Welcome to Restless Viking

Radio, season one, episode 10.

The season finale.

This season has been about roads,

movement, and the stories that follow

you, whether you invite them or not.

This one follows me for the

last episode of the season.

I want to introduce you to someone

who means more to me than anyone

else in my life, which is a dangerous

sentence because it implies planning.

And I've spent most of my

life actively avoiding that.

But she's here anyway.

Her name is Martha, though we call her

Poppins these days, and starting in

season two, she'll be joining us not

as a guest, not as a novelty, but with

stories of her own, which feels right

because some people don't just show

up in your life, they reorganize it.

Before that happened, there was this,

the scene is Western Michigan University.

I stopped by their room in

Draper Clog just to check in.

No agenda, no lurking.

Just checking the weather.

I'd made a habit of stopping by

places without committing to them.

Dorm rooms, kitchens, parking lots.

I would stay long enough to be

polite, long enough not to be

remembered for leaving too fast.

I was good at that,

showing up without staying.

Chantelle Martha's roommate, answered

the door with a kind of concern,

usually reserved for tornado warnings.

She's on a date she said.

Okay, not my business with a 34-year-old.

Well, now I'm listening.

Chantel was deeply concerned.

Apparently this man owned a

motorcycle, which in college Logic

automatically made him suspicious.

I nodded along pretending this

was a sociological interest.

Truth is I didn't care who dated whom.

College Romance always struck me as an

elaborate mating dance involving bad

poetry, cheap wine, and men suddenly

pretending they like steel magnolias.

I preferred other hobbies, midnight

bike rides, hopping freight trains,

rock climbing, hanging out with

people who'd already lost everything

and therefore had better stories.

But hearing she was on a date,

something tightened in my chest,

which annoyed me a few months earlier.

Martha Marty back then had slipped

me a post-it note while her friends

and I were late night chatting.

It said, do you wanna have a

romantic interlude, efficient,

optimistic, hard to misinterpret?

So we did.

It was surprisingly passionate,

and then I did what I do best.

I declared there would be no relationship,

no labels, no expectations, just whatever.

This was after my last long-term

relationship imploded, I decided

I didn't need women relationships

or the baffling rituals of dating.

It wasn't my thing.

She didn't exactly leave.

Which in retrospect

should have tipped me off.

So when Chantel said she was out with some

other guy riding around in his motorcycle,

I agreed far too enthusiastically

that this was a terrible idea.

A couple of friends piled on, she's

acting out, she doesn't need another

relationship, and suddenly I wondered

uncomfortably if this had anything to do

with me, that feeling tightened again.

So I left the room.

thing called night security.

Officially, it was for

safety, unofficially.

It was a place to hang out,

trade insults and store car keys.

For some reason, no one fully

understood Joe was working the desk.

I opened the drawer and

grabbed a set of keys.

Since when do you own a car?

He asked.

Martin said I could borrow it,

which was close enough to the truth.

Outside.

I paused.

Felt a flicker of anxiety,

like I might lose something.

I pulled a pack of Lucky Strike,

no filters from my jean jacket.

Put one between my lips

and slid it from the pack.

Flicked my zippo again and again.

I couldn't afford lighter fluid.

Eventually it caught in reality.

I probably looked like a broke college

kid pretending to be dangerous.

I found the car eventually parked across

from campus police, red Ford Escort.

The key worked.

I started the car and slowly

crap out of the parking lot and

pointed it to Carlos Murphy's.

On the way I realized how rude it was

to smoke in a stranger's car, so I

tossed the cigarette out the window.

I walked in with a plan to look

accidental, like I happened to wander

into an Irish Tex-Mex restaurant.

I couldn't afford just

to meet some friends.

The hostess asked if I needed a table.

I told her I was meeting someone

and asked if I could look around.

She eyed me, then nodded.

I scanned the room.

And there she was across from her set,

a skinny 30-year-old with a receding

hairline and hopeful wisps of a crew.

Cut tight t-shirt, full leather jacket.

He looked like he smelled

faintly of cheap cologne.

He didn't wander over.

That's important.

Chuck Sauntered, which

is not the same thing.

There was intention in it

direction, a posture that said

something was about to happen.

Even if he hadn't quite decided

what that something was, I remember

thinking, who is he here with?

He took a seat without asking.

He wasn't abrupt or aggressive.

He just sat down like he had

been scheduled to arrive.

He nodded at me.

Then at Gary, then he

reached for our appetizer.

The chip came up buried in

cheese, far more than necessary.

The cheese resisted, stretching back

toward the plate, refusing to let go.

It thinned into a long, pale

strand, suspended there longer

than anyone was comfortable with.

The table waited.

Chuck waited.

He pinched the cheese near the plate.

Gary stared at the spectacle.

Blankly, seemed in awe and

confused at the same time.

Chuck wrapped it once, then he

swirled the top of the chip like

it was soft serve ice cream.

