This is the conclusion to How To Move To NYC With Ten Dollars Or Less. Read part one here.
I woke up behind the wheel of a 1980-something Chevy van, at night, staring at the red tail lights of an eighteen-wheeler. I don’t know how long I was out for, but it could have only been seconds, because I was still on the road. I need to pull over, I thought to myself. I found a rest stop.
Safe in a parking spot, I looked over at my two sleeping comrades: Jay, in the bench seat behind me, who had driven all day, and Vanessa, in the passenger seat, sleeping on the window. I wanted to sleep, too. I felt bad, knowing Jay wanted this to be a non-stop trip. I shook Vanessa awake.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Tennessee, I think. The states are kinda blurring together. Listen, would you mind staying up? I need to talk to someone to stay awake.”
“I’m not much of a talker,” she said.
I laughed. “That’s okay.”
I pulled back out onto the highway, piloting an unfamiliar ship, being so used to sedans, and headed North again. It took about fifteen minutes of questioning the shy Vanessa until she began to spill her life story. It was enough to keep me from nodding off at the wheel and killing the three of us.
A few hours before my shift I filled up on some of the loaf of Wonder bread I had bought with my last ten dollars before the trip. I had a cheap pack of Bronco cigarettes, a little two-dollar brand I’m guessing is native to New Orleans or the whole Deep South, I don’t know. Since we left the big easy less than 24 hours before we had seen Biloxi, Mississippi, the forget victim of Katrina, leveled and quiet. A small New Orleans, without the Jazz and the protests, just casino ships run aground fifty yards from the beach and laid down trees. Up we drove through the Southern states, everything a blur, Old Man Jay at the wheel and me in the bench seat, playing the guitar, pretending I was Dylan.
Now it was night, and the scenery was just like any other interstate at night. Exit sign followed exit sign, town followed town, and hour after hour we were the only souls traveling on less than five wheels. And I felt justified, knowing that I was about to step into a life where I would need the generosity of others to get by, broke and without a home, because I was doing a good deed in returning a scared, shaken girl to her mother.
When we made it to the city, I got out of the van in the Bronx with Vanessa and promised Jay to mail him some cash when I was able. I lost his address, and I haven’t heard from him since. Vanessa’s mother insisted on letting me stay with them the first night, and for the first time, I truly felt like a stranger. The next day I said goodbye to a few more people I would never see again.
A few weeks later, after couchsurfing with fellow former volunteers, I had landed a job and was sharing an apartment in Manhattan with another friend I had met in New Orleans. It was spring of 2006. I’ve been a New-Yorker ever since. Four years later, I’m ready to say goodbye.
