Clandestine

There was once a girl in my life that opened my eyes to the things that really mean something to me. This is a story for her...


A warm summer drizzle fell outside my new place of residence one afternoon as I chatted with one my greatest friends. As bored as the day is long, we sat aside each other browsing the internet, each on our own computer. The discussion, which is now a blur, was probably filled with laughter and smart ass remarks, as it usually is. What was to happen next is the cause of why there is no recollection of the topic. In about two seconds I was to realize that the summer of 09 would have a much better ending than its mediocre start. I had come across the line up for This Is Hardcore Fest 2009, a three day music festival consisting of 40+ bands, many of which we were both dying to see.

As I read through the list our excitement grew with nearly every other band that was listed. After I read aloud the last band, "We're going!" threw itself from my mouth without a thought. And the tone of the answer that came from John's mouth can only be described as a mix between uncertainty and complete and utter willingness. A contradiction, I know, but that is how his answer of "Ok" came out. John quickly followed his answer with a question, "Where is it?". "Philadelphia," I said reluctantly because, although I did not know exactly how long it would take to get there, I knew it was no short journey. John's next question was exactly that, "How long is it to Philadelphia?" So I turned to my trusty tool that sat upon my lap and found out. "About ten hours, but we can probably stay with my mom in southern New Hampshire the night before we leave, that will knock off a few hours," I told him.

At first the plan seemed to be nothing more than a dream, like the hopeful youth planning to travel across the country as soon as they graduate from high school, yet never do. A week later it would be proven that although we may have had starry eyes, we would actually come through with this journey. Around ten days after the topic was first brought up, the dream would be brought to fruition by the confirmation of a few more bands that we were unable to pass up. The next day John marched into work and scheduled his vacation. "Where will we stay? How will we eat? How much is this going to cost?" These are all questions that were asked, but it didn't matter... we were doing it and none of those meaningless questions would matter.

After the trip was confirmed I called another of my closest friends, Amber. Amber happened to be an ex-girlfriend. An ex-girlfriend that was still a very close friend... and that I still had some feelings for. I called her and told her what John and I would be doing in a couple of months and right away she said that I should come see her after since Philadelphia was a lot closer to Baltimore than Bangor was. Here it was, my opportunity to take my very first vagabonding trip. The plan became to go two weeks living out of nothing more than a small backpack traveling down a third of the north east. And so the planning began...

Amber and I had been planning for quite some time that a year or so after I finish school we would pack our bags and travel the world. We were going to be vagabonds, gypsies, hobos, whatever you would like to call it...we were going to see the world. Before I had met Amber, something like this was unrealistic to me, it was the road trip after high school, it was the dream car that I swore I would one day have, but at the core of my heart I didn't truly believe in. She was the girl that shut off my high beams in the foggy night and made me realize that no matter how much I wanted to think that more light will help me see better, my regular lights were a better fit for the job. Amber was the one person to ask questions that made me think about what is really in my heart... what I really want in this life. She made me ask questions of my own.

A month had past since John and I had set our plans and those questions that were so meaningless not so long ago, were slowly creeping up on us. With one more month to go we decided that we needed to think about this more. We decided that we could probably sleep in John's car but that we should find a third person to help cut costs. Bill was an obvious choice, he was straight edge just like us and we knew he was someone that could could be trusted. So it would be three dudes in a car and we'd have to find a hot plate to cook with. We'd just get a huge thing of pasta and a few cases of water, this would surely do... But the more we thought about it the more we realized that we needed a place to crash instead of sleeping in a car in the middle of a huge city like Philadelphia. I turned to couchsurfing.org, a site I had been turned onto a while ago but had never used.

Couchsurfing was a social networking site that was full of people who love to travel and to meet new people. If you have an open room in your house you make a profile and you say that you have an open couch for however many people to stay for however long and people from all over the world can ask if they can stay with you. So I got on and I had already made a profile a while back but had never used it, and I searched for open couches in Philly. I asked about a dozen people if they were able to host us. Some didn't respond, some said they were unable to, and some said they knew a couple of other people to talk to. It was those couple of other people that would really help us out. One of those people was a thirty year old vegan women who, from what I gathered was a dog walker named Ellen. Ellen was unable to host us because she had her ex-boyfriend from Spain and his new girlfriend staying for the very same fest, but she was really interested in meeting for lunch. The other person was a vegetarian girl, (I myself am a vegan so both of these two people were really cool to talk to) who worked in Health Food store called Trader Joe's, named Jill. After much discussion back and forth between Jill and myself, it was decided that we would stay with Jill and her room mate.

