the end of existential.

We went to Chicago specifically for ghost encounters, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. My father had grown up there, and later attended graduate school, and Chicago was where many of his stories were from.

His father, my grandfather, had owned an art gallery downtown, and it had been haunted by a mad artist who threw paintings off the walls. The building had previously been a funeral home, so it had contained many disturbing energies. But the most disturbing energy of them all was John Foote Jr., the tortured artist, and so after roaming around the University of Chicago we headed downtown to find the gallery and see if John Foote was still there.

First we went into a Kate Spade store, where my father terrorized the staff with tales of poltergeist activity for fifteen minutes before taking a closer look around and realizing that it was not, in fact, the right building.

Mollified, we went next door to Charlotte Russe, where the energy was heavier and things were a little darker and I could tell right away that this was the old gallery.

We got into conversation with two salesgirls. The first was dismissive. She didn't believe in that stuff, she said. But the second got very excited and made us follow her upstairs.

She pointed out a second set of stairs, leading to the back offices. We weren't allowed to go in, but the sight of the curling wallpaper and fading light sent shivers down my spine.

"I KNEW this place was haunted," she said. "Every time I'm back there by myself I get this creepy feeling. My manager, Janine, she has to work late a lot of nights. And she thinks it's haunted, too."

"So he's still around," my father said.

The other salesgirl had followed us upstairs and was looking skeptically at the haunted hallway.

"You still on about that ghost stuff, Alison?" She said.

"Don't you ever wonder about it just a little, Shauna?" Our friend asked.

"No," said Shauna. "When you're dead, you're dead."

They were still debating the mysteries of existence when we left, because it was near closing time and there were no other customers in the store. I wondered if either of them would have to stay late tonight, and close up the back offices by themselves.

I was glad to be driving away tonight, and not going back to those offices.

For hours we drove past factories and smokestacks, their pungent rubbery fumes creeping into Adelaide even though her windows were tightly shut. I could not believe anyone lived here, either, with all these fumes at every hour of the day. Another layer of dismal gloom settled upon me, thick like smoke, and I could not wait to get back to New Hampshire and clear my head.

Once we began to move away from the factories our mood lightened. The road opened up into four lanes and I was driving fast but my father was not complaining, instead he was leaning back in the passenger seat and telling stories, and I was listening. Sometimes I was even laughing, as he told me of the days when he was my age in Chicago, working as an art dealer in the gallery, dating bohemian girls, going to the first Playboy Mansion before it moved to California.

He told me stories about riots, and selling art to the Mafia, and Hugh Hefner, and the beginning of the hippie 60's. I thought I had heard all my father's stories, but I was wrong. I was in a good mood now and we were getting closer and closer to Ohio, and then New York, and once we were in New York, I thought, I would be able to breathe deep again. It was nearing one o'clock and for a while we were contemplating driving all night, picking up our last batch of gas station coffee and stale chocolate snacks, and gearing up our last batch of stories and going for broke.

But around 2:00 we saw a Red Roof on the horizon that my father said was beckoning to him. Somewhat reluctantly, I pulled the car off the freeway and into the parking lot of the Inn. I did not want to stop now but I convinced myself that it would make the next day's trip go all the faster. Once I lay on the bed, I slept easy. I knew it was our last night on the road.

We woke up in Ohio but it did not take us long to get to New York. We stopped for gas at a lake-side town and I stepped out and breathed deep and smiled. We got gas and my father got an ice cream cone and then it seemed we spent the whole day driving across the state. 

We drove and drove and for the first time my mind wandered over the rest of the trip as if it were something of the past. It remembered Chicago, the ghosts, the plains, the canyons, Las Vegas, California. It remembered that I would not, in fact, be sitting in this car for the rest of my life. 

In the late afternoon we took a detour to Oneonta to see where my mother had gone to college. There was some sort of spring festival taking place and my father thought it appropriate to go wander around with all the students. I stayed on the outskirts and listened to the music and watched the sun sink into the mountains. 

We went to a local pizza place and all the locals watched our every move and listened to our every word as if we were from a far off planet. I tried to imagine my mother here, and couldn't.

We got back into the car and it was sunset now and as we got back onto the freeway I saw a family of deer, framed against the horizon, watching the car. As we drove on winding roads into Vermont I smelled the old familiar skunk smell, and I kept the windows open to let it in. I was breathing much more easily now, and I was joyful, and little did I know I would be driving these roads again and again that summer, each time on a different odyssey. 

It was midnight when we finally pulled into the driveway of our New Hampshire home. It had been seven days. My father got out and kissed the ground, and I walked straight upstairs, cut off my ponytail, and shaved my head.

And that was the end of our cross-country road trip.