We’re up early and out for an 8 a.m. appointment with the Black Angel at Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa .
For several years we’d been meaning to undertake this pilgrimage having been taken by the legend of this graceful statue and, when we finally arrive, the angel reminds me of Anissa Jones, a child star (Buffy in Family Affair) I knew briefly (as kids) who OD’d on a cocktail of drugs at the tender age of 18.
Just before this trip Van Stein sent me a YouTube clip about the Black Angel and, oddly, the very next YouTube in line was Anissa as a guest on the Dick Cavett Show, her final television appearance. This prompted me to further research Anissa and, seeing a photo of her snapped the day before she died, I was struck by her uncanny resemblance to the angel.
Van Stein brought his easel and oils to paint Black Angel but before he puts brush to board we circle the statue to absorb its vibe. Pure joyousness takes hold within me evolving into moments of ecstassis.
And of course we need to toss a coin, our first flip, to decide this day’s destination.
Sticking to the procedure laid out by our Manifance manifesto we each scribble our destination of choice onto white paper napkins after which I remove the palladium master-coin from its plastic case.
“Touch the angel with it,” coaches Van Stein.
I do before repeating the words of Donald Duck: “Where to go—we soon shall know”—and then the flip.
Van Stein calls it in the air. “Heads!”
Heads it is.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Look at what I wrote.”
Galena.
I turn my own napkin over. Galena, IL
And so it looks like the de-flipulator Van Stein had yakked about the night before is already working and perhaps got installed by cigar smoke.
On another front it became obvious that if we proceeded with our plan to roll a die for choosing ground transportation, getting anywhere would be a logistical nightmare because train routes are limited to Amtrak and there is no public commuting transportation up and down the mighty Midwestern rivers thanks to the auto industry, which clearly had an impact on railroading public ground transportation in favor of their own product. So since we’d rented a car for one night only I phone National to tell them we’ll hold onto it for most of the week though we have no idea to which location it will be returned.
National’s agent is copasetic though does caution that an extra charge will be assessed for returning the vehicle elsewhere, but she is otherwise amused by my flip-pant explanation about flip-tripping.
I stroll the graveyard as Van Stein paints and discover a precious view of Omaha’s skyline.
On my return a curious local whom I dub a Council Bluffer engages us in conversation, trying to figure out what we’re up to and, lest we have dishonorable intentions, cautions us (albeit indirectly) about messing with their Black Angel.
Two kids, he tells us, died immediately after disrespecting the statue. “The first one spit on it. A neighbor came out and scolded him and he took off on his skateboard. About a block later he got hit by a car and died. Another kid peed on it. Again, after a neighbor yelled at him, he rode off on his bicycle—and crashed into a car, killing him instantly.”
He offers other sights to see as if he wants us gone from this spot but after running out of things to talk about he reluctantly departs.
On this day we must cross flat and farm-ish Iowa and, thus, commence our trek beneath the most amazing assortment of clouds.
Our first marker is Des Moines and its gold-gilt capitol building. (“I come from Des Moines,” wrote Bill Bryson. “Somebody had to.”)
Then a slight diversion south to a town called Pella, reputed to be one of America’s best small towns, with a Dutch theme.
Liberty Street Kitchen alongside a picturesque canal delivers the antidote for our hunger: “Beef Short-rib Grilled Cheese with roasted mushrooms, charred onion and bell pepper on sourdough.”
I take the wheel and pinpoint the precise moment homeostasis is disrupted: 4:33 p.m., 33 miles south of Dubuque, when a state trooper points his speed gun directly at our speeding vehicle, but does not chase us down.
I dictate homeostasis into my smart phone and it comes out Tonio Staas—a new name for a character in a fictional story.
We’d already crossed the Missouri River and now in Dubuque, nearing Galena, we cross the mighty Mississippi.
Galena is consistently voted “best main street in America” and, no surprise, was Walt Disney’s model for his Magic Kingdom’s Main Street USA. Nineteenth century architecture, red brick sidewalks, cutesy shops, restaurants and bars, a warm welcome after a long day’s slog.
Rooms assigned us at DeSoto House, Galena’s oldest and most haunted hotel, are not the best (an interior atrium “view”) but at least we (walk-ins, no reservation) are accommodated for the night and spontaneously we decide—no coin toss necessary—to remain a second night, so charming is this town, give our bodies a chance to catch up with our souls.
Instead of letting cocktail tokens go we waste we cozy up to the basement bar and, this being Ulysses S. Grant territory (he resided in Galena when the Civil War began and returned after two terms in the White House), I want to drink Old Crow whiskey (Grant’s favorite) in his honor. Alackaday, no Old Crow, so I order the next nearest thing, Wild Turkey.
Heather the bartender is intrigued by our manic banter and researches Old Crow on her phone and after we explain flipism to her she conjures up a possible destination of her own: Athens, Wisconsin, the Center of the Western Hemisphere.
I reward Heather with a coin, not just any old coin but a Mark Twain silver dollar—a medal for her unexpected due diligence.
Shy at first about her own creative project Heather opens up and produces a sample of handcrafted pouches in a shape of a yoni decorated with numerous colorful vaginas. (A day later when I post a photo of this on my blog it quickly ascends to “most popular” status and remains there for over a week, vastly dwarfing every other post by the number of views it collects.)
Locals, not a coin toss, motion us to Fried Green Tomatoes for fine dining in a casual setting, a hightop near the bar. First their signature fried green tomatoes topped with melted mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce followed by blackberry pork ribeye, a feast of flavors washed down by their last bottle of Far Niente chardonnay at a bargain price.
Civil War infantryman Edward D. Kittoe, a field surgeon who served under General Grant and later worked for him in the White House, is the ghost assigned to my room.
But on this Illinois night Kittoe is a no-show.