I remember how alive I felt as my flesh began to sway involuntarily to the melody crafted between the half-flat rubber wheels and the bumps in the ground. I leaned against the passenger seat of the golf cart and attempted to open my beer. Foolish, I soon learned, as wave after wave of foam gushed from the mouth of the can like a geyser. I sucked on it anyway and turned my attention back to the trail.

A right turn emerged and Cal attacked it with a savage fury. When the path straightened itself out again he overcompensated and nearly threw all of us into the trees. Cal turned back toward us and smiled like a three-year-old showing off the magnificent landscape he drew in crayon on the bedroom wall, and of course we all laughed hysterically. The headlights continued to blast forth into the night, exposing one by one every tree, fern, bush, rock, and branch that they could. And then there was us'me, Cal, Fiz, and Meaghan'émigrés from the civilized world on a Safari, hooting and hollering our cries of freedom before the reluctant forest.

'L.A. WOMAAAAN!!'�
That was my cry. I leaned out the side, allowed my right hand to stick out the side and graze the leaves. Then I transformed it into a fist and turned to the woods again.

'L.A. Woman, Sunday afternoon'�. drive through your suburbs, INTO YOUR BLUES!'�
Underneath the black sky and the trees and the hood of the vehicle everything just felt like beauty and truth. I nearly had to remind myself of who I was, where I was and how I had gotten here. For in the buoyant, free-flowing energy of the night'amplified by the alcohol and THC in our systems'I could have swore it was Destiny. The bumpy little trail that cut through the woods which surrounded the cabin and the decades-old golf cart which maxed out at 10 miles per hour seemed to exist for the express purpose of this newfound holy ritual: the Safari.

We barreled through the last major turn of the course, the one that took you down a steep four foot slope out of the woods and onto the dirt road that connected to a paved road which at some point took you back into the nearest town. Everyone laughed once more but less boisterously now, with our minds absorbing the post-climactic ecstasy as we cruised back toward the cabin. I noted how this experience felt like a real-life manifestation of Mario Kart. As we turned the engine off and stumbled out I could once again absorb the humid summer air in its subtle glory. I couldn't wait to pass out, wake up and hear the sound of a morning without cars passing by.

We returned to the back porch of where Rocco, Greg, and the other Megans (Meagan and Meghan) were waiting for us with plastic cups and cans of Keystone Light. A single light above the charcoal grill illuminated the deck, while a large Styrofoam board placed atop a wooden bench acted as a surface for beer pong games. I went up to a portable iPod player and put on Guns N Roses. I watched a game and I can't recall who won but I remember that the pong ball kept bouncing off the deck and into the bushes where we would spend like five minutes looking for it.

Finally I got bored and smoked a bowl with Greg and Fiz inside the cabin. In between hits I glanced up and down the walls. I believe the place belonged to Fiz's grandparents. It had a genuinely cozy feel, furnished to the extent that it felt like a second house, but remote enough to invite comparisons to Walden. The finished wooden walls were adorned with hundreds of miscellaneous photos, deer heads, license plates, nature-related paintings, and silly trinkets that made you wonder how much time these people spent at roadside gift shops across the country.

Soon after our bowl was finished Cal thrust opened the screen door and leaned in.
'Who wants to go on another Safari ride?'�
'Hell yeah!'� I replied. Fiz and Meaghan also expressed interest, so we headed over to the tool shed where the cart was parked. Cal assumed the driver's seat as he had before and turned the old vehicle on.
'Shit,'� he muttered, 'I can't get the lights on!'� Fiz sighed.

'Let me show you!'� she leaned over the front to find the button that turned on the lights but after repeated pressings nothing happened. She grumbled a few curses under her breath, then turned up to us and flatly announced, 'Well, I guess we'll just have to stay here.'� We stared at her like classic sad puppy eyes. The sentiment was mutual: this simply couldn't be. How could we not go on a Safari?

