David's Inferno by David Blistein

around look as disappointed as I am. The only real action is at two huge billiard halls and an Italianrestaurant where a troublingly well-behaved 50’s-style wedding party is gathering on the street.
    I check out a few hotels but can’t imagine checking into any of them. I check out a few restaurants, but can’t imagine eating in any of them.
    I’ve already driven 12 hours and 615 miles. Some of which, by the way, is on the “Trail of Tears.” Only to arrive in a town where the most illuminating sign claims that it was the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh.
    This is the last straw. Clearly, I am now so disconnected from my intuition that I’m deludedly spinning profound portents out of simple encounters with stoned hitchhikers.
    My disappointment is as palpable as it is irrational. I have to get out of Girardeau. And so I cross the river into Illinois where, after yet another hour of driving, I check into a nondescript hotel near the Marion Penitentiary, which is populated by about 50 death-row inmates as well as members of the Aryan Brotherhood, El Rukns, the Mexican Mafia, and D.C. Blacks.
    I feel like I’ve escaped.
    April 8th, 2006. Marion, Illinois to Somerset, Pennsylvania. 678 Miles
. Over the course of 7,633 miles, you listen to a lot of music. When blended with a hair-trigger emotional life, this can easily lead to terminal indulgence in feelings that can only be considered maudlin, mushy, mawkish or way too many of the above. Because you inevitably end up thinking all those songs are about you. Which they’re not. After all, if several million people feel exactly the way you do when you hear a song, you have to question just how special you are. That solidarity thing is one of the great things about rock concerts, but can be problematic in memoir since you’re in serious danger of using phrases like, “soundtrack of my life”—at which point you might as well go find another line of work. While you’ll probably never lose anyone’s respect by saying you feel empowered by listening to
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
—or even
Sympathy for the Devil
in a counter-intuitive way—the casual commentthat
We Built This City on Rock & Roll
makes you feel the immensity and glory of creation is bound to raise an eyebrow. And, rightly so. At the same time, if you play your cards right, you can simultaneously experience the solidarity of those we-are-one emotions and your individual piece of the kaleidoscope. Which feels kind of good. Although, whether that excuses playing
The Rose
or
Pachabel Canon
at any more weddings is open to debate. I have to admit, however, that there’s a song called
Long December
by Counting Crows that inevitably brings tears to my eyes. It begins with the singer, clearly a big-time depressive, hoping against hope that this year will be better than the last.
    Three months into 2006, it’s increasingly hard for me to keep that hope alive.
    The song comes on just as I’m leaving Marion, Illinois on another section of the “Trail of Tears.”
    April 9th, 2006. Somerset, Pennsylvania to Dummerston, Vermont. 561 Miles
. I arrive in Somerset, Pennsylvania well after dark, and check into the Budget Host Inn, where, to my dismay, I discover that not all shabby hotel rooms are alike. Some are even shabbier than others. After finding an ice machine deep in the catacombs—you have to take a big ice pick, both to defend yourself and to chop off pieces—I briefly calm my 14-hours-on-the-road nerves with a Jameson’s before staggering out like some refugee from a Sartre novel in search of comfort food. I find it at The Summit Diner: scrambled eggs and home fries, served by a waitress who’s overweight, pierced, tattooed, and savvy. It only takes her a couple of minutes to know everything she needs to know about me—just leave the guy alone, call him “honey”—more kindly than usual—and go give the