Stephen Dixon - Letters to Kevin

I also felt that because I couldn’t pay for a hotel and didn’t know anyone well enough to live with in New York, I might as well try to get to California again. You’re the one person I know who’d put me up till I made enough money to rent a place of my own.

Best, Rudy

Dear Kevin: After I typed and mailed that last letter, I went right back to hitting the road with my fists. But I soon realized I was getting nowhere by hitting the road, so I began hitting the bicycle path instead. But nothing came from hitting the bicycle or bridle paths either, as I still hadn’t found a way to get to California with only five cents and change in my pockets and a typewriter and door knocker in my typewriter case. So I began hitting the park benches and footbridges and road signs and trees and hills and daffodils coming up and rain coming down. But nothing came from hitting any of these things.

So I next began hitting myself. I hit my feet and arms and chest and then my face, but real hard, as I was getting more and more anxious to get to California. You know: slapping and socking my face back and forth and up and down and to and fro and fro and to and to fro to and fro fro to fro to, till I really laced one into my chin and knocked myself out. A girl woke me up by throwing a glass in my face. She said she had planned to throw a glass of water in my face, but got thirsty before she reached me, so she only threw the glass. “And I saw you fighting with yourself before,” she said. “You put up a good battle, but I think you lost.” “You mean I won. As I did knock myself to the ground.” “But I counted you out on the ground. I can’t count to ten myself as they do with boxers in the ring, so I counted the number nine ten times.” She helped me up and ran off with the pieces of glass. I was about to knock myself out again and maybe this time bite and kick myself as well, when I saw a balloon bobbing above the trees in a nearby field. The balloon was at least three stories high and held to the ground by ropes. Tied to the bottom of the balloon was one of those baskets to hold people called a gondola. Nobody was in it. “This balloon yours?” I asked a man standing under it. “Nah. My balloon’s bigger, bluer and now home in my basement uninflated, with all its air in my attic upstairs.” “Maybe I could borrow this for a long trip, if you don’t think anyone around here would mind.” “I’ve no objections. And there’s nobody in the field but the two of us, so take it if you don’t mind.” “I don’t mind.” I stepped into the gondola and looked for the steering wheel. There wasn’t anything inside but along rolled-up balloon string and sandbags on the floor and a few signs nailed to the sides giving driving advice, such as “ STAYTO THE RIGHT OF THE SKY WHEN PASSING” and “ RISINGMORE THAN 55 MILES PER HOUR IS PUNISHABLE BY LOSS OF BALLOONIST LICENSE FOR UP TO TWO YEARS.” I asked the man to untie the ropes. He wished me a “Bon ballonage.” As the balloon started to rise, a man and boy ran to where the balloon had just taken off from. “Poppa, poppa,” the boy said. “Someone’s stealing the balloon you bought me at the zoo today.” Sure enough, on the balloon were written the words CENTRAL PARK ZOO. Though there could have been hundreds of other such balloons sold at the zoo today, I figured this one had to be the boy’s because of the big fuss he was putting up. “Hold tight, kid,” I shouted. “I didn’t know it was yours and I’ll bring it right down.” I dropped several sandbags over the side of the gondola. I thought if I was going to land this balloon, I didn’t want it coming down too hard because of the weight of all that sand. But the balloon was now rising even faster. “The string, the string, you fool,” the father yelled. “Throw it over the side so we can pull the balloon down.” I threw this very long string over the side. It reached just a few inches above the father’s fingers. By the time he lifted the boy to his shoulders to grab the string, the string had risen a few inches above the boy’s fingers. By the time the man got on top of the boy’s shoulders who was still on his father’s shoulders, the string was out of reach of the man’s fingers too. They called over an elderly lady and were helping her climb up past the father and boy to the man’s shoulders, when a strong breeze blew the balloon out of the park and knocked their human totem pole over. The balloon sailed across the West Side of Manhattan and over the Hudson River and New Jersey and then into some clouds. I couldn’t see anything but clouds in these clouds and a little above me, an occasional small plane or immense bird, but I hoped I was still sailing west. When the balloon passed out of the clouds above the Pittsburgh airport, I saw a large sign painted on a hangar roof which said CALIFORNIA THIS WAY. Underneath the sign was an arrow pointing in the direction the balloon was going. “Thanks for the information,” I yelled, just kidding around with my words and hoping the sign wasn’t painted backwards. The first airport I flew over in Ohio had a big YOU’RE WELCOME sign painted on one of its hangar roofs. “That’s real polite of you,” I yelled to the sign. THAT’S THE WAY IT GETS FARTHER OUT WEST YOU FLY a sign on a hangar roof at the next airport said. So I was heading west after all. Buoyed up by this news, I sat down on the floor and started typing this letter. Then I heard what sounded like a police-car siren, I looked at the highway below for the police car chasing a speeding vehicle. But the siren was coming from a much smaller balloon than mine that was chasing me and catching up. BALLOON PATROL it said on the balloon and in its gondola were two policemen. Their balloon got nearer. Over one of those hand-held bullhorns, a policeman told me “Full rover do her hide end stop.” “What? I didn’t make that out.” He shut the siren off and said “I told you to pull over to the side and stop.” “I don’t know how.” “Just step on the brakes.” “There are no brakes.” He threw a pair of brakes into my gondola, I told him I was no auto mechanic and didn’t know how to install them. “Instead,” I said, “throw over a hook to catch onto my gondola and you can bring me down or fly me back that way.” “By hook or by crook this bum’s going to try and get away with that kid’s balloon,” he said to his partner through the bullhorn. His partner grabbed the bullhorn from him and said into it “What should we do, Ike? Call in more patrols to block his way ahead?” Ike grabbed back the bullhorn and said into it “And let those other Charlies get credit for collaring him? No sir. You want to see what we’re going to do, watch me.” Ike drew his revolver and shot at my balloon. The balloon didn’t go pop as I thought it would. Instead it started to deflate over Indiana, descend over Illinois, and when the last of its air sissed out over Iowa, it landed and flopped over on the ground, the flattened balloon covering me like a giant banana peel. The police landed their balloon in the same meadow. Ike put handcuffs on my wrists and was about to bring down his club on my skull.

“I don’t think we have jurisdiction on the ground,” his partner said.

“Ahhh, you’re such a stickler for the law,” Ike said. He removed the cuffs and said to me “You’re lucky this time, sport. But let me catch you in the air with that kid’s balloon again or any kid’s balloon, no matter how large or small, and you’ll really be in a hole.”