By John Eklund
photos by Ed Hebert

Inversion asked Midwest resident and traveling book salesman John Eklund to take notes while he toured the vast and often misunderstood center of the country. The following is a record of what he saw, heard, found and feared.

“We are accustomed to think of ourselves as an emancipated people; we say that we are democratic, liberty-loving, free of prejudices and hatred. Actually, we are a vulgar, pushing mob, whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators, and such like. The land of opportunity has become the land of senseless sweat and struggle. The goal of all our striving has long been forgotten. We no longer wish to succor the oppressed and homeless; there is no room in this great, empty land for those who, like our forefathers before us, now seek a place of refuge. The world meanwhile looks to us with a desperation such as it has never known before. Where is the democratic spirit? Where are the leaders?” - Henry Miller, Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945)

I.

I’ve spent the last two months looking for the essential Midwest, but my quest is seriously hampered by the fact that I’m in no way a “people person.” Unlike journalist A.J. Liebling, who found capital C Characters everywhere he went, I am a spy in a strange land, even though it’s my own. I romanticize certain aspects of the traveling salesman’s life – meeting strangers in seedy hotel bars, exchanging drinks and fascinating conversation, getting laid – but this hasn’t happened in five years, possibly because when I go to the bar it’s to read a book. These days, coast dwellers are unusually curious about “the real Midwest,” but the more I look for it, the more slippery it seems.

All the assumptions I’ve heard about the Midwest are probably wrong, or at least so loaded with nuance and exceptions as to be useless. After traveling through thirteen states for my job this spring, here’s a generalization I can offer with confidence: like the frozen fog that coats the fields along the interstates on February mornings, a blanket of fear has settled over the region. It’s not unique to the Midwest, it’s not always expressed, and it’s certainly not new. But local media are saturated with reasons to be afraid: house fires, car crashes, chemical spills, flu epidemics, vaccine shortages, crime, drugs, plant closings, molesters of children on parole and moving in down the block. Not to mention the terrorism fear-o-meter. The list is endless, punctuated only occasionally by the feel-good stories about local heroes and do-gooders, stories that, offered up as a sort of fear-relief, are in the end also about fear.

My friend Daniel says that a good way to learn about the Midwest would be to sit in various Starbucks all day and listen (“You do this anyway,” he observes). Far from their stereotypical origins as enclaves of liberal elitism, the chain now reaches into nearly every neighborhood, suburb, and demographic group. As a loner, the prospect of cracking the secret of Midwestern sensibility by effortlessly absorbing it in a string of coffee shops is seductive. But after a few stabs at this, I realize that I’d have to skip all my appointments and devote myself single-mindedly to the project to learn anything surprising.

There are distinctions. The Starbucks in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood is brimming with well-dressed single guys sporting cell phones, iPods, and laptops (A stunningly beautiful man who looks like an Abercrombie model removes a fat ring-binder from his briefcase. “Abercrombie & Fitch District Manager,” the spine reads).

The one in suburban St Louis, by contrast, is occupied by chattering armies of sweat-suited young women with SUV-sized baby carriages they’ve somehow gotten through the door. In none of the many Starbucks I visit do I record a memorable political conversation. Everyone seems consumed by the demands of the private life. If political debate and discussion isn’t going on at the coffee shops, where in the public square is it happening? Maybe it’s not happening. Two outspoken liberal friends in Kansas City remark to me that, since the election, they find themselves looking over their shoulders before talking politics in restaurants and public places.

What I do hear people talking about, what they seem comfortable initiating conversation with strangers about, is weather, sports and entertainment: Johnny Carson’s death, last night’s game, the temperature. I didn’t overhear a single reference to Iraq, Condoleezza Rice, torture, the inauguration, or Bush, even though these topics are inescapable in the media. It’s as if everyone’s just decided that it’s best to keep quiet.

When the weather is unusual, it’s the only thing you hear people talking about. It’s something that’s happening to all of us and something we have no control over. There’s always a handy narrative: the weather we had, the weather we’re having, the weather we’re going to have. People everywhere like to flatter themselves that their weather is uniquely changeable. I guess this is meant to say something about their hardiness and coping skills, or maybe the weather does change rapidly in most places, but if you don’t get around much you think it’s a local quirk.

The Bush campaign’s ability to use these cornball truisms was breathtaking. One day in October Bush spoke to a rally in Green Bay, where he got a wild and knowing round of cheers when he said, “If you don’t like the weather here in Green Bay, just wait a day.” He knows us! But the very next day he was in Columbus, Ohio, where, having checked the applause-meter from Green Bay, he said, “If you don’t like the weather here in Columbus, just wait a while.” Again, pandemonium. I searched in vain for pundits to jump on this, but never saw it mentioned. If getting Midwesterners to believe you “know them” is so simple, why couldn’t Kerry do it?

As if there’s not enough to worry about, an alarmist busybody in the Java Zone in Oberlin, Ohio, alerts his audience of half a dozen regulars to “the latest scam.” People from Florida are hauling their mud-encrusted, badly damaged cars up to Ohio to palm them off as legitimate used cars. “These are wrecks from the hurricane that have been cleaned up to look pretty, but they’re really pieces of junk sold to suckers,” the man explains.

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