Aka Cords

Indigenous Polynesian Huna theology holds sacred the mythology of the "aka cord." Basically, an aka cord is a psycho-spiritual-emotional cord that binds a person to any person, place, or thing s/he contacts. Intense, powerful, or even traumatic relationships with particular people, places, or things make the aka cords very strong and difficult to break. It is said that sometimes we need to break aka cords in order to grow as people. This can present a conundrum. When an aka cord is difficult to sever, drastic measures are necessary.

III.

Since I felt it was becoming illusory anyway, in 1997, I walked away from my comfortable, impoverished filmmaker's life in Athens, Georgia. In one uncalculated spasm I bought my uncle Joaquin's '82 Toyota Corona, broke the lease on my ramshackle, roach-infested duplex, ripped the remaining tomatoes off the vine in my garden, and headed North on interstate 85, en route to New York City. I had this idea in my head that I'd go and become a famous artist there or something grandiose like that. Maybe end up on t.v. Maybe become a monk. Extremity was my worldview, I guess. It was all-or-nothing time for me. I was twenty-three years old. My buddy Ryan, seeing me off, gave me a 3" x 3" textile mosaic and said, "My aunt made this. Take it." On it was a pictured image of a sailboat on a crude, cobalt blue ocean. I placed it on my console, next to the speedometer. My Corona hummed and purred. "Go give 'em hell," he spoke into the morning light. "See you next time," I said back. And I was off. Athens, then Atlanta, then Georgia altogether receded in my rear view mirror like Saturday morning cartoons that slowly give way to a weird Saturday afternoon lineup of foreign programming and title cards.

I don't know where I slept that night. When I look at a present day map, I figure it must have been Virginia. Possibly North Carolina, but most likely Virginia. Wherever it was, the May skies were turning to dusk and I was exhausted from saying goodbye to all things Georgian - all my haunts and memories and attachments and loves. It was like a piece of my heart had been ripped out. I felt like a wild, wounded animal. I saw a sign that said "campground," so I got off the bristling interstate and began following signs to the campground. I drove for several miles, deeper into a rural enclave of some kind, where the signs became progressively cruder. I drove along hairpin turns, up a tiny mountain of brambles and cliffs. The sky was oozing orange and spreading itself into a pale blue.

Finally I arrived at an empty campground of sorts. There was no one there to say hello to, or to take my money. So I chose a spot - the highest point on a hill, unfurled my sleeping bag, and built a small fire with some twigs. Clumps of smoke climbed skyward and I settled into my Tao Te Ching. A half hour or so had passed when I looked up to find a young girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, standing at the foot of my sleeping bag.

"You campin?"

"Yeah, I'm camping."

She looked like she world's loneliest, most peaceful kid. And when I told her I was camping, she turned and ran away, down the inky hill, vanishing like an apparition. A few minutes later, she returned. This time she was with her dad, who was driving a pickup truck. She waved at me from the passenger side. Her dad - I guess that's who he was - got out and asked me where I was from.

"Georgia. Movin' to New York, though."

"Uh-huh."

He cast his gaze downward and asked me if my parents knew where I was. (I looked young for my age, and I think he mistook me for a runaway at first.) I told him "Yeah, I'm 23 you know." He then asked how many nights I planned to stay. I told him "one" and he said that he lived at the bottom of the hill, and if I needed anything just to come and ask. "Okay, thank you." He charged me $5 for that night there on the hill, and paused, as if he were on the precipice of asking me to come down and join his family for a hot meal. Instead he just got into his truck and drove away. The world's loneliest girl waved back at me as they descended the snaky gravel road that went downhill.

I watched the stars climb out from behind the night, and before too long my fire died down. And soon I was shivering in my Kmart sleeping bag. I felt like a ghost haunting the hillside there, or like a clown at a carnival, who didn't know who he really was underneath all that facepaint anymore, but he knew that the carnival was coming to an end and he'd better hurry up and decide. Wiry trees reached out over me and I fell into a troubled sleep.

The next afternoon, I was driving across every pothole available in Queens, New York City. I had made it at last. My buddy Jayson let me stay at his apartment. I stayed with Jayson for a few days. One day, while we were walking out of Jayson's apartment, an an old man was drunk and on his back in the hallway. "Aw shit, it's Pendergrass," Jayson said and we picked him up, just before he unzipped his trousers and started to piss on the wood paneling. He then started to scream, and we pushed him into his apartment and shut the door behind him.

I went to every museum, every library, and every park I could find, and one day I even halfheartedly tried to sell my drawings on the subway. "They're nice," a lady said, "but I'm not gonna buy one of those." I gave up almost instantly. Later that week, I filed for work at a temp agency. They had work for me, they said, "down at the pier." In a few short days, I left Jayson a brief note saying goodbye. I got into my uncle's Toyota Corona and headed out for the West Coast. On the New Jersey turnpike, I rolled down the window and hollered, free at last. The world had rolling hillsides for me, and air that smelled sweeter than the sweetest sweetness.

Somewhere in Jersey, though, the engine caught fire. I pulled over, got out, and watched the engine smoldering on the turnpike. Within about ten minutes, the car itself was burning to a crisp. It turns out that the radiator had cracked, causing the engine to overheat. The sweet smell in the air? That was radiator fluid. The warning lights on my dash were obscured by the sailboat mural Ryan had given me. I didn't know it at the time, but as I was hollering and feeling free at last, I was actually driving my car straight into the mouth of Hell. It would take me many months to recoup my losses. I flew back down to Georgia, defeated.