Fiz began to drift back toward the cabin, and when she noticed that none of us were following her she turned back and gave us her trademark 'angry mother'� look.
'Let's go, you guys!'� she snapped. 'We can't ride that thing!'�
'Why not?'� Cal whined in retort. Meaghan and I laughed.
'Because it's pitch fucking black outside!'�
'So?'�
'And if you crash that bitch I'm going to tear your fucking balls off!'� Cal sighed, and we reluctantly dragged ourselves back inside.

But I knew that it would not be the end. And after a while, sure enough, like the cunning rebel hero of so many movies, Cal pulled Meaghan and I aside and we unanimously agreed to sneak out with the golf cart at the earliest convenience, headlights be damned.

Cal took the driver's seat once more, but I decided to climb up on top, for a change of pace. Laying flat with my chin pressed against the plastic roof, I gazed into the forest ahead. There stood a black abyss guarded by the few trees that still reflected the lights from the cabin, exerting its saturnine presence like a heart of darkness. Cal slammed on the accelerator, causing the cart to plunge forward. We careened into the abyss, laughing our heads off. I clutched tightly to the sides of the roof as the forces of gravity wrestled with my corpse.

'WHERE THE HELL ARE WE GOING?!?'� Cal shouted, his laughter barely suppressed under his desperation.
'Just keep going straight, we'll tell you when to turn!'� Meaghan replied. And so we tried with all our strength to read into the darkness; this vague, shapeless two-dimensional nothingness between the stars and the floor was studied, analyzed, interpreted, until our brains could attempt to hypothesize what it resembled in the daylight.
'LEFT! Turn Left!'�
'Right! Uh okay'� now straight for a bit!'�
'Left'� no not that much!'�

Onward into the darkness, we rode with drunken abandon. The spirits of Leif Erikson and Hunter S. Thompson were with us, of that I was sure. My torso bounced up and down on the roof as the night air washed over my face. We managed to make it about 100 yards out to the dirt road. I felt the time was right for a new freedom cry.

'RIDERS ON THE STORM!!'� I bellowed into the sky. It was a warning cry, a mating call, the battle hymn of our campaign against the darkness, the triumph of our drunken freedom over the laws of society. We would take from the night what the day would not grant us. We were humans, citizens, Americans, returning to nature as primates. We drove a hijacked chariot, our flagship vessel representing the glory and the doom of man, fueled by our will to power.

I remember next a frantic cry of 'OH SHIT!'� and the sudden sensation of flight. The force that vibrated my body and kept me pressed against the roof suddenly disappeared and in its place was a slow, gracious, untraceable force that lifted me toward the heavens and in the same motion sent me pummeling toward the bushes. I opened my eyes to find myself flat on my back. To my right, standing perpendicular to the ground, was the flat plastic square that had formerly been my lifeline.

***

'Do you want to stop for food here?'�
'Yeah, might as well. Are we going to eat there or get it to go?'�
'We'll go inside so I can pee, and then order to go.'�
'Good plan.'�
'I mean, after the Dells there's about three hours of I-94 and then,'� he checked the handwritten set of directions he had taken from Fiz over the phone earlier that afternoon, 'a bunch of other shitty country roads up North.'�

'I hear ya.'� We pulled off the highway and into a McDonald's parking lot. As Cal took his bathroom break I stood back and studied the restaurant's clientele. We were less than an hour North of Madison but already I could feel the looming specter of White Trash. An overweight mother with unbrushed hair and a white tank top, and an unruly bucktoothed 11-year-old behind her with'� is that a mullet? What kind of misanthropic philistine lets that go out in public?

I posed this question to Cal as he emerged from the restroom. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders, and we proceeded to order our food. Three minutes later we were still standing there, arms folded.

'What the fuck is taking them so long?'� I grumbled.
'Look, dude,'� Cal pointed to the kitchen, 'it's all white people!'� Incredulous, but in fact it was true. This McDonald's in the Dells was in blatant violation of the Natural Order of Fast Food. Everybody knows that you put Mexicans in the kitchen, black people and teenagers in the drive-thru, and leave management to the 38-year old stressed out white guys. But the kitchen is the most important by far. Only Mexicans have what it takes to produce food with the rapacious speed that Fast Food demands. There were some people that wanted all illegal immigrants thrown out of the country. If that happened I'd never go out to eat again.

