Article by Sam Nystrom-Costales Art by Sam Nystrom-Costales and Willa Schendler
Textured vegetable protein, marketed as TVP, is a nearly flavorless meat substitute that comes in a small, dry, granular form. Driving from Colorado Springs to Eugene, Oregon, the thought crosses my mind that TVP is effectively just granola with more protein. Over the next 24 hours, I insist that Mira ensure the solo cup in the center console stays filled with the crunchy, dry snack. A veritable cornucopia. I eat about two pounds in total. As it turns out, dehydrated vegetable matter in your stomach tends to absorb a lot of liquid, a necessary ingredient for producing regular bowel movements. I sense a portentous sloshing as I go on a run the next day — soon enough, I’m lying in a fetal position on my bathroom floor, tiny condom on my finger, endeavoring to push a tiny capsule up my asshole. I wait for the rumbling sensation of imminent diarrhea. It never comes. I try another laxative — still nothing. The days go by and I’m just stuffing myself from both ends. I’ve blacked out the wreckage that followed.
While I am preoccupied with my suppositories, the whole state starts burning. A mega-wildfire obliterates the small mountain towns east of me; the sky turns orange, ash piles up like drifts of snow. My family tapes plastic over all the entryways in the house. I am in a state of complete suspension — no more college, no sense of internal duration of time (aka my a.m. poop), outside reduced to a constant twilight. I become fixated on getting things moving again, the suspension — constipation, one could say — of my life becomes untenable. Much in the same way the laxatives provided normalcy for my bowels, I hope a road trip will have the same effect on an existential level. I pack a bag of random clothes, prepare an enormous tupperware of plain rice and beans, and drive north, alerting my ex-girlfriend somewhere along the drive that I would be coming to visit her.
In Spokane I check into a Motel 6 just south of town. It reeks of cigarettes and doesn’t have a fridge. Unperturbed, I keep my rice and beans on the counter, letting them marinate in the smoky heat and returning at mealtimes to feast on my fibrous snack. The cigarette smell is worsened by the nauseating arrival of paint fumes; my upstairs neighbor is painting a bicycle, holding the frame at arm’s length out of the window. The next day my ex meets me on an island in the Spokane river. She insists we keep our masks on and stay five feet apart — not the passionate reunion I had envisioned. I wear the high top Vans she had gifted me the year before as a sign of my dedication to her. Not having worn them previously, they badly blister my ankles and pinky toes as we wander the sad, deserted city.
Having been certain that my presence would rekindle our romantic flame, I am dismayed to encounter nothing in Spokane but more stagnation. At least other things were moving: while the TVP produced blockage, the rotting beans liquidate my guts. At the time, I lived constantly between these two dietary extremes, attempting to regain any sense of equilibrium after spending months in the throes of an eating disorder. About a month previously, a meal of tofu, half-baked kodiak cake protein waffle mix, and scrambled eggs blended together had, somewhat blessedly, pushed me to a breaking point.
The smoke follows me north. Not yet ready to confront the life waiting for me back home, I flee to Montana. I make it to Coram, near Glacier National Park, with just enough light left to grace the billboards of the Ten Commandments Welcome Center — one reads “‘be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves’ James 1:22 (free magnet inside!).” I spend the next few days hiking. Soon, the clouds cut long shadows across the sky as Montana also begins to fill with smoke. The whole West is burning. I decide to visit my grandparents in Minnesota. I leave early one morning, the sun rising over desolate prairies, buffalo herds, and a flag of Donald Trump with guns blazing, riding on an angry velociraptor.
It is perhaps terror of the punitive treatment entailed by most of the “free,” gun-blazing, velociraptor-riding Trump country that keeps me from just pulling over on the side of the highway when I begin to feel an urgent need to pee. Instead, I steel myself to wait until the nearest town, about an hour and a half away — gas station in sight, the pain worsens; I unzip my pants thinking that somehow the exposure of my dick to the open air of the car will relieve me of some of the building pressure. Tactical error — with the floodgates open and having effectively communicated to my dick “peeing time!” I begin to spray everywhere, soaking the steering wheel, my pants, the fabric seat of my car. I pull into the gravel lot in the back of the gas station and do my best to wipe off and change. As I rummage around in the back for a trash bag for my soiled clothes, a dog comes out of nowhere and jumps into my passenger seat. I pause. He watches me. Could this be the companion I need to start living life again? I close the car doors. He's trapped. I come very close to taking him.
