f one were so inclined, one could pick up US 250 from W.Va. Route 7 like I do. Why I was near the forgotten town of Hundred on the Sunday before Memorial Day I'd rather keep to myself. I live in the faux-city of Wheeling, where the varicose hookers, strutting drunks, luggaged homeless and white trash waving welfare checks aloft mingle with corporate businessmen on Market Street. Newspaper reporters yet to lose the velvet from their horns prowl through the streets and lurk in fluorescent offices dumbly. Very modern. Not quite with the level of economic triumph as other cities with bigger names, but rife with history and integrity.

Most of the buildings in downtown Wheeling are remnants of 19th Century Victorian-style architecture. A great town for artists without any clout or realized talent. For instance, it makes for good writing to talk of the frontispieces of the buildings. Ornate cornerstones in the shape of dragon tongues. Old brick patterns, gaps thick, spread with ancient mud; crumbling onto heads rushing around on the sidewalks. Regimented fenestration. Huge store windows with displays of wedding gowns; guitars and pianos; office furniture; cheap jewelry and guns; switchblades and stage costume. It makes for a good image, but the one writing it ...

But I was not there when I started my 250 trip that Sunday afternoon.

I was in towns like Low Gap, Knob Fork and finally, Hundred. My grandfather asked me once, "You know how Knob Fork got its name don't ye?"

Of course, being twelve or so, I was intrigued.

"Well, you see there was this old man who lived up on the knob all alone," he said. "One day, he was out huntin' and he slipped on moss -- fell and got a damned fork run up his ass."

"That never happened," I protested.

"Sure it did! got a fork stuck right in his ass --- fell off the knob!"

He belted out a rough laugh, grinning slyly.

I stopped at a gas station to fill up the gray, rambling 1987 Chrysler Le Baron in Hundred. The Le Baron, when running, creaks horribly ­ sounds like it was made out of wood. Routinely, I popped open the lid and unscrewed the top. I went to swipe my debit card in the pump's slot, but there was no slot. It was hot and my black dog was dying in the car. For a moment of two, I was confounded. This lack of the debit card option nearly caused abject panic. I thought I would never make it back to Wheeling. Stuck, out of gas, no money, no hope, in Hundred, W.Va. Confidence plummeted to the pit of my rotten stomach and my spine felt hot. No. Surely the station store would have an automated teller machine. I went inside.

There was a young punk who looked like he was getting anxious to leave work and go to a Toby Keith concert working the register ­ tight Wranglers, boots of exotic black rat snake, terrible, all-encompassing acne and a subtle green scum filling up the gaps of his teeth like plaque mortar. He eyed me up suspiciously. I was adorned in a Panama Jack bucket hat, love beads, weird shorts and a pair of blue low-top Converse sneakers in the process of disintegration. Our comparable youth assuaged any animosity quickly, though, and the dude behind the counter flicked his head back in acknowledgment.

"You guys got an ATM?" I asked.

"No. But we can take credit and debit cards in here." He pointed at a tiny plastic sign set on the counter that had all the major credit card companies' logos represented.

"Well, you must understand," I said and leaned in close to make sure no one else heard. "I'm not even sure if I have the money in the bank. The Editor won't talk to the corporate stink-horses."

I saw my hands gesturing frantically and without histrionic meaning.

"I understand what you mean. Goddamn. Corporations are sucking the innocence right out of everyone's life. Look at this town. Any body who knows what's going on leaves as soon as high school's over. Greener pastures. I mean, Jesus. There ain't nothing to do here but smoke dope, drink beer and get jobs as cash registers in isolated gas stations on 250."

Of course, he didn't actually say any of this. For some reason, I knew that was what he was thinking, though ­ his eyes were red with frenzied thoughts of exodus. Any moment, he, too, would flee from this backwoods stagnation and toothless constituency. The wooden arcades of the downtown. Like a set of a western movie, but no desert and no hero to speak of. An allegiance to that innocence we all had until the businessmen ended up acting like the Second Coming. This cash register running geek understood this. It was running through his mind like a ticker tape dripping with the blood of the Lamb. In a couple of years, he might be hundreds of miles away, rotting in a tight cubicle experiencing the American Way.

