How to Disappear in America

Photos by Scot Sothern

I’m crossing America—Florida to California, Interstate 10, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana… endless miles across South Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. I’ve got two cats and my first wife in the car, a battered 1964 Plymouth Valiant. We’re driving nonstop to Faraway as quickly as possible. Danielle is at the wheel, and I can’t wind down: Speed, marijuana, too much coffee, a lack of sleep, and Danielle’s driving have me on edge. She likes to go fast, and she tailgates and only uses the brakes when they need to be stomped. When I close my eyes, the lids are vibrating, and I can see a road map of capillaries. I try to relax my breathing and mellow out. Danielle slams the brakes into a screeching skid and screams, "LOOK OUT," and I’m thrown forward and my eyes shoot open and I yell, "AAGGGHHH," but she has her foot back on the gas and there is no one in front of us and she can’t stop laughing. I try to share her amusement but my hands will probably shake for another hour.

We are leaving four chaotic years and a bundle of debt behind us. All we know about the future is in the billboards we keep passing:

"THE THING: 157 Miles."

"THE THING: 124 Miles."

I’ve got my camera, a Contax RTS with a 85-millimeter Zeiss lens, and a single short roll of Kodachrome with a prepaid mailer for processing. It wasn’t my camera a few days ago, but on my way out of Florida I said, "By the way, I’m taking this camera and lens, and the wide lens as well." Nobody stopped me. "THE THING: 99 Miles."

I’m leaving behind a few thousand negatives, portraits I made under another guy’s banner. Now I need to start a new batch of photographs, proof of my brilliance for the future archives. I pull off the interstate at a Texas tourist trap where I buy a Hostess cherry pie and a coffee, which is burnt and thick. I tell the woman behind the counter that I like her blouse and ask if I take a picture of her outside, with the store in the background. She says, "I don't know, I don't care," and I say, " That's great, thanks so much." I escort her out through the door and into the bright sun. I pose her in the light, and she squints, and I take her picture.

Next door, at a service station, Danielle lets the cats out and goes looking for a shady spot where they can frolic. I light a cigarette and sit on the hood of the car. A guy leaning on a trashcan asks me where I’m headed, and I tell him California. He says California’s full of perverts and commies and I say, "Yeah, well, I hope you’re right." I tell him Florida’s not been good for me, and Texas doesn’t really look like my kind of place. He says this right here, Texas, is the real America, and what do I think of that? I tell him that’s just great, God fucking bless America. I point the camera at him and focus, but I’m really loaded, and after I take the picture I’m not sure if I took the picture or not.

Time is distorted, but I think it was three days and three nights ago when I said goodbye forever to my partner in deeds and deceptions, Joe Smith. I knew another Joe Smith when I was in high school, and we were best friends for a while. Springfield Joe died when he drunkenly climbed a telephone pole and grabbed a hot wire. Smoke and sparks blew out the soles of his feet. Florida Joe Smith is another story. First time in the darkroom with Florida Joe, we talked while I developed film, and when I turned the lights back on Joe was naked and smiling, his engorged wiener aiming up at my face like an accusing finger. He said, “What do you want to do now?” I stuttered and laughed, which encouraged him enough to start singing “Misty": "Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree." Joe was guileless and quick and fully corrupt—he swindled everything he ever earned. I had some of the best times of my life with him, but it was a love-hate relationship, and business was a constant state of panic. I’m better off without Florida Joe Smith.

"THE THING: 200 Yards."

Somewhere in Arizona we pull into the parking lot under the billboard welcoming us to THE THING, which is not really much of anything. We go through the gift shop: pecan logs, jackalope postcards, bolo ties, Indian jewelry, toy guns and holsters. We each pay 50 cents to see THE THING, and we’re ushered out the back door to a pathway. A freestanding wall is painted like a goofy cowboy saloon, and I grab a kid in a hat and take his picture, and when I’m done he says, "Thank you, sir."

We come to a painting of a ballerina and a guy in a top hat, and they both have head-holes cut out. A woman stands on her toes, sticks her face in a hole, and becomes a ballerina. I snap her picture while her husband and little kid watch. I’ve smoked more pot and taken more speed since our last stop and have yet to sleep a wink. I feel a little like I’m on LSD. Into a Quonset hut we go: an old rusty Rolls-Royce once owned by Adolf Hitler, a covered wagon, a bunch of folk-art wood carvings, and a large assortment of junk I wouldn’t pick up off the street. I photograph a sculpture of a tortured guy in a glass coffin, and it looks like he’s trying to tell me something. We’re five minutes back on the road when it dawns on me that I still don’t know what THE THING is.

In 2014, an age of information, I have reconnected with everyone I ever lost touch with except Florida Joe Smith. I found my first wife, Danielle, online after 30 years, and we emailed back and forth for a while. I typed Joe Smith into Google and got 380 million hits. At the end of the sexual-revolutionized 70s, Florida Joe was a bi-guy horn-dog, and safe sex wasn’t in the vernacular. I’ve always assumed he took a tainted blood transfusion up the ass and died in the early days of the plague. I hope Joe is alive, but he’s probably not. If he is, I hope he still has my negatives.

Scot's first book, Lowlife, was released last year, and his memoir, Curb Service, is out now. You can find more information on his website.