Eventually we got our food, walked back the car, and resumed our journey. We still had a long ass way to go driving into the untamed nothingness that people from Madison to Milwaukee simple refer to as 'up North'� to meet up with several of our high school friends. But the voyage would doubtlessly be worth it, and I was excited.

The residual heat from the setting summer sun writhed within the walls of Cal's car, which had no air conditioning. I might have cracked the window but I found a curious comfort in the all-encompassing humidity. The road ahead and the landscape beside it complemented each other in terms of sheer dullness; the former stretched itself lazily like a trail of yarn formed when its former ball is rolled across a carpet, the latter a pie crust-shaped expanse of corn and wild grass. Lulled by the monotony, I began to doze off until I was awoken by the sound of static.

'Goddamn it'�'� Cal muttered, repeatedly pressing the tuner button on the car radio only to find station after station of country music (we were going up North, all right). 'That's it,'� he punched the Power button defiantly, 'I give up. Let's put in one of your CDs.'�
'Good idea,'� I chimed. I flipped through and tried to find the disc that best suited the mood. 'Okay,'� I posed to Cal, 'The Byrds or Boston?'�
'The Byrds.'�
'Byrds it is'�'� I popped it in. We spent the next ten to fifteen minutes in silence, listening (not merely hearing; Cal and I abhorred anyone who refused to recognize this distinction) to the righteous guitars and succulent harmonies that transcended life in the way that only good art or great drugs can do.

'Man,'� Cal said with a tone of bittersweet reverence, 'they just don't make music like this anymore.'�
'I know man,'� I replied, 'it's impossible. People don't care about art the way they did back in, like, the sixties and shit.'�
'It's not fucking fair! Why do we get stuck with fucking 50 Cent and Fall Out Boy? All this soulless corporate crap'�'�
''� generic soma for the swinish multitude'�'�
'Our generation is worthless. We don't know shit about shit. We can't create anything better than what surrounds us because we don't want to. All anyone cares about is wealth or attention.'�

'Yeah'� I know what you mean. That's why I can't watch shit like American Idol. It reduces entertainment to a petty fucking circus. It's not about creating, or bettering yourself, or challenging people, it's about forcing the brainwashed masses to pay attention to you at no cost other than your own dignity. It's depressing, really.'� I sighed, glanced at the sun which was briefly obscured by a silo. The CD player continued to placate our ear buds with the entrancing chords of 'Eight Miles High.'�
'I don't know,'� Cal uttered, 'I just feel like there's no one we can look up to. We live in an era without heroes.'� I uttered an agreeing grunt.

'What do you think of Barack Obama,'� I offered randomly.
'I don't know, man. He seemed like an alright guy in the beginning, but now he's just a conformist product like the rest of them. I saw him on TV the other day and he was saying something or other about how his Faith is so important to him. Fuck that bullshit. He shouldn't have to act like a moron just because he thinks everyone else wants him too.'� I noticed he was gripping the wheel with both hands. 'I just'� I feel betrayed, man.'�

'I agree. I don't know what that guy is really like inside, but it looks like the media and the establishment turned him into a bullshit artist like the rest of them. Fuck it, man. I just like to think that in the end, it's his loss.'� We fell into another silence, as Cal turned off the I-94 and onto a more obscure one-lane highway. I remember he had told me about Northern Wisconsin highways, how completely fucked up and hard to follow they are. He said there's actually a highway called Highway 49 and 1/2, between 49 and 50, just because they were too lazy to rename the other highways after they built it. These Northern folks fascinated me. On a technical level, they were my enemies; the Christians, the Hicks, the Bush-voters. But the utter simplicity of their existence piqued my fascination as well as my sympathy.

I was born in Chicago, as was Cal, and had moved to Madison when I was 11, so all my life I had known nothing but cities. But for these folks, the cows and the silos and the John Deere tractors were all they knew, all they needed to know. For all the knowledge I was trying to absorb in college, that was one of the things I really wished I could wrap my head around.