So there it was, everything was in place. The three of us would drive down to my mom's house, stay there and then drive to Philly. After the fest was over they would drop me off at the bus station and I would go to Baltimore and they would go home. After visiting Amber I would fly to Boston and take the T to the train/bus station and take a bus back up to Bangor. It was as easy as that.

As we packed the car a month later we decided to throw our skateboards in so we could skate a concrete park that was by my mom's house in the morning before leaving. We arrived and my mom and her boyfriend were already in bed and the rain had started. So much for skating the pool that I used to skate when I was younger at the park. We woke up early and hit the road and made it to Philadelphia around 3 o'clock, a few hours before Jill would be out of work. So we parked the car at an Applebee's and walked around for a while. A few hours later I got a call from Jill saying she was out of work and wanted to know if we would like to go to one of the best vegan joints in town, a chinese restaurant named New Harmony. Right away I said "Of course!". We got back to the car and followed the instructions of our GPS directly into Chinatown. After Circling the block looking for an open meter we finally found one a few blocks away from our destination. We made our way there and no sooner than we saw the restaurant we saw Jill pull up on her fixed gear and wave hello to us. Riding a fixie in Philly is not something I could see myself doing, but more power to her.

New Harmony?, New Heaven was more like it. Not only was this some of the best Chinese i'd ever eaten, but the whole menu was completely vegan! I could eat anything I wanted... and so I did. We got this deal that they just brought us plate after plate for 12 bucks a person. The four of us sat, conversed, and stuffed our faces... and still had left overs to bring with us. It didn't take long to find out that Jill was a very cool girl. We talked about all kinds of things including music, food, couchsurfing, and the wonderful city of Philadelphia.

When we left the restaurant, Jill asked if we would like to see some of the city before we went back to her place for the night. We each turned to each other to see what the others thought about walking around town after our long drive. It was fairly evident what the answer was by looking at John and Bill. I turned to Jill and asked, " Can we skate around?" She laughed and said "Sure, I'll take you to a place where a lot of kids skate." She hoped on her bike as we grabbed our boards and locked up the car and we hit the road. We followed the road we were on for about 10 blocks or so and took a left and there it was, Love Park... one of the most notorious places in the world for Skateboarders. We had no idea she was going to take us to Love and I know my face lit right up as soon as I saw it.

We got to the steps of the park and John ran right up and jumped on his board and started skating around, Bill stepped over to the side for a minute to talk to Jill, and I walked in a daze up the stairs with my board in hand and just marveled at what was in front of me. Ten seconds later, without having even put my board down yet, I awoke from a great dream to find myself in quite the nightmare. This big guy in shorts and a polo was making a B-line straight towards me and everyone seemed to scatter. I should have paid attention to what the locals were doing. This massive black man got right in my face and thinking he was merely a security guard I didn't think a thing of it because what is a rent-a-cop going to do? He quickly grabbed my board and stepped on one of my feet as to prevent me from running or getting any leverage to pull back. I pulled back anyway and yelled at him telling him he had no right to take my board. In the confusion I missed the fact that his Polo said "POLICE" across it and that he was wearing cuffs and a gun. I quickly let go and the second I did that he came down with my board and hit my forearm giving me a nice little cut. He walked away without saying a word.

Not a second later I turned to see John being tackled by another officer and have his board grabbed as well. Officer Dickwaud and Officer Cocksmootch both turned away and started toward their cruiser with our boards. We chased after them and exclaimed that we were from out of state and that we didn't know that we weren't supposed to be there. Officer Dickwaud took John's board from his partner without saying a word and made his way to the back of the cruiser where he began to disassemble our boards while Officer Cocksmootch took our ID's and began writing tickets. Not a peep from either of these two servers and protectors until Cocksmootch began asking questions about things that were clearly answerable by reading our licenses. I turned around to see Bill making his way over and I quickly shooed him away. Dickwaud came around from the back of the cruiser with our wheels taken off of the boards and he had kept the nuts that hold them on. The wheels were resting on top of the two boards and from three feet in the air he held the boards in front of us and dropped them to the ground sending the wheels flying everywhere. By the time we picked up our wheels Cocksmootch was done writing up our tickets and he returned our licenses and stood in front of me representing Philadelphia's finest and said "So you're from New Hampshire huh? That's my state." And I replied, "Oh, you're from New Hampshire?" To that, this brilliant man responded, "No, Live Free or Die, that's my state." He then proceeded to rip the tickets up as I confusedly responded with an "Oh." And that was it, they let us go. As I walked away with my arm bleeding and my mode of transportation disassembled, I turned to John and said "So he likes the motto, but he doesn't like to let people actually do it. Off to Jill's we went.

