Fault Lines - John Knoop

the Andes lay in humped desolation to our east. We spend most of the day in this region, and the
thin air leaves me with a cramped feeling. Finally we come to the end of this plateau and look
over into a rut-like, brown, jagged mountain range with a thin cloud layer hanging over it. It's
been dark all afternoon, and now the light is pale green and sickly. I feel like I am looking out
over the end of the world.
By the next day we are in rich jungle approaching the Pacific coast and the border with
Peru. The endless road overwhelms me with a feeling of contentment and joy. What a great gift,
to always have a new stretch of road ahead, day after day. Especially a one-lane gravel track
through unpopulated jungle. I don’t want it to ever end and make a vow to myself that somehow,
it never will.
It’s taking nearly two days to cross the border with Peru. There’s a patron saint's day being
celebrated in Tumbes, and the population is busy staying drunk. So we sit in the town's only café
reading and writing, yawning with boredom and sneering at the bureaucracy; reminds me of how
I felt about the social structure I lived in not long ago.
In high school I was expected to join a fraternity. I kissed them off and ridiculed the whole
idea of exclusive clubs that seemed more fascist than fraternal. Having thought I was one of them
after I won a couple of races for the swimming team, the other students wondered who I was. I
didn't look like a scholar type, though I read through every class that bored me. I didn't act like a
weakling, having grown up in command of four younger brothers. The small group of classmates
I considered friends were sneeringly called 'non-conformists' by the other teenagers because we
didn't join fraternities. We didn't try out for sports. We made fun of the kids who parroted their
parents’ support for senator Joe McCarthy. We read books that we were not required to read,
and we listened to classical music. Some of us even went to the Symphony and to the world
renowned Summer Opera at the Cincinnati Zoo Pavilion, which was an odd and wonderful venue
that satisfied several interests with one stop. We bought the latest releases of Shostakovich and
Stravinsky for our collections, and lots of jazz, but none of the music our peers listened to. Little
Richard and Fats Domino were as far as we went in that direction. We were elitist snobs, and we
conformed to our own tastes with haughty certainty. I realize now, that in that way, I am much
like my parents and grandparents.
We have gotten to know all the officials here in Tumbes, both Ecuadorian and Peruvian, and
they finally agree to stamp our passports so we can cross the silly border which runs right
through the center of their town.
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