"There's an ATM about a half-mile down the road," he said. "You can't miss it. Right on the wall of the bank. And it ain't that far, like I said."

I thanked him and went back out to the car. I screwed the gas cap back on and flipped the lid shut. Then drove to the ATM. My account balance was somewhere near a grand. But I had an $895 check out in the wind for a credit card, plus around $50 in utility checks in the city system. I yanked out a twenty-dollar bill and went back to the gas station. When I paid for the gas and the six-pack of Budweiser, the attendant still said nothing about the predetermined exodus of all youth from towns like his. The only folks milling around the town were what looked like hump-backed farmers, generally unemployed elderly and ignorant, artless youth. Creeping along on the wooden walks strung with rusty nail heads. None of these people could give anyone a job. Especially a young and crazed writer. I longed for the mediocrity of Wheeling. A semblance of at least stunted cultural progression. Young and old could find jobs in that town. And every gas pump is debit card-friendly. Less obstacles to actual living. Forget about your natural reality.

The Hundred gas station had five different kinds of newspapers, most either local newsletters or regional, medium-circulation broadsheets. At least the people around here could have some kind of grip. And though most youth don't read newspapers, there was still a resource available to them to help decide where to flee to.

U.S. 250 is, for the most part, a clean, black river, two-laned with two bright parallel neon stripes splitting it. On the way out of Hundred, I passed a dude (forty-ish) walking along the road in the shoulder slag who protested the end of deer hunting season. He wore camouflage pants, Realtree pattern, on a Sunday. He might have been heading to or from church. I saw him when I was on my way back from the ATM earlier. In that span of time, he had only traversed two hundred feet. I wasn't in Hundred for long. Soon, I saw the "Now Leaving" sign and squealed around a corner of the tight but beautifully paved 250. Off to the left, a group of about fifty dudes gathered in a basin by the creek at a sunken shooting range. All of them wore hunting pants, too. I cracked open one of the beers and drank deeply; steering with my knees.

Run-down shacks, trailers and old Victorians placed sporadically along the road seemed a testament to either a lack of intelligence, ambition or general class amongst these people. No one had newspaper slots by the mailbox; only delivery slots for the weekly merchant-trading publication, Greentab. Most of the homes had at least three junk cars on the property. The one or two they drove daily sat in the front yard, the rest parked with two wheels and no hoods at a woodline. I thought I saw a hippy working on a conversion van at one of the houses, but it turned out to be a simple redneck. This part of West Virginia is below the Mason-Dixon Line, reader. And these people respect that tradition. Confederate flags are used as full curtains in the front windows of more than one trailer home along 250. The lack of education, I think, could explain a lot of the obstinate attitudes of these people to evolve into a different, more modern beast. These people don't mind the lack of schooling. Some even pride themselves on their survival in spite of it. I hail them for their simplicity. But neither can I stand nor comprehend their total intolerance for anything offbeat or black. The mouths on most of the men in this part of the country flow with words like "nigger" and "spook" like punchlines to old jokes. They blame the black and the weird for all the world's troubles. Holy shit. Something as simple as a brown Panama Jack bucket hat aroused suspicion in the gas station attendant. But forget Hundred. I was coming up fast on Littleton; population: questionable.

The speed limit on the winding road dropped abruptly from 55 to 25 mph. The road narrowed and run-down 70s-model Chevrolet Monte Carlos lined the streets. I had to weave the Le Baron around the huge things. I damned near spilled the beer in my lap. On Memorial Day weekend, there would certainly be state troopers all over this road looking for people on the drink. Maybe even an unexpected and unannounced roadblock. Checking everyone indiscriminately. Those coming from church or over the age of 35 would be let off with nary a negative word. They would see the hat, the beer can and the lack of crow¹s feet at my eyes and jerk me right out of the car and slam me on the hot, dusty hood of the cruiser. "But it's my first of the day," I would protest. West Virginia cops have no tolerance for any kind of perceived "disregard" for the safety of the Jesus-fearing. Every year, they get more inclined to arrest at even the slightest sign of obstruction or public drunkenness exhibited by some poor fool who doesn't know when to shut up.

