American Odyssey II

Arkansas Traveler / Interlude

The author suggests you put this music on as you read this post.

19 July, 2026

Fayetteville, Arkansas.

It is late as I arrive at my parent’s house in Arkansas. Or maybe it is early. It is 3AM. I should’ve been at a family reunion in Idaho yesterday, but I found myself at a family graveyard in Louisville, Kentucky instead.

They are at their other house in Idaho—and so I pass out and wait until morning to unpack the boxes I picked up from the retired Atomic Energy woman in Crossville, Tennessee. Acquiring an esoteric Library from Druid Lane in Crossville. Hardly seems real. Part of me wonders if I’m actually in a coma in Nashville or something, my brain firing off all the synapses it can to trick me into thinking I’m not laying in a hospital bed, intubated and sedated.

I pinched myself a lot this trip.

Her son is a reader of this fine substack, she wanted rid of all this material, the match was made. The address was decidedly esoteric. The boxes belonged to her husband, who passed away. He was a counterintelligence guy for the FBI.

I’ve had not so good experiences with the FBI. Karma comes back in strange ways.

She was very nice, but I didn’t know what was in the boxes until I unpacked them.

By that point I’d driven halfway across the country with these boxes in my car.

I’d driven to Abingdon, Virginia after picking them up, spent the night in a forgettable big box hotel with an over chlorinated swimming pool, flipping through ESP Cards, newly acquired.

I was late getting home because in Winona, Missouri, a pint-size ginger cop pulled me over.

I’d forgotten to set my lights to auto, a simple warning would’ve sufficed. I took a little while to pull the car over to the edge. He seemed to think I was a drug smuggler. I am not a drug smuggler. I’ve never sold drugs, only bought them for myself.

He wanted to search the car.

It was a little insulting. I began to think maybe this is where I die. You never know. A trigger happy cop, a wrong word, blammo.

I told him absolutely not. I asked him if he knew the false positive rate on K9s.

I carry a coin from a former Director of the Secret Service who I’m friends with in my wallet for just this kind of scenario, my last resort option is to have a cop inspect my wallet, remove the coin, and then suggest that they call that person who will vouch for me.

I might have to use the coin, I thought.

I really didn’t know what was in these boxes, I thought in Southern Missouri.

Could this be an elaborate ruse, some sting operation run by the parts of the Department of Energy that aren’t advertised on their website?

Could’ve I have had something in those boxes to get me in real trouble?

Was I being set up?

You can’t think this way, always.

It is really damaging to the psyche, always being paranoid this way. Part of the life I chose, I suppose, but not the best part.

As I unpacked the boxes, I thought of the Ginger Cop’s reaction would’ve been, going through all this on some side road in Southern Missouri.

He wouldn’t have found any contraband. He would’ve not known how to process what he found.

The Atomic Energy lady seemed nice, the Atomic Energy lady was nice, she hadn’t put a brick of heroin in the boxes to entrap me, I confirmed as I unpacked the boxes.

The cop told me he had a weeeeeird feeling about me (don’t we all, buddy) and weighed the pro’s and cons of calling the drug dog, deciding instead to let me go.

Later that night, another man would get involved in a police chase near there and wind up doing a header off a bridge into a body of water 100 feet below. You have to see this to believe it.

I watch this video on my phone as I unpack the boxes.

There’s more than one box full of books. I now own an esoteric library, Rosicrucian-themed.

Books with titles like: A Journey into the Light. Rosicrucian Symbology. Consciously Creating Circumstances. Rosicrucian Mysteries. Cosmic Mission Fulfilled. The Portal of Initiation.

I open A Journey Into Light. A piece of a Black and Mild box served as someone’s bookmark. The bookmark is in page 69.

“Yet I swear by red of Rose and most holy Cross, even as you die, so shall you live; even as you cremate self, even so will you come forth, and lo! ‘The stone, the elixir’ glows within your hand.”

I begin to understand, midway through the journey.

***

June 6, 2026

Orem, Utah

I gaze at Mount Timpanogos from the east side of the Mormon Temple in Orem, Utah. The sleeping princess stares back at me. I love her. I think she loves me. This mountain is a core memory, visible from my bedroom window and my front yard.

It has a cave up top with a heart in it. The lore when I was young was that it was a native princess, slumbering, a western spin on the man in the mountain.

The American Odyssey will, when it is done, also be released in a printed form that you can read in totality. If you want to read it in serial form, however, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber because my goodness, gasoline was not cheap. Thank you so much for your support!

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