The next day would be the big day, the first day of the fest, and arguably the best, we needed a good night sleep and so we got it. Bill slept on a blow up mattress, John on a very large futon, and myself on a twin sized mattress on the floor. We woke up the next morning to go to a local skate shop to get new hardware since ours was stolen from the "no skateboarding allowed" robots. Around lunch time we met up with Ellen and her ex and his girlfriend who's names have slipped my mind and have become known as The Spaniards. We met at a vegetarian sub shop named Gavinda's since Ellen, The Spaniards, and myself were all vegans. Nearly everyone of us got a vegan or at least vegetarian Philly "Cheese-Steak". Although it was very good, it was no New Harmony. From Gavinda's we went straight to the venue where the fest was being held. We were quite early but we just wanted to be able to find parking and get in line. There wasn't a line formed yet so we just grabbed our boards and went for a quick little skate session. When we got back we dumped the boards in the car and got into the line that had just formed.

The next six or seven hours were pure magic, no trickery or illusions, just pure magic. I've never been to a hardcore show that was so flawless. Everyone danced, everyone had fun, a few people got hurt but there were no fights, no bullshit, just brotherly love and good clean fun. It was only the first and shortest night and already we were exhausted and not sure how we would make it through the next two days. When we returned Jill reminded me that she also had 5 young guys from Miami who were going to be staying the weekend who were also in town for This Is Hardcore Fest. They had planned on getting a hotel for the first night and staying at Jill's house the last two, but plans changed when they realized all the hotels in town were booked because of the fest. So about an hour or so after we got back they showed up. Apparently I'm terrible with names because their names as well as Jill's room mate's name have all slipped my mind. They were all pretty cool guys but the three of us were wiped out so we fell asleep while the five Floridians, Jill, and her room mate stayed up and chatted.

Day two was intense. John left with a black eye and a fat lip. I saw stars during one set from getting headbutted. And all three of us left ringing the sweat from our shirts. I caught a girl who everyone around me seemed to miss when she stage dove and brought me to the ground. I received a hug from the sweaty stranger before she went on her way to getting back on the stage to do it again on the other side. I then noticed in catching her she had ripped off a huge scab that I had on my shoulder from crashing on my BMX bike the week prior. As we were sitting at the car between sets at some point in the evening while we guzzled down two waters each we talked to a kid who had a shoe print on his face from catching a stage divers foot. He said that one of the bouncers told him exactly what kind of shoe it was just by looking at the print it left on his face. Like I said, day two was intense. After it was over we went back to Jill's and took our first showers since we had been at my mom's house a couple of days before. Needless to say, that was very refreshing.

On the final day I woke up exhausted. We sat around for a few minutes then hopped in the car and set out to go back to Love Park, this time with out our boards. We just wanted to get some pictures at the park and around town. As we left we couldn't remember exactly where the park was so we tried to remember the address of New Harmony. We didn't do such a good job. We walked probably two miles through the city before we reached our destination. Each of us took turns standing in front of the famous (or at least famous to us) Love statue. After we had a picture for each of us Bill grabbed the camera and walked up to these two attractive young ladies with beautiful Brazilian accents and asked them to take a picture of the three of us. They gladly said yes. As we three young lads made the few steps over to the statue and threw our arms around each other, I realized that this trip, with these two friends of mine was an experience of a lifetime. It was something I will never forget.

The show was to start at noon and it was about ten past by the time we got back to the car after exploring the city. We didn't care much that we would miss a band or two, we had already gotten our moneys worth. By the time we found a restroom to use and made our way to the venue one of the bands I was excited to see for the fifth or sixth time was going on. My exhausted legs carried me through the door as I heard this band playing and right away the adrenaline took over and I made my way through the crowd and straight to the pit. I didn't care about being tired, the music was good and I was going to push myself through one more day. And push myself I did. When the day was over my arms were covered in bruises, my feet were ready to fall off from stomping around so much, my right eyebrow had been split open by a stranger's fist, and I was nothing but smiles.

When we got back to Jill's I had a plate of pasta as I had each night after the show and stood with my shirt off in front of the mirror looking at my damaged body that had thinned down from eating pretty much only a plate of pasta everyday. I had gotten so much exercise in the past few days that my six pack that hadn't shown itself in a few years was coming back. I walked away from the mirror to sit down and watch Jill do a stick and poke tattoo on Bill's leg. I just wanted to see the look on his face as the first few pokes of his very first tattoo went in before I jumped in the shower. The wait was worth the priceless face he made as the first couple of pokes sunk into his skin. "This sucks already," he muttered as I walked up the stairs to the shower laughing.