To hell with the police. The poor urchins roaming the sidewalks of Littleton all had obscene mullet haircuts and vaguely perceptible scoliosis. The city had a failed and dirty past as a railroad town that largely burned down in some kind of great fire ­ or so my grandfather told me.

A decrepit old man crept around outside the senior center as I slithered into town in the Le Baron, weaving cautious around the great hulking Monte Carlos. This man recalled, faintly through an alcoholic memory loss, the town's hedonistic hey-day. Bars everywhere and cathouses with shady back entrances. When the railroad crowd breezed through, maybe a quick and fruitless romance here and there with a traveling woman in a dark bar. A cheap hotel room or maybe his bedroom or the living room sofa or the kitchen floor at his mother's house would suffice for that kind of love. In the morning, a note on his pillow explaining her departure. And he would shrug, get dressed and set out for the bars again.

Railroads don't run through the town anymore. And the people have largely refused to do anything about it. One passes through Littleton in a matter of moments. It is quickly forgotten by everyone except journalists and photographers of decay and forgotten commerce.

U.S. 250 is a wild and capricious road, despite its immaculate paving. The speed limits jump from 55, to 15 to 35, to 5. The pavement winds upon itself. Some of the turns are so tight, if one were to take them at any other speed than 15, one would plow through the guard rail sailing and screaming to a mangled death at the bottom of a deep gulch. No one would know, either, the forest is so dense. The road wraps around the hills like a constricting snake squeezing the dirt higher into the air and choking the trees.

For a while, there were no towns. Once I reached the top of the first real mountain, the dense and monotonous deciduous forest cleared and green pastures spread atop the hills. Barbed wire fences became the guard rails. Cardboard signs tacked up to maple trees announcing high school graduation parties. Soon, the children here would exodus from the countryside and leave their parents twirling in place like cartoons. They'll likely learn strange ways of life or love they've never imagined. The Yin and the Yang. At first, they, too, will look upon the strange peculiarly and with innocence; but they will get used to diversity in every shape when they move on to bigger cities with bigger problems. No more mere nuts and bolts of the bucolic life. Now its murder, burglary, domestic violence and animal crucifixions by former Lion's Club members gone horribly around the bend. That kind of thing doesn't happen too much in these pastures sprouted with barns mostly rotting with age. One barn had "Wise for Governor" painted on the side of it in red and white ­ like an American Red Cross insignia. A child rode an all terrain vehicle underneath of it as I swept around the final turn on the hilltop.

Back down into the woods, 250 drops away in sheer dips and long grades. The guard rails are back due to huge cliffs on the side of the road going south. Luckily, I was traveling north. I came upon the moderately-sized town of Cameron. For reasons it was difficult to fathom while just passing through, the town displayed a comfortable level of economic success. There was at least one corporate supermarket. Even so, there were still the odd yards littered up with "guest trailers;" varying plethoras of lawn ornaments; namely, little naked cherubs or perhaps a shimmering, iridescent metallic Jesus. The weather was beautiful and sunny. I had love vibes flowing though me in electric currents. A half-full beer can wedged between my thighs. Formerly, there wasn't even a young woman anywhere to look at lecherously. In the little town of Cameron, there were two cute ones walking together in the parking lot of the supermarket. A calm washed over me. There was no time for quick romantic gestures out the car window though, so I continued on until I left that town behind, too.

I was back out on the open road winding through the dense woods of the mountain. Driving 65 and 70 because I was in a hurry for some reason. I came up fast behind an old man traveling 10 mph in a 55-zone barely able to see over the steering wheel of his rusted-out Chevrolet. Puttering along, he was. I nearly crushed him in the Le Baron. As I said, I came up on him very fast around a sharp curve in the road. Near catastrophe. Perfect allegory. I followed him at this death crawl for what seemed hundreds of miles.

