Tone – 21

The big road life in bags and pockets

I used to get a lot of my clothes out of US Outlet malls. Inevitably really: I covered so much road in thirty-five years’ jaunting it was only a matter of time before I’d been in them all. I saw some of them die too, as online deals began to beat people’s car journeys’ aggravation and fuel price rises. Apart from anything else, the loos were usually clean, there might be coffee, and they were ok for a quick stretch of the legs on a long run. Along the hot bottom of the US there’s a ghost mall by the junction of I-10 and I-8 by Arizola near Casa Grande; I remember Jimmy Kerr Boulevard – the freeway exit – and the place thriving. It’s downfall was quick and complete.

There were luggage outlets in most of them; I needed new cases regularly thanks to the airlines, and build styles had to be rethought as the free baggage allowances collapsed.

Some of them, tow-along two-wheeler Samsonites in particular, took an awful beating and could be bolted back together when some inspired loader found a way to separate the tow-handle mechanism from the case, but their strength involved their being relatively heavy. Soon the suitcase manufacturers were forced to go lighter to help us meet reduced baggage weight allowances; the ‘spinner’ wheels are risky - if a baggage handler hurls one onto the carousel at the correct angle it can rip an entire corner out of the case. Rarely, my landing with a smashed case coincided with a baggage office that had a replacement of very basic quality, but I could stay mobile a little longer – hence my habit of packing in cubes and Eddie Bauer insulated, soft lunchpails: fewer small items fell out of the holes torn in the case and transfer in the fraught luggage room melée was easier.

On 24th November 2015 a chance routeing took me by an outlet mall in Woodbury NY, jammed by busloads of tourists in the count-down to Black Friday. I had a small bag crisis that needed addressing, and found a Tumi shop where a style line was getting jobbed off. Despite the crowd the assistant helpfully put the piece I was interested in on one side while I went back to the car to get the pedalboard I needed it for. It fitted – just: for ten years and $239 it has defined my live processing capacity.

Over its decade of abuse it has needed and currently needs little repair, has been scrubbed a few times after encountering worrying carpet under the seat in front, extremely suspect motel rooms, riverbank mud, and horse-poo when I fell off the bike outside Buckingham Palace; was scrubbed with alcohol recently when the cat seemed to be forming an unhealthy attachment to it, has not lost its grip on anything entrusted to it, has never been challenged by an airline representative (indeed, has been smiled on and awarded a ‘Cabin Approved’ tag by some), has only been out of daily use for a week while alternatives were tried and found wanting, and currently its original cost works out at USD $23.90 (£17.88 today) per annum.

Given a few stitches to a brolly pocket that snagged on the bike during a complicated unscheduled dismount, and reasonable health, I expect to get that down to $11.95 p.a. before I hand it on or my executor is more disgusted by than appreciative of its functional, road-wrecked “patina”. It’s a Vimes’s Boots scenario. Cheap bags would by now have thrown my stuff all over truck stops, airports, rental car offices, and been replaced umpteen times.

Of course, any question of inheritance is moot if housekeeping strips my corpse, drops it in a river, and sells my stuff. You can probably tell from these bag/dying in a motel thoughts that jaunts still bear importantly on my life; my wardrobe can call me back to US freeways. I get homesick for them.

I see manbags have made it into the discounters, and I see them hanging on blokes regularly now. I did have one when cabin baggage was less of a hassle: another out of fashion item sold off cheaply in 2012 by a Tumi shop in Oakbrook Center IL.. It too was blessed with an array of pockets that preceded Tumi’s design shift towards things that could carry small tablets. I used it a lot on the road – money, docs, passport, itinerary, receipts – and at home, until I left on a bus the gloves that wouldn’t fit into it. At which point I questioned the raison d’etre of the small manbags altogether. If you can’t get a plastic mac in it, or the mug for your free Waitrose coffee, or an unanticipated bit of shopping, what’s its point? But by then the airline baggage harrassment was gathering momentum anyway and, useful or not, everything had to go in one underseat bag and the guitar bag.

