Road Trip

by Dan Taylor

  But that’s not the reason why I might get mad upon learning her revelation. (I tell her it’s the best shit I’ve ever smoked every time I do.) The reason I might get mad, apart from that I could interpret her bringing it with her as hypocritical, is that Sir Wanks A Lot, as it’s so affectionately known, is a giant penis-shaped bong.

  I get the pun, the whole Sir Lancelot thing, but what does masturbating a lot have to do with sucking on a bong, or Sir Lancelot to do with giant penises, for that matter? I suppose a better name might be Sir Sucks A Lot.

  Anyway, I digress. My aversion to it, apart from I’d have to put my lips around the glans to get a good seal, whether pottery or not, isn’t the imperfect comedy at the heart of its name, but the design’s novelty grip, a network of throbbing, deep-blue veins.

  I look at it a second, before saying, “Honey, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I won’t expect you to use it. And I won’t beg you to this time.”

  “Of course not. But I’ve got to admit, I get a little freaked out watching you use it.”

  She winks at me. “You know I prefer yours.”

  “It is made out of flesh.”

  She tosses the baggie over to me, and says, “Candy says there are two ways of getting to moon: the regular way, in a space shuttle or whatever, and by smoking this stuff, Mexico’s finest.” She dramatically pauses, before saying its name: “Loco in Acapulco.”

  “A Four Tops reference. How eighties.”

  “Go ahead. Give it a whiff and tell me Candy hasn’t come through for us again.”

  I open up the baggie, stick my nose in, and get a faint whiff of exactly what I expected: Five-day-old mowed lawn grass with a hint of eau de earthworm. I nod in mock approval. “Very nice.”

  After I’ve got into my pajamas, and as Grace is still deciding which set she’s to wear, she says, “Go and fill him up for me, will you?”

  “Sir Wanks A Lot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I forgot to bring powder-free non-latex gloves with me. You’ll have to do it.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “If you’re going to be a pussy, at least find something on HBO for us.”

  Grace is a southern girl, having moved to L.A. to pursue her lifelong dream of working as a waitress in some shitty diner, so she has all the politeness and civility of someone who grew up in the south. But whenever there’s a consumer amount of weed involved, she goes all gangster, calling me ‘bitch’ or ‘pussy’ whenever I exhibit one of my many idiosyncrasies. I’ve got to admit, I kinda like it, as long as it’s not in front of company. Then, not so much.

  Unfamiliar TV remotes scare me, so I hold out my hand and say, “Pass him over here, then, but don’t cry over spilled penis if I drop him on the way over there or on the way back.”

  She holds him out to me, and I go to grab him… it, but she pulls back at the last second. Says, “Are your hands dry?”

  “They’re not lubed up, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Not that. Free of sweat. This was an engagement present from Candy.”

  “Of course it was.” I dry my hands on my pajamas and then try to take it from Grace, but she says, “With both hands. This could be worth something someday.”

  Feeling like a prize ass, I carry my wife’s penis-shaped bong through to the bathroom, doing as she said, which means one hand on the shaft and the other, wherever I place it on the base, looking like it’s cupping the ceramic scrotum.

  Whoever designed Sir Wanks A Lot must’ve been stoned through high school and never made it to college, as the only fill hole is the urethra, as the bowl is fixed in place with some sort of adhesive, making for less-than-straightforward cleaning and maintenance. The result is, this giant member takes a lifetime to fill, as the water dribbles, no, cascades down the shaft as roughly five percent of the water coming out of the faucet makes it into the chamber.

  Five minutes later, I go back through to the bedroom to find Grace has finally put on her pajamas.

  And like a pair of nerds, after I’ve placed Sir Wanks A Lot down carefully on the bedside table, Grace and I simultaneously say, “Party time!”

  Our definition of partying differs from say, your average college student or crack-smoking, hooker-entertaining judge, as around fifteen minutes into our ‘party,’ Grace and I are lying on the bed, struggling to stay vertical, watching a non-HBO cable television channel. I’m not sure what we’re watching until our British friend turns up again.

  “Jesus, is this documentary still on?” I ask. “What time is it?”

  “Which one of those questions do you want me to answer? Because I only have adequate vocal cords lubrication to answer one of them.”

  “The time, then. That first question was rhetorical.”

  She looks around the room, seemingly for a clock, as Grace doesn’t wear a watch. (She says the ticking would drive her crazy.) And then she says, “Late.”

  “They must’ve repeated it.”

  “Either that or it’s a miniseries.”

  I groan. “Can you change the channel? All the markings have been rubbed off the remote. It’s impossible to tell whether you’re increasing the volume or selecting a different screen resolution.”

  “I can’t reach it. You’ll have to get it.”

  Ten minutes later we’re still watching it, and I have to admit, it’s kinda growing on me. Maybe I’m deeper and more intellectual than Grace gives me credit for, at least when I’ve consumed enough Brain Deep to make Adolph Hitler a pacifist.

  As Grace is racking up another hit of her bong, there’s a knock on the door.

  We look at each other. And then Grace asks, “Did you order room service?”

  “Not from a motel room I didn’t.”

  “Then who is it knocking so late?”

  “Whoever it is, they better have a good excuse for interrupting our romantic evening.” I think a second. “Put Sir Wanks A Lot under the bed.”

  She tries. “It’s too long, though its girth just about fits.”

  “That’s good to know. In the bathroom, then. It could be the motel manager, and I’m guessing from his ‘Jesus Saves Even Hippies’ T-shirt that he might not be the most tolerant of a couple of potheads.”

  When she comes back, she says, “Why haven’t you gone to check yet?”

  “Because it reeks of Love Skunk in here, and a little of whatever it is you’re smoking. I can’t find your perfume or my cologne.”

