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The cruelest act I have ever intentionally performed was not intentionally cruel. At a summer camp one year, in the not so distant past, I crawled up into the attic to make ghost-ish noises in order to both scare and educate one of the younger staff members who had confided in me suspicions that the building was haunted. Truth be told, it was I who was most frightened initially, for the small dark attic was filled with mice and strange noises and quickly began to wear at my sanity and, after a moment’s solitude, I knew there was little hope in suggesting that ghosts of this sort did not exist. When the lady in question and her friend came into the common room I began my scraping and banging and general poltergeist-like activity in hopes of evoking a perplexed and, even, frightened response. As I began spooking about, however, the air conditioning unit — which sat directly behind me — kicked in and what auditory cues I had relied upon to determine the location of my victims was drowned out completely. I hadn’t the foggiest clue what was happening below me; however, having already begun, I continued faithfully on the path I had chosen, growing ever more scary and possessed until, finally, I shook the door and collapsible stairs so much so that it would have appeared that a giant kangaroo was attempting to liberate himself from the attic.

I thought it to be rather ridiculous. Not being afraid of ghosts or spooked at night — that happens to the best of us — but of an attic staircase slamming up and down and generally making a fool of itself well beyond the established realm of a proper haunting in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day. As I sat there whacking the door I imagined that everyone had seen through my plan and were rolling their eyes and calling at me to come down already and stop being such a dork. When I finally stuck my head down, however, what I found surprised, horrified, and brought about the uttermost guilt I have ever before or since felt. Both women were huddled in the corner, shaking, crying, and terrified beyond consolation.

There are many excuses I can manage to ease my shame but the fact of the matter remains: I was terrifically cruel and I am sorry to have caused such terror. In terms of misery, however, the psychological damage I caused to these two women is but a small drop in the pail of pain that Ben’s girlfriend filled when she suggested he and I bring and read Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” on our trip.

Umberto Eco was largely unknown to me but well-known to a large number of people. If you have never heard of him, I will provide you with a quick summary in the event that Ben tries to suggest to you that bringing one of his books on a long trip is a good idea and you turn to him and ask him “who is this Umberto Eco?” and he tries to convince you that Mr. Eco is famous and worth reading only because his girlfriend said so and he figures if he ever wants to have sex again he better agree with her at least .0005% of the time. So instead: here is a brief biography: Umberto Eco is an author; he writes books; he is from Italy and writes in Italian and his books are, therefore, having to be translated into English for me to read them; there is nothing else you need to know.

It is only because he is famous and because his books have been translated into English by someone unknown (and, perhaps, not famous) that I feel required to say: “The Name of the Rose” is dreadful. I hated it. Ben hated it. Neither of us could understand why anyone would find it appealing or even read it and yet — for a reason I cannot explain — we continued to read it anyway. It was as if our extreme loathing brought us some strange pleasure; as if we traveled so far on the spectrum of pain that we eventually found ourselves on the other side basking in joy; as if we realized the only pleasure to be found in such misery was pleasure itself. And so, we laughed and cried at the mischievous nature of both Adso and William of Baskerville, and we giggled and wallowed over the idea of monks buggering both each other and peasant girls (who were subjected to capital punishment for their part in the matter while the monks were spoken to firmly) but, agreed wholeheartedly, that the book could have done with more mystery and sex and less flouting of one’s knowledge of Latin. Actually: if Mr. Eco had simply done away with all the Latin and historical and religious references I probably could have finished the book but, as it were, the only true mystery that remained for me was why the translator thought it pertinent to leave large chunks of non-English text un-translated. If a book is to be read in English, it should be in English. This is why we have translators and interpreters.

The only good that came of the entire book was the system Ben and I developed for reading literature while bicycle touring: when I finished a chapter, I would tear it out of the book and hand it to Ben; when Ben had finished it, he would tear it up and dispose of it out or bury it or gnaw on it if he was hungry. During the last weeks of our trip we only carried one book and the minute both of us had finished reading a chapter, a page, or even a word, it was trashed and we no longer had to carry it. While we loathed the book we loved the system — one book for two people — and it shall be applied on all future engagements.

Umberto Eco, however, shall not.