The earth in this state is so fecund, yet nothing but wilderness and ignorance grows out of it. The stigma attached to the state makes it forboding territory for strangers and developers of economic strongholds. They wouldn't know what to make of these kinds of people. They wouldn't understand that this trailer's yard is not simply "dirty" or "squalid." It is an amateur junkyard and the tenant is an entrapreneur of sorts. Understand, I know these people very well. I'm from this state and I love it very much for all its flaws and minor triumphs. The people are not dumb, by and large. They simply are a group who have shunned any kind of cultural evolution since 1947. There is no need for the fast-talking bullshit going on in the cities. It's easier to think in these calm and steady surroundings. These people are poets of the most savage persuasion, but they write no poetry. Total isolation from all things "new-fangled." It's better to raise children out in the pastoral, where they can run free and loose and invent tiny worlds for themselves. When they finally do go to the cities, nobody will know what to think of them when they talk in the quiet humility of a country person.

"Son, why don't you speak up a little?" an employer might ask. To his back is a huge pane of glass through which dominating skyscrapers grow from the earth.

"Well, sir, if you really think about it, it's far more efficient to talk only when you've got something to talk about. Otherwise, you're just rambling on going nowhere. Spinning your wheels, you know?"

That's country wisdom, there. And damn the criticism!

Of lesser importance, and sort of as an aside, I also passed the entrance to the exiled community of Hare Krishnas just outside of Moundsville. New Vrindaban: the once exalted community of religious diversity. Plastic elephants with pink or robin's egg blue saddles stand in the filthy lake. Krishnamurti statues made of false gold erected on the withered community grounds. Years ago, New Vrindaban enjoyed a large population of weird outcasts seeking some kind of solution; not as large as Jonestown, but comparable and nearly as creepy.

In the late 60s it seems, trouble started to brew when a couple devotees were murdered. It was suspected that then Swami Kirtanananda Bhaktipada aka Keith Ham was the culprit in the crime. Come to think of it, the trouble was in the early 70s. 1973, to be exact; and the murder victim's name was Charles Denis aka "Chakradhari." No. Members of the New Vrindaban community were pistol-whipped by a gang of ruthless bikers in 1973. Yes. Now it is all clear. The murder happened between June and July of 1983. Ten years after the initial assault by drugged-up freedom riders on the stomp.

This Kirtanananda, or Keith Ham, he was the Swami at New Vrindaban; the name of the community roughly translates to the inconsiderate Christian "New Heaven." This man Ham liked to molest children. The alleged molestations began while he was recovering from a beating that left him in a temporary coma. He molested children openly, like Nero. A real sick bastard. He was not the Swami, he was the guru of the community. He is now in prison on racketeering and mail fraud convictions.

At one point in the place's rotten history, two children were found dead in an abandoned refrigerator on the grounds. Horrible. Police raids. Prison terms. Allegations of murder. Counterfeit Snoopy t-shirts denoting copyright and trademark infringements. Later, 91 plaintiffs brought suit against the community and its now bankrupt landholding corporations seeking an estimated $400 million in damages for alleged abuse in "gurukulas;" or the Krishna boarding schools set up by Ham, the pedophilic nitwit. Slowly, the community rotted because they refused to sell the gaudy and opulent "Palace of Gold" in the style of the Taj Mahal.

I made the mistake of visiting the place for a newspaper story some time back. The line of bullshit the "community manager" laid on me that day was shameful. When I saw helpless children wandering around the grounds, I wanted to unscrew the man's head from his neck stump. He tried to explain the community's disrepair ( a falling temple; shabby "dormitories"; the rotten stench of humus everywhere; far-gone ex-LSD freaks weirding the general ambience) as being the result of the economic revolutions in the cities. He fit right in with the rest of the West Virginia population with his skepticism of anything other than the bartering style of economics. A bunch of amateur junk collectors/dealers and philosophical skeptics. A stagnant quagmire. Only the young can escape; and only if they have stronger will than most.

