1.

Back roads won out over highways wherever they could. The Miata parked by a field or creek with a street directory spread over its boot, myself leaning over with a cigarette hanging between lips and eyes darting like a mad scientist cracking some code of the land, became a familiar situation.

I moved north through the Allegheny National Forest, a small expanse of land stretching into a body of water compelled me, testing the Miata’s grit as I moved down the bumpy trail. I stood by an abandoned campsite – the only remnants of which were a burned-out campfire inside a ring of stones and a litter of empty beer cans. Geese drifted across the lake and occasionally a fish leapt from the water and crashed back in. I watched them until a bush near me moved faster than the breeze, accompanied by a baritone grumble. I stepped on my cigarette, got back in the car and moved on.

The more I drove, the less of a chore it became. I didn’t hesitate to plot routes taking me three, even four times as long to reach my destination, knowing what I lost in efficiency, I more than made up for with what I saw and felt. Growing up, I’d often admired how a patch of land or a street looked from afar, but never ventured to it for risk of it not being so alluring up close. I’d lived all my days like that, but now something within me yearned to push forward with massive amounts of enthusiasm. For maybe the first time in my life, I was acting like someone I wanted to be without having to try.

By just the third letter, they’d already begun to feel like a challenge. I may not have been dictating my travels in any way other than steering the Miata down whichever winding road I chose to take to wherever the next letter led me, but the decisions were my own and I took pride in them. ‘Look, Dad, I can be a wayward dickhead too. Are ya proud?’ I asked myself aloud as I turned from one back road to the next, beginning another long, scenic detour.

Visiting the town of Erie felt like ticking a box on a checklist more than anything. I entered the Presque Isle State Park, what was effectively a large head of land protruding into Lake Erie, wrapping around on itself like a fishing hook to almost seal off the Presque Isle Bay inside.

The park had a single, narrow road cutting through, looping back on itself as if laid by a man who’d forgotten where he built his house. Small lakes dotted the park, some of which contained floating homes – not houseboats, but well-maintained shacks atop raft-like foundations, with footpaths of jetties extending to their doors. I wondered what kind of person would want to live like that and then remembered all the times I’d looked up at towers and thought the same thing.

The rain fell slower that day than anything seemed like it ought to, but had coated everything by the time I reached the lighthouse at the end of the park. It sat tall and proud on the farthest part of a long, thick pier with men fishing off the side and waves crashing below them. I decided that’s where somebody like me belonged: not quite welcome on land, but not yet banished to the sea.

I walked down the pier and stood next to the lighthouse with hands pressed into my pockets and chin into the collar of my jacket to escape the wind. The sky was grey and still full of rain, Lake Erie extending to a place I couldn’t see, to meet with it in a distinct line. How different the same thing can look on another day. Of course it had been sunny when he stood and looked out over the same view. It was always sunny for my father.

I drove the two hours to Cleveland. The place was New York City with a decent night’s sleep. The temperature doubled in the days I was there and I sweated for the first time in weeks. I wandered around the city because it was something new, the same reason for visiting in most of the places I was finding myself. There was more and less pressure in a city like Cleveland: it was one my father had mentioned, but to no specific or meaningful extent. I could walk its streets freely without the sensation I had to be dusting for clues, but not without guilt I was wasting time being there.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was the only thing that interested me. I strolled through its exhibitions for an entire day, feeling good. Flicking through CDs on a stand, I noticed a plaque on the wall. The museum had been erected in 1983. The place wasn’t even around when my father had been in this city, and there I was messing around in its gift shop. As uncertain as I was about my purpose in America, I was sure this wasn’t it.

I stood outside the museum, at the edge of Lake Erie as it reflected the blood orange of the setting sun. I rested my arms atop the railing and started to, again, wonder what I was doing. Was this place the world, or was it some place I’d come to hide from the world? How often our minds make oceans out of lakes.