This Part of the Playing Field is Not Level

January 28, 2016

A run-down and long-closed barbecue joint made from two single-wide trailers joined together serves as Georgia's goodbye. A mile down the highway we cross over the Chattahoochee River and into Alabama.

"Hey, we're in Alabama!" I call out to Kristen when we reach the other side of the bridge.

"It smells like garbage," she says.

This is not exaggeration or overstatement or simile. It smells like garbage because the patch of grass upon which we're parked is in fact covered with wet and decaying garbage. The stink from a nearby pulp mill only adds to the feeling.

Alabama: the state where the slogan comes from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

I never thought I'd say this, but in crossing into Alabama it's like we've returned to a more complete form of civilization. There are grocery stores and cafes and hardware stores and banks in the town of Columbia like we haven't seen for days. Never has the sight of a giant Piggly Wiggly grocery store meant so much.

It rained hard for most of the early morning. The roads are soaked. The air is cold. The good people of Alabama are a little concerned for us.

"Rub day da be oud on one a dose dings, iddnit?" says a middle-aged guy who looks older than he probably is as he walks past us and our bikes and into the Dollar General without waiting for an answer.

It's hard to argue.

It's 9:30 a.m. and the parking lot is empty. This is why rural grocery stores are disappearing.

We head west, then south, then southwest. We're in Alabama but I'm still thinking of Georgia. I'd never want an entire trip to center on the kinds of towns and counties through which we rode over the last couple of days. If I only had one chance in my life to go through the South it's not the route I'd take. I also wouldn't do it in the winter, when a lot of the fields are fallow and so many of the trees have no leaves and look like giant wooden corpses. It's harder still when the cold and wet join forces and leave me chilled no matter how many layers of clothing I wear. Even if the weather was good it's tough to picture a scenario where we ever come back here, no matter how entertaining it is to watch middle-aged women walk by with highlighted hair that's been so flocked with hairspray that it has the shape and probably the feel of those hair helmets worn by Lego figurines.

And yet I'm satisfied that we're going where we are, when we are, in the way we are. I don't want a life where everything is easy and safe and comfortable and ideal all the time. There's value in dealing with the unpredictable, in stepping outside of what's guaranteed, in confronting aspects of society or myself that I never have and thought I never would. It can be hard to appreciate these things in the moment. But they bring with them long-term changes in perspective that nothing else could. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to end up with such a narrow band of tolerance that I'm no longer able or willing to deal with people and places and events that aren't perfect and risk-free and known.

All of this stuff gets put to the test in the afternoon. We warm our bodies and souls with Mexican food in Ashford, but the relief is short lived. Thick clouds of white blow back over our faces when we step back outside and let out our first breath. As happens about fifteen times a day in this part of the country, a few miles down the road an underfed and underloved dog sees us coming and starts to give chase. We're so used to it that it's not that big of a deal anymore. Most dogs don't even make it past the property line. For those that do we yell at them to go back home. If they still give chase, we stop, point the bikes toward them, and yell at them a little more and they always give up. But this time the dog's owner is standing on the porch.

"Turbo!" she yells at him with an angry, grating voice that's done a lot of yelling in its time. "Shut up! Yew want yer ass beat? Then git over here, NOW!"

I don't turn around to see what happens because I know that if I do I'll see her hitting that dog, even though he stopped chasing after us right when he was told. To people like that it just doesn't matter.

Then there's the roadside garbage. High volumes of the stuff continue unabated, no matter how popular or remote the road. This afternoon is also when it dawns on me that most of the people we've seen and talked to over the last few days don't seem happy or friendly unless they're over the age of about sixty-five. It's as if nothing good has happened to anyone here in the last four decades. The theory bears itself out at the gas station in Cottonwood, where an old-timer talks to me with great joy about the ice cream he bought yesterday but the woman behind the counter wears a facial expression best described as permanent scowl.

I try not to let the cold and gray color my judgment. I don't want to give up on this part of the South where it feels and looks like so many people already have. And I know we're only seeing a narrow slice of states that have such a greater range of landscapes and culture. Five years ago I spent a week riding from the southern end of Georgia to the north and loved every day of it. But there are more than a few moments where I find myself wishing we weren't here.

And it just doesn't get better.

We pass by mobile homes so tired and ramshackle that I think there's no way someone lives there, and then I see the trash bin out front where it's ready for the garbage truck to come by and I realize someone does, and maybe many someones. On other properties there's no actual home at all. It's just a parked travel trailer that in all likelihood will never move again. Most driveways are a brown, sloppy, muddy mess.

