WRI 2730 Long essay #1 A road-trip named Desire

A road-trip named Desire

Good Morning

6:00 am alarm goes off, the sun is not quite up yet. I gathered everything I packed late last night and peek in to see if Jess is up. She’s in the shower which puts us right on schedule.  I crack open the front door hoping that it’s not too cold, the sun pierces through and warms my face. I struggle with a suitcase, a duffel bag, a laptop bag, a pillow and the car keys. I always take things to the car as though I can only take that trip once. There is a wet dew blanketing everything outside, and a twinkling gloss lays over the windshield. I feel a cold chill that starts at my shoulders, and travels all the way down my spine. I’m grateful that it is early summer, not too hot on the East Coast, and just hot enough on the West Coast.  Perfect morning for a cigarette, banana and the delectable stylings of Mrs. Corinne Bailey Ray. Jess, my road trip partner and dear friend, saunters outside with a travel mug of fresh steaming coffee, she looks calm, which is great because she suffers from anxiety. 

Speeding Ticket

There is no one else I wanted to take this trip with other than Jess, we’ve been friends for years, we met working at the same restaurant. I start the car, roll the windows down, set the GPS (Savannah, GA to El Paso, TX) and hit shuffle on the ipod. An hour has passed and Jess sleeps quietly in the passenger seat. I honk my horn as we reach Alabama. It startles Jess and we giggle as we take in the sights in the surrounding small town.  It’s the kind of town with church messages like, “What’s missing in Ch_ch? U R.” I let my mind surf for a minute while I jam to some mindless euro-pop song circa 1990 and don’t notice my speed.  I clear the top of a hill just in time to see a police officer driving toward me in the opposite direction. Out of instinct I look down at my speed, 50 mph. Not bad. “Do you know the speed limit?” I ask Jess without enough concern to worry her. “I think, 35?” 

Shit. 

Sure enough, the Officer U-turns, illegally might I add, and flies behind me and throws on his lights. I pull over to a gas station on the right and reach for my registration. As you can see, I’ve done this before. He’s not one of those officers a girl knows she can get out with. He’s older, who’s daily highlight is ticketing speeding hoodlums in his quiet town. 

Without disrespect I accept my ticket. 

“If this is the worse that can happen, then we are golden.” That may have been the moment I jinxed our trip? 

I look at the ticket, which states I was going 55mph in a 35mph zone. We pull out of the gas station and start driving in silence. There is a healing period after getting a ticket. A period of self-punishment. That lasted about 10 minutes. 

Flat tire

It’s getting dark and we are just outside of Dallas, Texas. We have covered all of our favorite memories from the last few years and gossiped a little about some of our friends.  Just as we enter the Lone-star State, I reach a short creek bridge and at the peak of the bridge, the rear passenger side tire blows and jerks my car around the highway for a couple of seconds. I immediately take control of the wheel and pull it over just after the bridge. I’m remembering just yesterday when I bragged to Jess about not worrying if we get a flat tire, that I knew how to change one! 

And I did know, but I’ve never done it by myself. I can see the workings of a panic attack over Jess’ face. 

I need to fix this quick. 

I start to empty out the trunk, putting our suitcases and boxes on the dirt beside the car. I lift the bed of the jeep and struggle to pull out the spare tire and the jack that looks entirely to small to lift a Jeep Patriot. I angle the jack just right and start turning it, the jeep wobbles for a little and the jack pops off and falls over. I try again, I angle the jack again and start turning it slowly. The Jeep slowly lifts higher and higher and we are home free, I life the tire off, put the spare on, tighten the bolts and lower the Jeep. 

 With oil on my hands, mud on my knees, and a strain in my back we finally get back on the road. 

Texas, be good to us. 

Kamikaze Jacks

It was about that time to switch pilots, 3:00 am.  I warn Jess about a certain gas station we should fill up at before we hit the long stretch of highway that separates El Paso and Mexico. The road is empty, no one is sharing it with us this night. 

A couple of hours have passed and I wake up to a nauseating sensation. My stomach rises to my throat and plops back down. This happens a couple of times before I am able to squint my eyes and try to regain focus on the highway ahead. 

Once the broke white lines are broken and not solid I notice something jet across the road in front of us. 

“What the heck was that?!,” I ask. 

“I can’t tell, but there are a few just sprinting across like Japanese kamikazes” Jess replies. 

E

I watch the shoulder lane and just catch glimpses of little sets of holographic marbles here and there. Then I see a rabbit head pop up from a patch of grass. The bunny takes off and runs, not hops, runs across the highway. They are everywhere! Jess swerves to miss one and almost hits another. I catch one hopping along side the car as we drive 35 mph, these suckers are fast. They are slender like a cat, and stand on their hind legs.

Jack rabbits.  

Jack #1 fakes a left, while Jack #2 sprints in front of the Jeep, Jess swerves to the right. Exasperated, Jess has enough so I offer to drive, the fun is over.  We are both exhausted, we have been on the road for 22 hours. 

I notice the tank, less than a quarter, I don't know how to tell her we passed the last gas station a long long time ago...

