Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 1
I COME FROM Des Moines. Somebody had to. When you come from Des Moines you
either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and
get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever, or you spend your adoles-
cence moaning at length about what a dump it is and howyoucan't wait to get out, and then
you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live
there forever and ever.
Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic
known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES.
THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does
getagriponyou.PeoplewhohavenothingtodowithDesMoinesdriveinofftheinterstate,
looking for gas or hamburgers, and stay forever. There's a New Jersey couple up the street
from my parents' house whom you see wandering around from time to time looking faintly
puzzled but strangely serene. Everybody in Des Moines is strangely serene.
TheonlypersonIeverknewinDesMoineswhowasn'tserenewasMr.Piper.Mr.Piperwas
myparents'neighbor,aleering,cherry-facedidiotwhowasforevergettingdrunkandcrash-
ing his car into telephone poles. Everywhere you went you encountered telephone poles
and road signs leaning dangerously in testimony to Mr. Pipers driving habits. He distributed
them all over the west side of town rather in the way dogs mark trees. Mr. Piper was the
nearest possible human equivalent to Fred Flintstone, but less charming. He was a Shriner
and a Republican-a Nixon Republican-and he appeared to feel he had a mission in life to
spread offense. His favorite pastime, apart from getting drunk and crashing his car, was to
get drunk and insult the neighbors, particularly us because we were Democrats, though he
was prepared to insult Republicans when we weren't available.
Eventually, I grew up and moved to England. This irritated Mr. Piper almost beyond meas-
ure. It was worse than being a Democrat. Whenever I was in town, Mr. Piper would come
over and chide me. “I don't know what you're doing over there with all those Limeys,” he
would say provocatively. “They're not clean people.”
“Mr. Piper, you don't know what you're talking about,” I would reply in my affected British
accent. “You are a cretin.” You could talk like that to Mr. Piper because (1.) he was a cretin
and (2) he never listened to anything that was said to him.
