'rest stop recollection'
there is nothing like a road trip to really define people, open them up, raw, exposed, you never really know someone until you've spent several sticky days in a car, cross-country.
the tape player broke in the first hour, not even out of los angeles and the tape unspooled, fell to the floor, so it was radio or nothing at all, she became shotgun d.j., blurring through the options that long highway stations ready up.
the other three sat in the back, their illusion of a romantic paved adventure slowly shredding and blowing out the half-cracked window, "i can't take another country song" she lamented, her t-shirt tied up to her chest, hair blowing, lips chapped, still beautiful.
we lived off convenience store entrees, potato chips, stale hot dog buns, slush-puppies. he bought her a pack of superhero trading cards, they pasted the wonder woman sticker on my back, sang the theme song, again and again, then started to chant -- back and forward -- all the james bond movies they could name.
fifty miles from new orleans i pulled over to the side of the road, that's where i threw it out, your engagement ring. i don't know why i chose that spot, it just felt right. he baptized the occasion with flat 7-up, on our heads. she was laughing. and my sidekick held my hand, she knew this was really something, more than a postcard could ever say.
getting there was anti-climatic, sure there were showers, clean clothes, space between; but the little luxuries of a hotel room ,and food that didn't come in a sealed bag or styrofoam package, well, it just felt trite, contrived. we all let out individual sighs, at different times, all longed for the map and the a.m. station hell.
but, we didn't go back, not at once, not together. we all found different cobblestone paths to take. me, i went east, found a place in so-ho, got a new ring around my finger, chained again. he stayed put, found a boy to worship him, a humid bar to hang at, the air suited him just fine. she flew back home, after a week, he called her and she couldn't resist.
and, my radio controlled navigator? she hovered just a breath away from my lips, promising everything, nothing, and then blew away, away, poof.
(written by me)
when your mind's made up ~ glen hansard & marketa irglova