There were other quite successful outlet mall purchases - successive pairs of black leather SAS shoes, neutrally smartish for gig or restaurant, so comfortable that with no gear lever and clutch I wore the right soles into the ground one after the other. I’d probably still buy them now if some idiot hadn’t put stitched, glued labels on the inner sole right under my heels. I had quite a number of pairs of cheap Crocs that would do double duty as shock absorbers around electronics in the suitcases; a short-sleeved linen shirt from Van Heusen thirty years ago for a few bucks that is still a hot weather favourite, and I was forever arriving in the northern US without enough warm socks for the trip – of course, the emergency purchases all made it home to flood a big drawer: I have woolly socks beyond the grave. A surprisingly good buy wasn’t in an outlet mall, but in Walmarts. This time I arrived without a warm enough jacket so a padded ski jacket for twenty bucks has lived in the US-based tour bag ever since. It’s entirely artificial, nothing’s going to eat it, and if I abandon the bag along with the US road there won’t be any tears.

There was a jacket spree in 2018. Clothing stock had died back in London and cheap denim trucker jackets could plug the gap. There are vicious stray brambles along the Thames Path, I wanted a red one for cycling, but Calvin Klein was offloading stock, so I got a pale blue one in Ann Arbor that I could later bleach and dye. It came out pink, but I’m seeking attention, bringing sight to the blind as they drive their cars around London. I got another in Allen Outlets TX that was bluer and lightweight enough for spring, to my relief neither of these had the waist cinch strap and buttons on the side that get caught in bus seats; both had chest pockets that were more useable than I’d seen before.

Heading north out of Vienna VA I called in at another Klein outlet at National Harbor MD on the eastern side of I-495 around DC to get some jeans (thirty bucks a pop). While there I had a quick root through the very cheap jackets, and found the shoplifter special.

Our Calvin clearly understood about pockets. Where we’ve been checking for years to see if the hand-pockets could be sewn around to make inside pockets, he’d not only made sure they were stitched without gaps but also added a denim patch on the jacket inside over the whole thing, with access at the top like a deep pocket. You could put stuff in it under your hand instead of the normal jacket’s over – an A5 scratchpad full of directions fits perfectly, as did the US size intinerary.

It’s a road-dog’s dream: I had to have one. The nearest fit was labelled XXL, but fitted ok. They’d gone wrong at the shoulder stitching, reminiscently of Mrs Thatcher’s critical parent power suits, but it didn’t matter much on a $29.99 deal that isn’t for smart wear anyway ($31.79 including tax - in the US they don’t tell you prices that include everything you have to pay).

I eventually got to my next motel, and checked the jacket again. The inside patches were a different fade to the rest of it. They really did look like the kind of clothing adaptation a thief makes to go shoplifting. I could see myself having an issue with a UK cop that could end in a charge of going equipped. The 1968 Theft Act says:

1) A person shall be guilty of an offence if, when not at his place of abode, he has with him any article for use in the course of or in connection with any burglary, theft or cheat.

(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years.

(3) Where a person is charged with an offence under this section, proof that he had with him any article made or adapted for use in committing a burglary, theft or cheat shall be evidence that he had it with him for such use.

(4) Any person may arrest without warrant anyone who is, or whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be, committing an offence under this section.

I wore it right away. The ‘trucker jacket’ idea I get – we of the big road need a place to keep singles and fives handy for tolls, receipts, getting into trouser pockets can cause crashes on approach or during the out of the booths twelve-lane scramble into two. Not so much now we’ve got automatic electronic tolls and number plate readers, but we still stuff receipts leaving motels, truck stops, gas stations, eateries and put a breakfast buffet banana in our pocket for later, or the last minute shuffle and stash before security, so having used it for seven years now I think Calvin was right.

I feel less criminal since I dyed it and the whole thing, pocket patches and all, is more or less the same colour.