The road continued to wind between hills as the sun bid farewell to the cows and the corn, and the towns came further apart. We passed by one that had a peculiar odor to it, doubtlessly of chemical origin.
'It's a paper factory town,'� Cal eventually explained.
'Damn,'� I muttered, 'how do these people fucking put up with it?'�
'I don't know, man'�'� he replied, shaking his head, 'they probably don't have much of a choice. Hey dude, put another CD in.'� I opened the case and browsed until I found Pink Floyd's Meddle and slipped it in.

'Good choice,'� Cal remarked. I smiled inside. For some reason I always felt a childish sense of delight whenever he complimented me. Waiting for the opening bass lines to make their presence felt, I once more examined my surroundings. Churches, barnyards, bait shops, bars that proudly boasted the logo of Pabst Blue Ribbon like the cross or the hammer and sickle'� and the subtle loneliness that seemed to pervade it all.

'What an irony,'� I remarked, 'to live in the most powerful empire on the face of the earth, and yet still be confined to this backward, culturally-deprived'�'� I struggled for the words, ''�dwelling.'� Cal nodded, slowly digesting my words.

'I know what you mean, man,'� he said, 'I don't drive up here too often, but whenever I do it always makes me think about what's going on in this country, like why there's such a strong division between rural and urban people. It's not too hard to understand when you really think about it.'� I nodded. 'It's just two different worlds, and each world demands different things out of you. In the city, you can do whatever you want as long as you can keep up with the tide. Out here, you just stick with what your parents taught you. That's just how it is.'�

'Yeah man,'� I added, 'I remember learning about that shit in Poli Sci class. Rural societies throughout history have, like, constantly struggled for their survival against the forces of nature and shit. They have to rely on their traditional cultural practices just to survive, so traditions pass on from generation to generation unquestioned. These towns are just remnants of that old system. That's why they still believe all that bullshit about Jesus and Abortion and Gays and whatnot. They don't have any reason to question it'�'�

'Exactly. You know, I think that it would be good for people who want to understand the world and shit to come out here. You should visit Paris, New York, Japan, and all those places, but you should also come out here just to get a different perspective, to know what the other side is like.'�

'That's profound, man.'� By now the sky had long been dark and the towns were becoming smaller and spaced further apart. We came into one called Ladysmith and I glanced at the controls of Cal's car.

'How much longer until we stop for gas?'� he shrugged nonchalantly, then glanced at the directions.
'Well, I figure we can make it 'till we get to Winter.'�
'Winter?'�
'Yeah man, it's a town called Winter.'� We chuckled lightly.
'What's that place like in the winter, ya think?'�
'Boring,'� Cal replied, provoking another chuckle. 'But then again, it's probably like that year-round.'� I smiled. As we passed through Ladysmith, I noticed that for the first time there were no cars ahead of us. The endless rows of corn had been replaced by looming pine trees, and the eye had to struggle to identify man-made structures. As Cal pushed the car toward 80 miles per hour, a curious fog began to materialize out of the darkness. It wasn't an overwhelming fog, but nevertheless it had an ominous quality, like the first few bass notes in Miles Davis' 'Bitches Brew.'�

'Damn,'� Cal muttered. 'This fog is fucked up. I could go really fucking fast if it weren't in the way.'� I nodded silently. I had never known such nothingness. No streetlights, no homes, no cars.

