see are nice enough I'd want to live in them. They have tidy yards and paved driveways and wooden fences in good order. The road shoulders aren't blooming with beer cans and McDonald's hamburger wrappers either. We still pass mobile homes but they're closer to neat and tidy than post-apocalyptic.

Traffic is thicker, but I guess that's the price you pay for passing through towns people still want to live in. The real problem are the drivers who race past us faster and closer than they should, like they have no concept of their ability to kill someone out here, themselves included. Instead of tapping the brakes and waiting behind for a few seconds, the driver of a Nissan Altima sedan decides to go around us with a Chevy truck speeding our direction in the opposite lane. But the sedan driver doesn't mash the gas or abort the pass when he sees this; he continues on lazy and slow and forces the truck driver to slam on his brakes and dive off far into the shoulder to avoid a head-on crash at a closing speed of about a hundred miles per hour.

A few miles after reaching the boundary of the DeSoto National Forest we walk the bikes off the road, push them down a little-used ATV path, and set up the tent in a small patch of grass far from any home. We drink beer, eat wraps, listen to music, and try to guess from how far away those semi-automatic gunshots are coming.

Light turns to dark but still the wind blows strong. It travels through the branches of the trees all around us in this low but constant rush that dominates the landscape in a way not unlike waves crashing into a beach. The cold wind means it'll freeze overnight, so we put on all the clothing we own and wrap the fleece blanket inside the sleeping bag around us tight. In most ways I prefer warm over cold, but knowing I'll have a beautiful woman draped around me for the next twelve hours makes the chill of the night seem not so bad at all.

Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 712 miles (1,146 km)

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