I'm lost in my thoughts, playing out all possibilities in case we do run out of gas. Suddenly there is an explosion under the car. The front of the car lifts lightly, and a slight burning stench comes from the AC vents. Jess slows to a stop with a look of terror on her face. 

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? It smells like burning!” 

I imagine a ball of fur and blood entangled in the engine or radiator. That can’t be good but what choice do we have but to keep trucking on?

The Jack rabbits are now few and far between and we have spent the last several minutes looking for gas stations on the GPS. There’s a slight jerk in the car. Then a slight tug. Then slowly everything shuts down. It is not instant, it is gradual and peaceful. 

This is it. This is the moment we run out of gas and end up stranded on the side of a highway with crazy jack rabbits near by. Surrounding us is nothing but space, we can see miles out in every direction with mountains in the distance. 

Mexico, I think. 

It is 4 am.  We are an hour out of my dad’s house in El Paso and about a mile away from the nearest gas station that we aren’t convinced is open. Neither of us have AAA, so I call my dad and ask him to bring us enough gas to get to a gas station. It will take him an hour or so. 

We sit and wait, it’s starting to get cold. I pull clothes out of the suitcase to lay on ourselves to warm up. It is clear that conversation at this point would not make anything better, so we sit in silence. The only audible thing is Jess’ rumbling belly. 

“Gassy?” I ask. 

“No... poopy.” 

“I have napkins in the glove compartment,” I reply. 

I imagine a jack rabbit running up and startling Jess or a desert snake stinging her right on my ass.  

“Maybe if you hold on to the back bumper and angle your ass out, you could go and you wouldn’t get anything on you. But then you’d have to balance yourself with one hand and wipe with the other? Up for it?” 

“I guess so...”Jess replies hesitantly. 

“I’ll be your look out!” I yell as she makes her way to the rear of the car. 

I look out the passenger window to make sure I don’t see an animal charge the car.  About 4 minutes pass and I see Jess turn the corner from the back bumper. She opens the driver side door and climbs in. For a second I wonder what to say to break the ice, because our friendship was now on a whole new level. But I don’t have to say a word, when she shuts her door she looks over and we just burst out in laughter. Insane laughter, gasping for air. The whole day’s events just flood in and we laugh and laugh. Laughing just relaxes me enough to realize I have to poop too. Once the laughter dies down I ask,

“Okay, Jess, explain to me how you did it.” 

She replies, "Well, I kind of ‘leaned’ on the right side of the bumper, so you should take the left side.  Just reach underneath, make sure you get a good grip and pull your pants down. Spread your legs and lean out.  Balance is key.“  

I open the door and get hit with a sharp cool breeze. I reach the back of the car and try really hard not to look at the ground on the right side. I unbutton my pants and lower them. I squat and feel the cold Texas air on my derriere. 

This is not right. 

This is not natural! 

I close my eyes and say a little prayer that I don't end up some animal’s dinner or that I don’t make a terrible mess. I skillfully reach around, a little proud of myself for thinking of doing that in the first place. I take the walk of shame to the passenger door and climb in. It’s warm inside and this time we don’t laugh, we just slouch into our chairs and snuggle to my random pieces of clothing laid around us. 

6am, the sun is rising and I realize my dad should be there any minute. It’s been 24 hours without decent sleep. Just tiny naps here and there for each of us throughout the day. I see my dads car coming toward us on the highway. He slows as he approaches and slowly passes my car. He turns around and pulls up about 20 feet behind us. 

We are both speechless. What do we do? It is inevitable that he will walk to the car from behind and see our little prize pieces. Shit. Shit. Shit. 

He seems to be walking in slow motion, I swear I see a tumbleweed roll by. Once he reaches my door on the passenger side, I roll the window down and smile. 

“Hey, daddy.” 

“Hey, Baby.” 

I get out, Jess gets out of the driver’s side. We walk around to the back of the car. I stand straddling one pile, blocking my dad from seeing it as he walks to his car to get the gas tank.  He returns and starts to unlock the gas cap. Jess stands beside me and we are obnoxiously close to his work space. I know we are acting suspicious. He finishes pouring and tries to set the gas tank down exactly where I stood. The logical thing would have been to move over but I stood still like a statue.  He sets the tank on the ground beside me and turns the car on, it sputters for a second but turns on. I climb in behind the wheel, blare the heat on my frozen toes and wait for my dad to reach his car. The feeling of the car rumble under my feet restored my faith in this road-trip. 

Tailgate

He passes my car and I follow closely behind.  After about 2 minutes driving I hear the siren of a police car and look in my rear view mirror to see an officer pulling me over. There is no way I am speeding, I didn’t even reach 40mph. I pull over and my dad pulls over in front of me about 100 ft. away.  The cop walks to my window and asks for my license and registration. I ask why I was pulled over and he points to my dads car and says, 
“You were following awfully close to that car in front of you.” 
“Yeah, that’s my dad. We were broken down for the night without gas and he just brought us some so I was following him closely so he’d see if anything happened.” 
He looks inside the car, in the back seat and again at us and walks away.  He returns with my paperwork and a ticket. 