'Shit,'� I said to Cal. 'This is crazy. I bet there's not a Starbuck's around here for like twenty miles!'� We both laughed. Out of nowhere a small deer hopped onto the road. Cal gripped the wheel and started to tap on the breaks, but then it quickly darted out of the way.
'Fuck,'� he accelerated again, 'I forgot you have to really watch for that up here. Luckily that one got the message, but a lot of them aren't so smart.'�
'Yeah man, it amazes me how much those fuckers manage to get hit.'�
'Deer are just dumb ass animals. I'm sorry but that's the truth. Some animals out there just suck, and deer are one of them. They're hopeless. They can't do anything, except run. That's why I don't really feel so bad that they get shot so much.'�

'I've never really been a fan of deer,'� I replied. 'Or birds either. Most birds just fucking annoy me. Flying wherever they want, shitting wherever they want, waking you up at the crack of dawn with their meaningless cries. Those fuckers. The only exceptions, I suppose, are hawks, eagles, and penguins. I guess even the vulture isn't so bad. At least it knows its place'�'�

'The worst are turkeys. They're so fucking stupid it makes you question whether natural selection even works. One time I went up to a farmhouse owned by a friend of mine in Menomanie, and they had a bunch of turkeys. All they do is make noise and wander around aimlessly bumping into each other. Even trying to feed them was difficult'�'�
''�I think Ben Franklin once posed making the turkey our national bird'�'�
''� well thank fucking God that didn't happen. Or maybe it should have. In any case'� I just fucking hate turkeys.'�
'Domesticated animals in general usually suck. You look at a cow or a pig or even a gerbil and it just seems like they have no soul'�'�
'Except dogs,'� Cal replied.
'Good fucking point! I love dogs, they're probably my favorite animal.'�
'Mine too.'�
'They just seem so genuinely happy, no matter what. I think they have a higher knowledge or something. It's interesting, dogs are one of the few creatures to actually benefit from mankind's existence.'�
'I think we've benefited a lot from having them too.'�
'I agree.'� We passed by a few mailboxes that stood next to trails which led to houses deep within the woods.
'That must be weird,'� I said, 'to live all the way out here, away from everything. I wonder what those people are like'�'�
'It would certainly be interesting. I guess you'd be pretty lonely, but then again you'd probably feel so much more at peace not having to see, hear, or worry about anybody else or feel the perils of civilized alienation. It'd be like camping all the time.'�

'Isn't it ironic,'� I mused, 'that one of the most liberating things in the human experience is to just get away from other humans?'�

'Yeah'�'� Cal's voice trailed away. We pressed on through the fog. At one point another deer scurried across the road, and at another we passed an SUV going 60. 'I know I've said it before, but I just think the whole human race is fucked up. I mean, I like living in a nice house and being able to drive a car and watch football and whatnot, but when you really step back you have to think that something, somewhere went terribly wrong. Why are we killing each other over these old-ass books that mean nothing? Why do we compete for the privilege of stealing all of the Earth's resources? Who the hell are we?'�

'It's true,'� I replied, 'at the rate we're going, you wonder how much longer this thing is gonna last. Something's gonna happen. Maybe we can recover and pull out of it, maybe not. But in any case, we're in for a big paradigm shift.'� Cal nodded, pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed me one.

'Yeah,'� he said, 'but in the end I guess it's all good. Maybe not good for us, but just good.'� Minutes later we came across the sign that welcomed us to Winter, Wisconsin, population in the hundreds. 'Sweet,'� Cal remarked, 'this is the last town before the cabin. We made excellent time.'� He pulled into the first gas station that we saw, only to find that it was closed. 'You gotta be kidding me!'� he exclaimed. 'It's not even ten thirty on a Friday night!'� I stepped out of the car and looked around, amazed to find that among the commercial establishments in Winter'gas stations, bait shops, lumber stores, pubs'virtually all of them were closed.

'Ha!'� I uttered. 'This is ridiculous.'� I examined the gas pump. 'You can just use a credit card, though.'�
'I don't have one, can I just use yours?'�
'Yeah, no problem.'� I handed him the card and wandered around for a bit. I noticed I had to pee. There was truly no one around besides us, so I waltzed up to the side of the gas station and marked my territory. How peaceful, I thought, the sound of urine bouncing off a wooden wall on the edge of nowhere. When I got back to the car Cal was done pumping gas.

'Damn dude,'� he remarked. 'We've nearly completed an epic journey. I think we should celebrate.'� He opened his trunk, pulled out a cooler and opened it. Then he grabbed two cans of Miller Lite and smiled. 'Why not?'� he said. We cracked the cans and posed a toast to the moment. I took a nice, big, refreshing swig. It had begun. We got back in the car and rode into the storm.