He was slow, deliberate,

careful, like method mattered.

Then Chuck ate it.

That's when I finally asked,

what are you doing here?

I'm meeting someone.

She tilted her head, who

I hadn't planned that far.

So I reached across the table, over

the scattered chips, over the cooling

cheese and stuck my hand out, yo.

I said, I'm Chuck.

Gary shook it.

Hey, Chuck, I'm Gary.

His grip was solid, not

aggressive, not showy.

Just present.

That caught me off

guard, not because of me.

I could handle him.

But because of what it suggested

and how little control I had

over that, you know, she's 21.

I said to him, he nodded slowly.

Yeah, I know.

Okay.

I said, just so you know,

I was still there watching.

Suddenly I was a spectator on my own date.

I'd expected this kind of behavior

from Chuck, but just not like this.

The surprise moved around the

table before I could catch it.

And I was very interested in letting

it move to see where this went.

I turned my head before I

turned my eyes from Gary.

His eyes dropped to the plate.

Then I looked at Popin.

She had a smile that said, what the hell?

Crooked at one end, frustrated

and dripping with curiosity.

She let the silence do the work.

What I said, she shook her head,

and I'll never forget this.

She rolled her eyes at me

for the first time ever.

What I asked again, slightly

shrugging my shoulders.

For some reason, Gary chose that moment

to excuse himself to go to the bathroom.

I watched him go.

Then I sniffed for theater

just to establish something,

and I wasn't sure what.

Poppins took a drink of her diet Coke

and glanced toward the bathrooms.

She set her glass down with

a sort of elegance that I

noticed for the first time.

Then she fixed me with a calm smile.

It was disarming cute.

I hadn't noticed this before about her.

It was the kind of smile that

mixed exasperation with mischief.

It's like when Harry meant Sally.

I said, we go our separate ways.

Then we end up meeting up

in the damnedest places.

She chuckled lightly while rubbing

her forehead like she's been

watching this longer than I have.

I was lost for words, lost in general.

I reached over and grabbed

Gary's coke and took a slug to

wash down the chips and cheese.

Just as I sat it down, he

appeared walking toward us.

It seemed like he was doing his best.

I watched him blankly.

He sat down and I maintained my glare.

When he finally looked up, I

searched his eyes as I said, well,

it doesn't look like they showed up.

I gotta get going.

I turned to Marty, reached in my jean

jacket, pulled out my Lucky's, grabbed on

with my lips and slid it out of the pack.

You kids have fun.

A smirk pulling at my lips.

Then I turned to Gary.

You too, old man.

Then I slid outta my seat, ignored the

table, and left the drive back, was quiet.

I suddenly noticed the radio was

blaring some kind of Christian jazz.

I poked at the radio

trying to get it to stop.

Finally, a cassette slowly presented

itself and static roared in its place.

Good enough.

I thought I drove for a while, static

blaring down the one way streets of

Kalamazoo past the old state theater.

A silence just fell around me.

It was heavy.

I smiled at myself.

Finally, I pulled into a parking lot.

The space I left an hour ago was occupied,

so I parked beyond in the structure.

I strolled through the door.

Cigarette smoke trailing Joe

gave me one of his laughs.

He laughed at, told me I was

amusing in a way he couldn't be.

I stopped, opened the door

and tossed the cigarette out.

I opened the desk drawer and

gently placed the keys inside.

Why would she date a 30-year-old?

I announced more than

asked who said Joe Marty.

I studied his face.

Curious.

I didn't quite pull it off.

I thought to him, I turned

and headed upstairs.

Something was different.

Not enough to explain.

Enough to remember

that night at Carlos

Murphy's, something shifted.

Not with clarity, just enough to carry.

This whole season has been about roads.

The ones that take you north to

places with names you can't pronounce.

The ones that end at a fire held by

strangers who welcome you anyway.

The ones that remind you slowly,

consistently, that the whole

thing comes down to showing up.

I spent most of my life showing up.

Freight trains, Arctic Coastlines,

search and Rescue in the dark.

REI stores laundromats and

Iceland Fires at Chisso.

You show up, they make space.

You remember how to do the same.

Robert at the fire, he showed up.

We made space.

George fighting for Eelgrass.

We showed up and he made space.

Wade and Blanche's kitchen table.

I showed up.

They made space.

A kid at REI showed up asking questions.

He answered it like it mattered.

That night at Carlos Murphy's,

I showed up uninvited, confused,

wrapped cheese, like it mattered.

She made space.

Anyways.

I didn't understand it then.

I didn't name it.

I just noticed that for the

first time, the road didn't feel

like it was pulling me forward.

It felt like it was asking me to stay.

That was new.

That's the end of season one

of restless biking radio.

These were the roads that got me here.

We'll be back in April with season two

different stories, more than one voice.

Until then, thanks for showing up.