Road Trip

You and a friend are very lost, and arguing, because there's nothing around to help you figure out where you are.

We were still slightly drunk. I know I shouldn’t have been driving, but we’d made it out of that little Mexican town and found open road. My old jeep was handling the roughly paved road with ease, and did not complain in the least when we drifted every so often into the dirt and shrubs that edged along the road.

We were still slightly drunk, with cameras full of strange people lifting drinks and shouting under the greasy yellow and sleepy blue of the incandescent bulbs and neon beer signs. Cameras full of drinking contests and strange women dancing with drunken recklessness in a country obviously not their own. Heads full of memories, heads full of dance, and of drink.

We’d entered this land three in number, but we lost one brave soul to a hooker who was beautiful except for that eye that refused to look forward. She was cheap, and James had been shouting “Cuanto cuestas” at women after the first round of tequila shots. “How much do you cost,” he’d been asking them, though I knew that his Spanish did not extend beyond that phrase, and where to find beer or a bathroom.

And so he bought that woman for the night, and promised to find his own way back into the states. We knew he would not be dissuaded, though his wife would be sure to ask us where he was. We would deal with that later.

For we were slightly drunk, and full of good memories, driving beneath Mexican stars and wondering at a world without street lamps.

“Dude,” Greg slurred as his eyes opens and his arm reach up to wipe the drool from his cheek. “Where the fuck are we?”

I didn’t know, and had not thought about it until he said those words. I must have been very drunk when we began driving, because I couldn’t remember how exactly we’d left.

“Are we even going the right direction?”

That was me saying that, though there was no way my companion could have known—he’d passed out within minutes of sitting down. He pointed this out to me, only he used the word “fuck” somewhere in the sentence to emphasize his displeasure with the geographic confusion. I lit a cigarette at this point, and breathed deep to unknot the tension.

“I guess we could drive until we find the coast,” I suggested, “or another town. Does any of this shit look familiar to you?”

We both looked around, seeing only shrub and brush and stones beneath the moonlight.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, his excitement giving me reassurance. “That bush! Right there! We passed it on our way here!”

He paused a moment, his excitement shifting quickly to a darker shade as he turned to me and informed me that no, of course nothing looks fucking familiar. He threw an empty can at my head and crossed his arms.

“Why don’t you call Boots? He knows how to get anywhere,” I offered.

Greg rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone, flipping it open and pressing it immediately to his face. He didn’t dial.

“Hey Boots! What’s up? Yeah man, I’m good. Listen, we’re lost in Mexico. We left La Puebla… how long ago bro? An hour? Yeah, an hour ago. No, I don’t know which direction we’re driving. No, I don’t know what road we’re on. No, I don’t see any signs. Its pretty much dessert.”

He snapped the phone shut and glared at me hard enough that I could feel it while staring forward.

“You seriously want me to have a conversation like that with Boots at three in the morning? You’re a fucking retard.”

Greg is an interesting person. He is soft spoken, meek even, with the good manners and strict upbringing of a very Asian family. He is also very kind—that is, until he starts to drink. Then he gets like this.

“I’m a retard?” I shouted back. “Mexico was your fucking idea. I wanted to go mountain climbing, you ornery fuck. I wanted to stay in my own god damned country.”

I flicked my half spent cigarette at him without looking. I must have aimed true, because he yelped and began shaking out his shirt. He called me a fucker then, and reached across and punched me on the jaw.

Now normally, this would be the part of the story where the car goes flying off the road, slamming into a conveniently placed boulder. Consider, however, that I can take a punch, and that I was still numb from tequila, and that Greg is a pussy.

No, we crashed anyway, tires swerving and squealing. There wasn’t a boulder, but there was a rather deep ditch in which we entrenched ourselves nicely. The impact slammed my face into the steering wheel, and I could feel blood leap from my mashed nose. Greg groaned and whispered his favorite word before informing me that his arm was broken.

“Crashed, lost in the middle of this backward ass country. My fucking arm is broken, and my cell phone was out of batteries before we crossed the border yesterday.”

I climbed out of the Jeep. It was desert cold out, chilled by early morning. I didn’t have any flares—the result of another bit of drunken “fun” a month prior. There was juggling involved.

Tires will burn for a good long time, though, and produce enough smoke to attract attention if there were any eyes to see. I suddenly saw myself standing beneath the heat of a desert noon, with a smoldering tire next to me and no help within miles. We had no food, no water… And who knew what kind of unsavory character would find us in our vulnerable situation.

I pulled the spare tire off of my tailgate and rolled it downwind of the jeep. I grabbed the gas can I always kept full and doused the tire. We had four tired, I figured as I lit the spare. It burst into flames, the rubber stinking and hissing as it began to melt. Black smoke twisted into the sky, though it was the flame that would attract attention at this dark hour. I went back to the jeep and fell asleep.

I awoke to tapping at my window.

“You fellas needing help?”

He spoke English. This alone pleased me beyond words. I nodded and opened the door.

“Sit tight then,” he said, smiling and climbing back into his faded blue Civic. “I’m sure I can find someone at the border check who can help.”

I told him he didn’t need to drive all that way, if only he would help us dislodge my jeep from its grave.

“I’d be easier,” he informed me, “to drive the three miles to the border and find a real tow truck.”

And with that, he hopped into his little car and drove in the very same direction I’d been going hours before.

The Other Side looks rather nice.