***

I grabbed the roof of the cart and lifted myself off, and glided my hands over my legs to rub off the dirt I had accumulated during the crash. My body seemed intact, I only fretted for the cart. Meaghan picked some sticks and leaves out of her hair and Cal climbed out of the cart from the top, exhaling a forceful breath and shaking his head. I examined the tracks the vehicle had made as it had flown off the road, two distinct parallel divots in the tall grass.

'God damn,'� Cal remarked, 'that was fucked up.'� The stars gave us just enough light to see ourselves and our positions relative to each other and the fallen cart. We heard no sound save for the faint wind and the crickets who lauged at our misfortune.

'What a mess,'� Meaghan said. 'Fiz would fucking kill us if she found out.'�
'She'd tear our fucking balls off,'� I corrected.
'I don't have balls,'� Meaghan replied.

'Well then you're gonna to have to grow a pair,'� Cal declared, 'because we have to turn this bitch over and get her back on the road.'� We all grabbed a piece of the cart and lifted it up on its wheels again. Then we attempted to push it up the slope and back onto the dirt road. Cal and I Meaghan stood at the front of the cart, I stood on the right side clutching one of the metal bars which held up the roof. On the count of three we heaved with all our strength, grunting, digging our shoes into the soil until they slid from under us. The vessel would not budge.

'Shit,'� Cal said, 'we're going to have to turn this thing on and put it in reverse.'�
'Will it even still work?'� I asked.
'I guess we'll find out.'� He leaned over and turned the key. The engine whimpered for a second and a half before petering out. He turned it again more forcefully, but still could not sustain anything. 'COME ON!!'� He shouted at the heavens. A gust of wind slid over the forest, I looked around and wondered if the trees and the crickets and the other spirits hiding in the forest had any sympathy for us, or had already squandered it all?

Cal took another deep, patient breath through his teeth, gripped the key, and turned it once again, channeling our collective desperation into the outdated electrical system, forcing the engine to cough, sputter, and finally rev back into its element. 'Yes!'� Cal cried in relief, and then he turned to us. 'Okay, here we go. I'm going to put this thing into reverse and push from the outside. Meaghan, you come over here and press on the gas pedal with your hand when we're all ready. Nick, you stay where you are and pull as hard as you can when Meaghan presses the pedal.'�

And so we assumed the positions and on a count of three Meaghan pressed on the accelerator. The engine shrieked, the wheels spun and kicked dirt into the air. I lifted that damn rod until my skinny arms nearly fell out of their sockets. The vessel moved upward at a rate so slow it was nearly imperceptible, but we pressed on, groaning, sweating, silently appealing to the instincts of our forefathers, until finally we pushed the cart over a hump and it surged backwards just as it had surged forwards in the beginning (my foot was nearly run over in the process.)

Cheering for ourselves, we managed to steady the vehicle back onto the road. Everyone climbed in as we had before but I took the back seat instead of the roof this time. I wiped away some sweat off my forehead and noticed something for the first time.

'God damn,'� I remarked, 'all that pushing and pulling really sobered me up.'� The others laughed.

'Me too,'� Cal replied. 'Oh well. We'll take care of that soon enough.'� I nodded and released a deep breath through the smile engraved on my face. Our great ceremony of cheep beer, weed, rock music and friendly vibes would continue, as soon as the Great Spirit guided the three us and the old golf cart back the Cabin of Eden. This was a true gift of nature: not a thing or a feeling but simply a moment. A moment when one can become separated from time and realize things that are greater than oneself. It is a gift that is so rare only because it is so enigmatic, so wondrously intangible, like the empty seconds between a flash of lightning and its accompanying thunder, and like the silent love affair between a moth and an incandescent light bulb, and like the fragile truce made between peace and war so that one may sustain itself in the other's imagination. It is the liberation that comes from the knowledge that Truth has no boundaries, that we all have access to it, even here in the lonely entrails of Northern Wisconsin.

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