For tailgating. 

He walks away to his car and I wait for it to pass me, my dad starts his car and we continue.  I follow my dad about a mile to the nearest gas station. We fill the tank up, and while we are inside the mini store I muscle up the courage to ask if he knew. 
“Dad, I don’t even know how to ask. I’m so embarrassed, and I know Jess is humiliated but we ran out of options...”I rambled for a few minutes while we stood in line to pay. He just looked ahead, and occasionally at me. Then said, 
“I don’t know what you are talking about, baby.” 

And left it that. 

Apparently there are some things a father does not talk about with his daughter. I don’t mind. 

We leave and make our way the hour drive to my dads house. We get there at 8 am. Jess and I decide to find a place that sells tires to replace the donut we’ve been driving on. Then we would shower and sleep. We leave the house and drive to the tire place. We go to the lobby and discuss the idea of napping in shifts, but replacing a tire shouldn’t take that long. 
It was 10am. 
Around 11:30 I get up a little disoriented, I look out the window to see if the Jeep is still sitting where I parked it. It sure is. 
“Jess, they haven’t even started on it.”
I just want to get this done and lay my head down on a pillow and sleep. This is the longest road trip I have ever taken. 
12:20 I get up and look out the window, the Jeep is gone. Okay, replacing a tire takes minutes. 
“Jess, they are working on it now.” 
I get distracted with an episode of Cops, it ends and I look up to see that it is 1:00.  I decided to go to the counter and ask for an update. The employee steps away from the desk for a minute and returns. “Mrs. Hurley, your car was just pulled up to be washed. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” 
“I didn’t ask for my car to get washed, I just needed a new tire!” I cried. 
“It’s complimentary here.” 
It was obvious I wasn’t grateful.  At 1:20 I see my Jeep pull up by the window, I don’t think we spoke a word the whole way home. I dropped everything I was carrying and let the weight leave my body and fall into the bed. 

It was dark when I wake up. I have a splitting headache but I push my aching fatigued body up to check and see if Jess was still alive. I cracked open her door and see her lay there motionless, she cracked open her eye and smiled. 
“That good, huh?” 

My dad prepares a feast of steak and potatoes, topped off with the best tequila south of the border had to offer. Why the hell not? It was well earned for the day we had. We sit around the table and recap the whole day. We laugh about it all.  My dad sits, entertained, telling us similar travel stories. His stories either got funnier and funnier or I got drunker and drunker. Either way, it was a nice night and end to a long day. We take the party to the back patio, smoke a couple of cigarettes and continue to drink. We decide not to set an alarm and just wake up when we want. It was only about a 12 hour drive to San Diego from El Paso. 

Hot as Hades

I wake up and feel great. No hangover, and no sign of the last couple of days. I find my dad swooshing around the kitchen with a spatula in one hand and a cigarette in the other. 
“Morning, baby.”
You would never know he stayed up all night drinking tequila with his 22 year old daughter and friend. “Morning, dad.” “You going to eat breakfast before you leave?”

“Yeah, but we’ll need to go shortly after, I’m ready to get there.”

Jess and I feast on an amazing breakfast, overdose on coffee, pack the car and say goodbye.  

The drive is fairly easy, no traffic and we are able to maintain a healthy 10 miles over the speed limit. We reach Tucson and open the windows for a little to save gas. Getting closer to Phoenix we decide to blast the AC to cool off since the heat has our thighs sticking together. I turn the knob from low to high, nothing but hot air blows. I push the button with the snowflake, first off then on again. Nothing but hot air blows. Jess turns the knob from low to high quickly, over and over.  

Phoenix, AZ. Temperature: 103 degrees. 

The windows all the way down only means that the oven hot air is blowing faster and harder, directly on us. Sweat drips down my back from my neck, down my chest from my face. There is a glaze over our faces and a look of misery. My hands slide across the steering wheel and my cigarette breaks from the sweat on my fingers. The coolest part of my body was my upper lip when my cool breath left my nostrils. 

We need gas so I pull over and get out. There on the drivers seat is the indention of my body outline. Embarrassed by the huge sweat stains on my back and legs I hurry the pumping and jump in the car. A few hours later we feel a cool breeze blowing through the car. 
We are in Yuma, we can see the Mexican border to the left. We are almost home. We reach the winding mountains of California there is nothing but clean fresh air drying our soaking bodies. I’m glad to report the car did not over heat. In the journey through the mountains I could feel the speed of the car get progressively faster as I thought about the mere distance that kept us from home. The Indian Reservations started getting familiar.
GPS: “In 28 miles take exit 17 to I 5.” I 5 means that we are less than half an hour away. 

As I make my final highway exit and drive down the busy downtown streets to get to my apartment in Chula Vista, California, I think about Brandon standing in the drive way waiting to hug me, eager and excited. The car is still in motion when I throw it in park and jump out to hug him.  I never want to drive that Jeep again in my life. I never wanted to take another road trip again. 

We spend the night drinking and talking about the trip. I am relieved to be home, never to drive again.