We set off for our fake American road trip across Bali, me and this cool young Indonesian musical genius in exile, the back of our car filled with guitars and beer and the Balinese equi-valent of American road trip food—fried rice crackers and dreadfully flavored indigenous can-dies. The details of our journey are a bit blurry to me now, smudged over my distracting thoughts of Felipe and by the weird haziness that always accompanies a road trip in any country of the world. What I do remember is that Yudhi and I speak American the entire time—a language I hadn't spoken in so long. I'd been speaking English a lot during this year, of course, but not American, and definitely not the sort of hip-hop American Yudhi likes. So we just indulge it, turning ourselves into MTV-watching adolescents as we drive along, razz-ing each other like teenagers in Hoboken, calling each other dude and man and some-times—with great tenderness—homo. A lot of our dialogue revolves around affectionate in-sults to each other's mothers.

"Dude, what'd you do with the map?"

"Why don't you ask your mother what I did with the map?"

"I would, man, but she's too fat." And so forth.

We don't even penetrate the interior of Bali; we just drive along the coast, and it's beaches, beaches, beaches for a whole week. Sometimes we take a little fishing boat out to an island, see what's going on out there. There are so many kinds of beaches in Bali. We hang out one day along the long southern California-style groovy white sand surf of Kuta, then head up to the sinister black rocky beauty of the west coast, then we pass that invisible Balinese dividing line over which regular tourists never seem to go, up to the wild beaches of the north coast where only the surfers dare to tread (and only the crazy ones, at that). We sit on the beach and watch the dangerous waves, watch the lean brown and white Indonesian and Western surf-cats slice across the water like zippers ripping open the backs of the ocean's blue party dress. We watch the surfers wipe out with bone-breaking hubris against the coral and rocks, only to go back out again to surf another wave, and we gasp and say, "Dude, that is totally MESSED UP."

Just as intended, we forget for long hours (purely for Yudhi's benefit) that we are in Indonesia at all as we tool around in this rented car, eating junk food and singing American songs, having pizza everywhere we can find it. When we are overcome by evidence of the Bali-ness of our surroundings, we try to ignore it and pretend we're back in America. I'll ask, "What's the best route to get past this volcano?" and Yudhi will say, "I think we should take I-95," and I'll counter, "But that'll take us right through Boston in the middle of rush-hour traffic . . ." It's just a game, but it sort of works.

Sometimes we discover calm stretches of blue ocean and we swim all day, permitting each other to start drinking beer at 10:00 AM ("Dude—it's medicinal"). We make friends with everyone we encounter. Yudhi is the kind of guy who—when he's walking down the beach and he sees a man building a boat—will stop and say, "Wow! Are you building a boat?" And his curiosity is so perfectly winning that the next thing you know we've been invited to come live with the boat-builder's family for a year.

我和这位处于流放状态、年轻的印尼音乐天才，动身展开假美国式的环岛公路行，车子后座满载吉他、啤酒，以及相当于美国公路旅行食品的巴厘岛食物——炸米饼和味道恐怖的土产糖果。旅程细节，如今对我而言已有些模糊，因为心中充满对斐利贝的杂念，还因为在任何国家做公路旅行始终会有奇特的朦胧感。但我记得尤弟和我自始至终说着美语——我许久未说的语言。这一年我自然说了不少英语，美语却不然，而且绝不是尤弟喜欢的那种嘻哈美语。因此我们大说特说，把自己变成看MTV的青少年，开着车，像纽约郊区的青少年嘲弄彼此，叫彼此"好家伙"和"老兄"，时而柔情蜜意地称彼此"玻璃"。我们的对话经常环绕着对彼此母亲的亲密侮辱。

"好家伙，你拿地图干什么？"

"何不问你娘我拿地图干什么？"

"老兄，我会的，只不过她太肥。"诸如此类。

我们甚至未深入巴厘岛内陆，我们只是沿着海岸行驶，整个礼拜都是海滩、海滩、海滩。有时我们搭小渔船出海到某个岛上，看那儿有什么好玩的。巴厘岛有各式各样的海滩。我们某天在库塔的南加州式白沙海滩闲晃，而后上行前往西岸凶险的黑岩岸海滩，然后跨越似乎未见一般游客前往的分界线，到达北岸，唯有疯狂的冲浪者才勇于踏上的狂烈海滩。我们坐在海边观看危险的海浪，看着精瘦、棕肤色和白肤色的印尼与西方冲浪军划过水面，犹如扯开大海的蓝色晚宴服背后的拉链。我们看着冲浪者带着傲骨冲向珊瑚与岩石，回来的时候却又冲着另一波海浪，我们倒抽一口气说："好家伙，完全一团糟啊。"

我们如同原本的打算，长时间（为尤弟着想）完全遗忘自己身在印尼的现实，驾着租来的车，吃垃圾食物，唱美国歌，到处找比萨饼吃。当我们被身在巴厘岛的证据压倒时，便予以忽视，假装自己还在美国。我会问："通过这座火山最好走哪条路？"尤弟便说："我想该走"I-95"。"我反驳："可是那会刚好碰上波士顿的塞车时段……"虽然只是游戏，却多少奏效。

有时我们发现绵延不绝的平静碧海，便游泳一整天，准许对方在早上十点开始喝啤酒（"好家伙——这药有效。"）我们和每个遇上的人交朋友。尤弟是那种走在海边看见有人造船，就停下来说"哇！你在造船吗？"的那种人。他的好奇心如此迷人，没过多久，我们便得到去造船人家里住上一年的邀请。