High end - Day 97: Patchogue to Montauk, NY

Today's road to the end of the road was much less confusing than yesterday, running through fancy East End communities with architecture, yards, and fences all carefully designed to aggressively declare that the residents of this area are very much Not Poor. I enjoyed being there while my beard, hair, and general state of being was at peak scruffy.

No one gave me any trouble, though, and I made it past large green lawns and expensive cars all the way to Montauk, where I overpaid for a mediocre sandwich and set out for the Montauk lighthouse on the easternmost tip of Long Island. I suspect that my glasses transformed a lot of my scruffiness into eccentricity, anyway.

The tip of the island is a nature preserve, which provided a bittersweet flashback to the wilder places I'd experienced earlier in this trip as I neared its end. I arrived at the lighthouse and bumbled my way down large, sharp rocks, half carrying and half dragging my bike and all my stuff with me to dip my front tire in the Atlantic, completing what I started by dipping my back tire in the Pacific. A bemused tourist watched my awkward display, and I ignored them until I realized I should probably take a picture or something. I told my audience about the momentous occasion they were witnessing and they happily took some pictures to send me later. I tried a few selfies as well, observed that I still didn't know how to smile like a human, and then sat down to reflect. I figured I was supposed to do that. It was windy and uncomfortable and nothing really came to me, so I got up and hauled my stuff back up to steady ground.

I really hadn't planned beyond this. I went back to town to check the rail schedule and found I was too late to go back to Patchogue for the day, so instead I followed a sign for Montauk Brewing and found a small place with a bunch of well-dressed folks working their way through flights of tasters. I got my own and joined a table with some younger folks who happened to be an Australian film director and his buddies, visiting New York for some reason that I promptly forgot thanks to my distracted state of mind.

For most of this trip, I enjoyed being a novelty for the folks I encountered. I didn't feel that way today. Maybe I was in a bad headspace because my trip was ending, but I've felt this way at other times, too: rich folks who are used to being rich seem to approach new people differently. If associating with me won't provide benefits down the line, I'm left as entertainment. Instead of engaging over bare, vulnerable curiosity, I feel prodded to deliver an inspiring TED talk that lets my audience feel vicariously enlightened. When they do reveal things about themselves, it's the cool stuff, the things that I'm supposed to be impressed by. I'm not proud, I'll perform for a treat, but I didn't have it in me today.

Despite my surliness, I genuinely liked the director's best buddy. Apparently that allowed me to be pleasant enough to get invited to a penthouse party in Manhattan. That should've been exciting, but it felt bad, and it took some introspection to realize why: I had no way to determine whether it was genuine or simply polite. I resolved to go, though, because at best it would be fun and at worst I'd get to call them on their fake hospitality. I would go for spite, I guess. And because I didn't have anything else to do.

That gave me a purpose for the next couple days, but I still didn't have much of a plan for that night. After hanging out at the brewery for far too long, I headed back into the nature reserve, wandered down a service road until I found an out-of-the-way spot, and set up camp. Of course, that just meant throwing my bag on the ground and getting in.

I felt like I should've felt more than I did, though I wasn't sure what. Those kind of meta-feelings, feelings about feelings, are rarely productive... but the feelings I did have seemed empty, to the extent they existed at all. That felt wrong. Wrestling with this made it difficult to sleep, as did the strangely energetic deer that occasionally ran past with loud, heavy footfalls that I worried might land on my face. I imagined I looked like a low rock in my bivy that still had no pole to keep it off my face.

Eventually, I thought about Mothman, the local cryptid legend. Jon explained that it had escaped from some secret government genetic engineering program and had taken up residence out here in the nature preserve. I liked Mothman because it seemed like the least threatening animal/human combo imaginable. Thankfully, this absurdity was distracting enough that I finally fell asleep.