The water opened the cut above my eye back up as I turned the nozzle to off. I stood naked in frustration that it would start to bleed just after the water had stopped running. I turned the shower back on to clean the blood from the tub and from my face. I let the cool water run for a few more seconds before putting my hand over my eye until I could get out of the shower and put some paper towels over the wound. I probably needed stitches but decided to just go lay down and let the blood congeal as I watched Bill be poked a few hundred times. I fell asleep before it was through.

It was monday morning and John and Bill were going to drop me off at the bus station and head home. I packed my backpack with the couple of new shirts that I got at the show and threw my sweat-crusted shirts from the past few days in the car to head back with them. I was ready for the rest of my adventure. During my wait for the bus I sat next to someone I knew was at the fest as well because he was wearing a Floorpunch sweatshirt, one of the main bands that had played. We were taking the same bus. We talked about music mostly, I think he said his name was Mike... kind of a sketch ball to be honest. And then we were in Baltimore.

Amber picked me up shortly after I arrived at the bus station with one of her friends. I was tired and fell asleep pretty quickly in what I guess was an awkward position because I was awakened by Amber's friend taking a picture of me in what was described as a gay male model pose. Who knows, I didn't get to see the picture. They also said I looked like a hobo with my beat up face and week old beard. We talked on the way to drop off her friend about my trip so far and had a few laughs. As tired as I was, I tried my best to make conversation but I was just too beat.

In the elevator ride up to Amber's apartment room I stared into her eyes, she could tell I still had feelings, I could tell just the opposite. I was there as a friend and I knew that, so I did my best to cover that up, but my acting skills aren't that great. An hour or so of small talk went by and then the elephant in the room was acknowledged. Why was I having such a hard time with this, why could I hold a conversation for hours on the phone but couldn't think of anything to say in person? I didn't have an answer for that.

We began to talk about how she only wanted to be friends and I told her that's why I was there. I dropped the act and told her I missed her and I missed us but I knew it was time to move on and that's why I had come, to be able to move on and be there for her as nothing more than a friend. In the matter of thirty minutes our friendship which had once been so strong, had fallen apart. I knew it was to awkward for me to stay. I grabbed my bag, said goodbye and walked out the door. We both needed to clear our heads, so for the next hour and a half I walked aimlessly around the city before calling her. I realized that I only had twenty dollars in my pocket, had nowhere to go, and hadn't eaten anything all day. When she picked up the phone I asked if I could come back and she told me flat out that it was too uncomfortable with me there, I could come back to the complex and she would bring me out some food but she couldn't let me stay with her.

Being the stubborn ass that I am didn't go back. All I could think to do was call my grandfather who lived a little over two hours away. I was alone in a city I didn't know, trying to be a vagabond but I didn't have my wits about me enough to put together a plan. As I waited for my grandfather to arrive I put my pack down on the ground and in what seemed to be a good section of town under a tree I fell asleep. Not a soul bothered me as I slept there with the sun setting on the city. The only thing that woke me was my phone ringing. It was my grandfather wondering exactly where I was. I walked down to a gas station and had him pick me up there.

Over the next few days my thoughts ran over the situation time and time again. What had happened? I couldn't figure it out. As I worked on my grandfathers house to pay for my sudden stay, I came to my conclusion. This bright young girl that had helped me so many times before to see things clearly was still trying to help me. The only way for me to move on and be her friend was for me to be so hurt by her that I couldn't feel that love any longer. And so it worked. I stayed with my grandfather for a week and learned a thing or two. One of the things that I learned was that no matter how different our life philosophy may be, we are still family and he was still there for me when I had nowhere else to turn.

Before my stay with my grandfather was over I called my longest and best friend, Rich and asked him to come up to my place when I got back to head out into the woods for a couple of days. Instead of taking the bus when I got back to Boston we decided that he would just drive us up the day I got back into town. When we got to my place we packed the kayaks, paddled across the lake and went off into the woods. Watching the sun rise slowly over the peaks of Pine that lined the outer edge of the lake and as rays of light streamed onto the glass like water, I collected a potful of it for cooking. And with sand between my toes, I realized that this was the life for me. A backpack, the road, and a good friend to help me clear things up once in a while.


Based on actual events.
Names of the characters and some of the cities have been changed for sake of the story.