Then I think about the children who have to grow up in places like these. I wonder how many have stable households with two parents. I try to imagine what kind of food they eat, knowing how few grocery stores there are out here. It seems like it'd be hard for them to take part in extracurricular activities after school because there's probably no late bus to take them home, and they can't walk because school is ten or twenty miles away. Even if they wanted to work an after-school job it's almost certain they can't, because there aren't enough jobs out here for many adults. Excelling in school probably isn't valued by their parents or their friends. I wonder if these kids have computers at all. If they do, I wonder how slow the Internet access is.

A lot of these mobile homes are like thirty or forty years old. They're dirty and tired, all faded paint and sagging porches and window blinds that hang smashed and dented at angles not close to level. They look like they're cold in the winter and blazing hot in the humid summers. More than a few have interior walls that are still covered with lead-based paint. That's home for so many kids out here. And knowing what home looks like, you can't tell me that if these kids would just work a little harder, if they'd just apply themselves, if they'd just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that all of the opportunities afforded to middle class children are available to them too. This part of the playing field is not level.

Then it's on through Madrid. Every business that once was there is gone. Wherever I look I see homes that have been abandoned and stand silent and dead and rotting away. At the edge of town, a dozen dogs live in an unfenced lot. Each one is chained to a little house that's built with as little effort as one can build a dog house, and that's barely big enough for them to turn around in, and probably leaks something fierce, and probably doesn't stop the wind from cutting through either. They're all hound dogs. When I roll past they bellow as they do, all in subtly different tones and volumes, all trapped in a miserable life that's going to remain miserable until the day they die.

The sadness of all of these things put together makes this visceral wave of despair start to rise up inside me. And I'm just passing through. If I had to live in these kinds of conditions as my normal state of being I'm not sure I could handle it. I'm not sure I'd make it out or make it through without self-destructing.

We pass by a house with a lawn sign that reads We believe in Biblical marriage. Later a car drives by with one bumper sticker that reads In God We Trust and another with something about being against Planned Parenthood. It's conservative around here. So you can imagine our surprise when we try to find out more about the only campground in the area and learn that not only is it a gay-friendly campground, but it's a clothing-optional gay-friendly campground. Well then. We're adventurous types but everyone's got their limit. Because all of the nearby towns are in such poor shape none of them have motels either. If we want a proper place to stay we'll have to head south and drop down into the Florida panhandle.

It's no exaggeration to say that as soon as we cross into Florida the number of homes built on foundations goes up by a factor of three. It's still the country but it looks much less dire.

On the way to the motel we stop at a gas station to grab a beer. There's an older guy out front, balding with short silver hair, wrinkled lines on his face, dark-skinned, not walking so much as shuffling, maybe three teeth left between the top and bottom rows of his front teeth.

"Hey, hey, excuse me, I'm blind and I can't see and I need a little help," he says to us.

"What do you need?" I ask him. I know from the way he locked onto us that he isn't blind, but I'm going into the mini-mart anyway, so whatever.

I figure I'll get him something to help him out. It's clear he needs help of some sort. But he's a little evasive, something about walking down to the highway, getting away from the pollution. I'm not sure what he's saying, except that it's not so much food he's after. But if he's in such desperate shape that he's willing to panhandle in front of this crap-ass gas station then he knows a life more arduous and pained than I ever will. It's not a moment for moral judgment, not after all the poverty and hopelessness we've seen in the last few days.

"How about a dollar?" I ask.

"How bout five?" he counters without a beat. Smooth.

"I think I have two."

"How bout four?"

I give him two. I'll make that much tens of thousands of times over this year. It's literally nothing to me but twice what he's got.

The workers behind the counter inside are laughing at the guy as I check out. As I'm packing away the beer I hear him give his spiel about being blind and needing a little money to a middle-aged white man with awful blond highlights streaked into his hair. The man gives a quick little joyless laugh, doesn't break stride or look at him, and says, "Yeah, me too."

It's this microcosm of what we've seen all day. If you're poor in America you're something to be pitied, laughed at, or flat out ignored.

Our motel room is clean and warm. It takes awhile for the hot water in the shower to get going, but it does. Our beer is cold. Our minds are at ease. We are healthy and happy and safe. On most days it's easy to take for granted how lucky we are to have the lives we do and to have made so much of the opportunities we've been given. It's easy to forget how comfortable we have it. But not here. The rural South is a constant reminder of the privilege we're so fortunate to enjoy.

Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 391 miles (629 km)

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