In June, when Ben and I came into Oregon it was with flair and style. We crossed The Bridge of the Gods hovering over the Columbia River Gorge on a grated causeway that gave the impression of pedaling on air if one ventured a look down. It was dizzying and apocalyptic. We even had to pay a toll upon entering the state (something we had never had to do prior on our bicycles). The overall feeling was: we had made it through Washington! We had eaten eggs, climbed mountains, flirted with keytosis, and found women in abundance! We were manly men traveling on a bridge that Gods, themselves, had at one time traveled! O! The glory and fame that would be ours!

Unlike the Columbia River Gorge, however, the Oregon-Californian border, on Route 199, is altogether depressing. In fact, all of Route 199 is depressing and we had been depressed for some time when we arrived and, though it was foolish, we had hoped for a better effort from California. But there is nothing better about California’s portion of Route 199 than Oregon’s; there is no magnificent heavenly entrance; there is no large body of well-known water; there is simply a blue-ish sign welcoming you to California that has been fornicated upon with graffiti and stickers and Californians only knew what else. We did not linger long: the heat, lack of a breeze, and patches of clear cut wilderness did not suit us well and California did not win our hearts in those first moments.

Our dark travels down Route 199 became immanently darker as we mounted our steeds and pedaled towards the gaping maw of a tremendous tunnel. A tunnel to a biker is like a mongoose to a snake; like a cat to a mouse; like an imperceptible hole to a prophylactic; like a nun to a priest; like a bowl of Jell-O to Bill Cosby. They are simply not a good combination.

Ben has admitted to me that he will, on occasion, succumb to a the sweet experience of claustrophobia and I have admitted to no one, until now, having ever had experiences of the same sort. I like to think that my faith in God and Heaven above and Hell below keeps me sane in those confining situations and helps me remain calm and at peace; Ben’s utter disregard for a spirit, soul, reincarnation or Jell-O is, I would attest, why he borders on irrational panic while getting an MRI. Usually I laugh at him and his profane fear but, after this tunnel, I believe I can faithfully attest that I know claustrophobia; I know the panic, the horror, the flight of reason, the belief that escape is impossible and death is ineluctable.

On a bicycle, inside of a narrow tunnel, the sound of a thousand cars and car accidents are amplified demonically and the walls reverberate with a thousand deaths and a thousand muffled screams. I have never pedaled as hard as I did then. As the light from the entrance ceded and the light from the exit had not yet come into view the terror I experienced was like no other. The world I had once known — the world of #6, eggs, Umberto Eco, and post-prandial naps — was replaced by blackness, furious pedaling, fantastic visions fed by auditory hallucinations, and held breath.

Maybe the tunnel wasn’t all that long. Maybe there was plenty of light and a dry surface on which to pedal. Maybe there were no cars but it didn’t matter. I heard them, I felt the slick road, I saw nothing but black death all around me.

Not fifteen feet after our liberation from Hades we pulled into a visitors center and I set about making our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with shaking hands and sweaty palms. Silently we ate our meal and then, exhausted from fear and paranoia, we settled into a post-prandial nap precariously balanced on our backs, lying against the hard surface of a wooden picnic table spattered with knots and petrified pieces of food. Fading out of consciousness is an inaccurate description as to what happened to Ben and I in those moments after our meal. We were bitch-slapped out of consciousness and into such a deep and epic post-prandial stupor that we did not recover from it on that day. California had taken its toll, and we had just begun.

Ben was horrified.

BEN: After the tunnel — it was nice, fine actually — we were going downhill into such a headwind that we had to pedal our butts off just to move downhill. But the worst part was: the post-prandial nap, which have been speaking of, this was the most potent — the most Rip Van Winkle-like experience — that we have had. We ate some food after this tunnel — and I honestly think that we were in some kind of shock after this tunnel — so we were stuffed with food, fell asleep on the picnic table, and when we woke up, literally, it was only consciousness that awoke. The body did not follow. We assembled our things, got on the bikes, and we could not move. We were going downhill and it was all I could do just to spin my pedals. Not even against any resistance: just turn them around. My legs were lead; my legs were like cold tapioca. They were useless. And, unfortunately, then we had to pedal into the wind downhill for a long ways. And, kept going past campsites it’s like: “Wait! This isn’t ours! The one we want is going to be in Gasket. Gasket has camping. My map told us so.” Oh, ho, ho ho ho. We got to Gasket and, as you can imagine, there was no camping.

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