New Jersey

walking on the highway feels much worse than driving down the highway who knows what’s going to hit you
who knows what car is going to splash you speeding through the puddles
walking through gigantic well lit parking lots has a certain allure to it but it’s all over for me now now
I have the comfort of air conditioning and Art Blakey in stereo on CD
even walking along the busy highways you get to at least see every little thing on the ground
you can pick things up that you would otherwise not even see
license plates and beer bottle caps
maybe even some money
maybe an adult magazine or a letter that someone threw out the window
there are all sorts of thing I’ve thrown out of my car window for this exact purpose
I don’t want to litter the earth like that but I want to make that walk down busy highways exciting for someone as the drive now is just boring and doesn’t give me a chance to see what’s all over the ground
remnants of some fight that blasted by at seventy miles an hour
remnants of a love affair gone bad that just got thrown out the window in the form of a cigarette butt and a photo of some sunny resort town with out of towners wandering around like moses
useless artifacts that I got to collect on trains planes or automobiles
useless artifacts that the world never gets to see
speeding people getting their kicks by giving me and the rest of my people little objects and ideas to ponder
in the breakdown lane you at least need a hobby when you walk like that
the big parking lot lights tickling the clouds with obnoxious industrial orange light
it’s intense how bright yet dark and murky somewhere like New Jersey is in the middle of the night
there are all sorts of great places to walk there
there are all sorts of good stretches of highways for you to collect these artifacts
I recommend it to anyone looking for a hobby
I recommend it to anyone who thinks they have seen it all
you haven’t seen anything until you’ve walked five miles down the New Jersey turnpike with a quarter bottle of vodka in you and a wallet full of business cards
people throw these things out not knowing of me and my group of people that collect this stuff
I arrange it
I take it home and spread it all out on the floor of the garage and let it tell me stories
all the objects on the cold cement floor have their own little histories to tell me
all the objects tell me these interesting stories
if they don’t have anything to tell me I put a little yellow tag on it marked “needs story”
I then assign it it’s own history and story
this object belonged to a man with two kids one wife and a job that requires him to be on time every day and make sure people under him get things done so that he can feed his kids and get to throw things out for me and my people to collect
he’s on to me he’s on the take with us he sees us like chain gangs in orange vests on the side of the road collecting the objects to lay out on my cold cement floor out in the garage
sometimes the men and women will put their phone numbers and addresses on the objects so that I can get in touch with them and tell them everything is okay with said object
sometimes when I assign my own stories to the objects I like to track the former owners down and tell them about the stories I gave their artifacts
“no there will be no time capsule Mister Fredericks you won’t see the object again you discarded the object so I could bring it to life on the cold cement floor of my garage”
I like to spend a good long Sunday evening arranging the objects into groups this group was owned by all women from Florida over the age of forty
this group had more than one owner
this group is my favorite group
as you can see it’s arranged elaborately on the cold cement floor of my garage as it’s a special object that has almost mystical powers that normal people would not be able to understand and that is why it is in the special group right there in front it’s like the king group of objects the big pimp daddies all get their own little seat in the house these objects get taken into the house and get the royal treatment they have big long histories that only I know about someday I may tell the stories of the objects
people that are not on to this whole thing would call us pack rats or useless
once this catches on though the stories will all be told
I will have lines around the block waiting to sit there and listen to the stories that the objects tell
I will have all sorts of secrets to tell people that want to be in the know
yeah the highway is more than just a thing that connects places and people
it’s a place that creates histories and stories beyond what I ver thought imaginable
half of my stories I tell that people may think are lies come from these objects
on Sunday evenings when I spread them on the cold cement floor in my garage the objects never collect dust they are shined and treated with the utmost care and love more that what I give to people as the objects are all people
little friends of mine that tell stories and give me reason to wake up every day
I look forward to collecting more of these objects over the years to show people and teach people about
if someone ever wanted to join the group with me I would let them in on all the secrets as the objects are not going to just talk to anyone and start telling stories to just any old person off the street
there is a long long long history with these and one day I will document it I promise
yeah that’s what I will do I will write the best novel and nobody will know about my muses
they will think I am just a great story teller
they will all praise me and want to know where the inspiration comes from
I will never let the secret out as I will write the novel anonymously
I will write it from the point of view of all the objects
the ones in my favorite group
the group that sits in the front row
those objects have the best stories
As I collect more of these the stories will only get bigger and better
for now though I will spend my time developing the skills to write the stories for the blank objects
the ones with no history about who owned them previous to me
you will all see
you will all be jealous that you cannot make things like this happen on the cold cement floor of your garage
if it’s one thing I am passionate about it’s this and I can now make it happen
the word is out the objects are in my possession
hidden somewhere arranged into little groups like I said
little groups that will tell the stories of a million men and women
little groups that tell me the stories that I see as some of the most amazing stories
perhaps I will keep this all to myself from now on
perhaps I will let them just talk to me from here on out
I told the story here now
the story stays on my cold cement floor out in the garage
this winter will bring stories this winter I might change and let it go public
I’m just not sure I trust people to understand anything about this whole thing
I just don’t know if it’s time yet
I guess when it’s time I will let the stories be told