I arrive at my grandparents’ house in Elk River, Minnesota. I’ll stay here for a month. I fondly watch the fall foliage turn a deep yellow and then scarlet, feeling that life was maybe starting to move again. The next time I’ll come during the fall will be for my grandfather’s funeral. This time, the yellow landscape will mark not the possibility of a new spring but merely the last moment before absolute decay — a sort of melancholic, wilted abandon.
One day my grandfather takes me out to the field where his childhood house stood before it was destroyed by a tornado. We put empty beer cans on the ends of wild milkweed and take turns shooting targets with the .22 Remington he bought in the fifties. It is terrifying; he frequently stares down the barrel while fiddling with the bolt mechanism. He seems to have no patience left for life. The milkweed blows in the wind. Neither of us manage to hit the targets.
I decide to visit family friends in Michigan. Having learned from my mistakes in Montana, I keep a three gallon water jug between my feet, using it to pee when necessary. To avoid any potential empty tanks, I fill a canister of gasoline and keep it in the trunk. Throughout the drive through the Upper Peninsula and into Traverse City, I feel increasingly nauseous and lightheaded. Arriving at the house, my friend mentions that my car reeks of gasoline. I lie, respond that I do not notice it. A Google search reveals my error: you aren’t actually supposed to keep those red tanks full. I panic, now aware that I’ve been slowly killing my brain cells, which I felt needed all the support they could get. I can’t figure out how to get the gas from the portable tank into my car — blame it on my gasoline-infused state of mind. I consider dumping it out in the alley, or maybe down a drain — this seems illegal. I choose the far more responsible option, finding instead a surreptitious spot in my friend’s garage in which to conceal the full tank of gasoline. I’d rather face the unlikely consequence of blowing up their house than face the embarrassment of revealing my error. I hope now, writing this, that they have since discovered the tank and blamed it on their aging parents with whom they share the house. I leave after my birthday, laying my sights on the natural attractions of the Rocky Mountain West.
In South Dakota, I visit the (world’s only!) Corn Palace, which turns out to be nothing more than a municipal basketball arena. A local high school is playing against their rival that day. Confused and dismayed, I head to the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village. Unlike the palace, packed with visitors who, like me, had been tricked by the billboards, the village is completely empty. I wander into the enormous geodesic dome that protects the site, confused by the lack of both staff and visitors. After ten minutes walking along steel catwalks, a young man enters and asks if he can give me a tour. I say no; he looks crestfallen and insists again on giving me a tour. I leave. A blizzard hits that night. I wake up at 5 a.m. freezing cold and search for the buffalo-hide trench coat my dad had asked me to take home from my grandparents.
On my way to a campground outside of Badlands National Park, a police officer pulls me over. A later investigation into his Facebook reveals his daughter has leukemia. He also posted a meme of a rumble strip with the caption—in impact font—“let me sing you the song of my people.” I tell him it's my first time being pulled over. I hope he doesn’t see the jug of piss between my feet. He charges me 20 dollars; I leave with my hands shaking. I won't speed for at least three years afterwards.
I drive into Badlands, donning the trench coat. The clay turns to glue in the melting snow, sucking on my boots as I walk the frozen landscape. I decide to drive through the park into the Black Hills on back roads and pause to watch a herd of buffalo grazing in the cold grass. As the sun rises the sky turns a beautiful purple. I arrive at Mt. Rushmore in the midst of a blizzard which renders the immense faces invisible. I try my luck with Crazy Horse Memorial. In the empty visitor center I can make out the nose, the hole that marks where the arm of the half-finished monument begins. A bumper sticker reads “Always Follow Your Dreams.” I push through the onslaught of snow into Wyoming, arriving eventually in Yellowstone. I eat a lunch of raw seitan and Uncle Ben’s rice on the freezing shores of Yellowstone Lake, and drive across the park, towards Mammoth. I am the sole witness of one of the steamboat geyser’s eruptions. I am too afraid of grizzly bears to do much more than visit the small attractions, and in any case I only have the trench coat. On my second day in Yellowstone I go to see Old Faithful; it erupts around 12:30 p.m.
I feel a strong urge to go home. I drive 14 hours that same afternoon to sleep in my bed. I could make a deep, poetic, and meaningful connection between the enormous jetting geysers of yellowstone, my deeply constipated—and at times diarrhea-ridden—stomach, and the passing of time; that somehow seeing the national symbol of consistency, eruption, and faith in time’s ever-marching arrow inspired me to go home and get my life back together. But, at that moment, the fecal imagery of the scene had not occurred to me. Really, I was just tired of driving, lonely, and cold. Really I wanted to see my mom, not figure my shit out. Sometimes it's okay to be constipated.