Terrible failure histories everywhere. The image of social and economic resurgence is pronounced loudly by politicians and managers of Hare Krishna communities but there is basic degeneration amongst the masses. West Virginia is forgotten. Or maybe it was never known. Our illustrious Governor, Bob "Leatherneck" Wise (recently scandalized by admissions of marital infidelities, but that is inconsequential) has tried to turn the state into a giant, half-assed corporate effort. Some even call him the "CEO," which is inaccurate. The state is amok with "cutting-edge" economic concepts like tax increment financing and unconstitutional economic development grant committees that gave $70 million to a questionable bunch of out of state Enron mimics to "realize" some dream of an outlet mall in downtown Wheeling. All the Victorian facades were to be renovated and at no small expense. "A resurgence of American values," the outlet project was called. What values? Or, perhaps more accurately, whose values?

Meanwhile, towns like Littleton and Hundred wither like grapes left on a sun-drenched table for years. Twisted inconsideration and weighted political leverage get things done in West Virginia. Unemployment and welfare assistance run rampant through the hollers and on the hilltops. A mainly Separatist constituency that doesn't give a damn what the government does because they feel outside of it ... low voting levels ... poor newspaper readership and poor journalism on the whole. Some reporters in Wheeling wrote of the outlet project in such wonderful, polite and positive terms that one suspects they may have been getting "perked" from the developers, the County Commission or at least the Mayor. The outlet project recently died a horrible death on the House of Delegates floor in Charleston.

This kind of political schemata doesn't mete well with the constituency of the state at large.

I came to the U.S. 250/ W.Va. 88 crossroads and thought about taking the long way through Moundsville; but I was so depressed and sick with the realization-flu that I just wanted to go home and sulk with a beer and newspaper on the front porch of my house on Economy Street. Maybe do a little composition with the dog laid out beside be in the Sunday gleam.

W.Va. 88 has its share of despair examples, too. Towns like Limestone and Bethlehem. Schoolhouses look damned near inhospitable. But the churches are immaculate and huge. The children barely got room to squeeze behind a desk, and lack proper reading materials, but the churches have wide pews and brand new bibles. The churches have central air conditioners. Perhaps the schools don't. However, I don't think this is the case just in West Virginia.

The speed limit drops to 25 around Bethlehem, and I remembered the old man I had been following for a few miles on 250 about a half-hour ago.

I am familiar with the area of Bethlehem. Of course, Jesus was born here; in this little West Virginia village. Nothing looks better than the name of a sacred place on a church sign. Gives it that advertising boost. Jesus, Lord! Why such idiocy in the congregations? Oh, if thou be so grand and eloquent? Why only the dumb and ignorant singing your praises the loudest? The Eternal Question.

Back in the chaos of Wheeling. This town is nothing like, say, Dallas, Texas, where I lived for a little over a year, but there are all the same problems. This is life as the modern man knows it in tiny degrees. The buildings are routinely more than five floors. The sign of "economic progress." Potholes in the streets tear the wheels off vehicles. All in a day's tribulations. A farmer or some other kind of hick would probably feel very uncomfortable in a city like Wheeling; which, in excepting some of the larger towns like Charleston, Huntington or Morgantown, is the closest semblance of modernity West Virginia has to offer.

At home, I drank beer and read the newspaper on the blue porch. The Sunday Editor left out all of my work from publication again. This man holds a grudge against me for some odd reason. Maybe its my honest coverage. The dog wanted to kill a neighborhood cat, but settled for lethargy. I killed ants with the butt end of a Bic lighter. Flicked them away. One dragged the mangled carcass of a fallen comrade back to the mounds. I flicked both bastards right out into the grass. Indeed. Sneak a toke. Easy living. City life. Forget where you've just been and move on. Forget about your natural reality.