  “So that’s what you’re doing by the suitcases. I thought you were looking for a gun.”

  There’s another knock.

  “Why would I be looking for a gun?”

  “I’ve just thought of something.”

  “What?”

  “Why don’t we just wait until whoever it is goes away?”

  “I did not think of that.”

  We sit in silence of the bed for a couple minutes. Then Grace says, “Do you think he’s gone?”

  “What makes you think it’s a he? That rapist-murderer out there could just as likely be a woman, or a trans.”

  “I thought we decided it was the motel manager?”

  “Right. My imagination ran wild.”

  “Do you think he heard us?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I heard us, but my hearing’s like an X-men’s when super high. I could’ve heard a pin pop.”

  She frowns. “A pin pop?”

  “Yeah. Like a balloon or whatever. I can’t believe you’ve never heard that before.”

  “How would that make any sense? Even the hearing impaired could hear a pin pop a balloon, silly dummy. I’m pretty sure the saying’s a pin drop.”

  “Who could hear a pin drop?”

  “That’s the point.”

  I try to think of the logic of that, but I’m way too stoned.

  I expect Grace to carry on mocking me, but she doesn’t. She’s staring at the TV, realizing what I should’ve already.

  Then I say, “If he didn’t hear us, he definitely
heard the Dalai Lama singing his mantra.”

  12.

  “Do you think we should get out of here?” Grace asks.

  I think about driving at night, both of us singing “ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall…” to stay awake, and try to put Grace’s mind at rest. “Relax. We’re just a couple of adults relaxing with a bit of marijuana.”

  “A bit of marijuana that’s totally illegal, and the use of which he definitely came around to investigate, after one of our neighbors snitched on us.”

  “We don’t even know it’s the motel manager.”

  “Who else would come around at this time?”

  She’s right. And besides, of all the imaginable people who would come a knockin’ on our motel room door at this late hour, the motel manager is the least threatening. “Maybe it was just a courtesy call, like when a waiter annoyingly asks you if the mouthful of noodles in your mouth tastes good.”

  “Look at that.” She points at the top of the wall.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The ventilation grill.”

  “That could be a tannoy or…” I think a second. “A hideous decorative metal grate?”

  “It’s the ventilation system.”

  “I’m not out of ideas yet. Could that be a fly catcher?”

  “No, Jake. It explains why, even though we didn’t make a peep, the motel manager knocked on our door. He’s received a complaint.”

  “You’re right.” I sigh. “I knew one of these days a shoddy ventilation system in a motel would be the death of me.”

  “My mind’s made up.”

  Grace gets up, goes to the bathroom, and starts brushing her teeth.

  “Uh, honey, what are you doing?”

  She takes the brush out of her mouth, turns around, and talks over the vibration of her electric toothbrush, toothpaste foam framing her mouth. “If we’re going to be driving all night, I at least don’t want to be doing so with dragon breath.”

  “That makes sense. I’ll be doing something less important, like getting changed and packing our bags.”

  Grace says something like, “You do that.”

  Five minutes later, we’re ready to leave. The water has been emptied out of Sir Wanks A Lot, our bags are packed—no thanks to Mrs. Hancock—we’re back into usual daytime wear, and I’m going through the game plan to make it out of here without the motel manager seeing us.

  “Why do we need to be so careful?” Grace asks. “Won’t the motel manager just be glad to see us leave?”

  “He could be concerned with justice, something silly like that, and try to detain us until law enforcement arrives. I’ve heard about these do-gooders that exist outside of L.A. They’re a real piece of work.”

  “You can ‘commando roll to a vantage point’ so that you can ‘make sure the coast is clear.’ I’m just going to walk to Winnie at a brisk but not incriminating pace.”

  “Okay, that’s the new plan. I haven’t done a forward roll since high school, anyway.”

  I turn off the light and we leave the motel room. Good riddance. And then we lock the door behind us and walk briskly to the Winnebago, which is parked in the spot farthest away from our motel room. Great. But then again, we didn’t expect to be fleeing in the night, high as motherfuckers. I’m carrying my suitcase like a holdall, but Grace is dragging hers behind her using the long handle, rolling it on the wheels, making a scraping sound like a skateboard with cheap plastic wheels on badly laid tarmac. Not exactly the stealthy escape I had in mind when quarterbacking this thing.

  To our right is the motel manager’s office and motel reception. I glance over at it, to see if he’s there and has spotted us or, even more likely, heard Tony Hawk here.

  The reception is lit, but I don’t see him there. Maybe he’s taking a leak. To the right of that is what I thought was his office when we checked in, which is empty.

  Looks good, like we’ll make it.

  When we’ve made it to our vehicle, like a gentleman, I tell Grace to load our suitcases into the living area using the side door while I get into the driver’s side and start this hog.

  Grace shoots me a look. Scrap that. I load them in, she goes and sits idly in the shotgun seat, and then I rush around to driver’s side and get in. A moment of horrifying, THC-induced panic hits me and I ask, “Wait! Did we remember our passports?”

  She looks at me funnily. For a moment, I have no idea why. Until she asks, “For our exclusively interstate road trip?”

  “Never mind. Give me the keys.”

  “I put them in the ignition for you.”

  We would’ve made it and been on our way to someplace I’d find difficult finding on the map, if we’d been in any other vehicle. But as usual, starting her is no simple task. As I’m jimmying the key in the ignition, pumping the gas, while trying to remember whether it was clockwise or anti-clockwise to start with, there’s a tap on the driver’s side window.

  13.

  I force a smile onto my face and whisper to Grace, not moving my mouth much, like I’m providing the voice for a ventriloquist’s dummy, “That’s not the motel manager.”

  Whispering also, she replies, as though talking to a ventriloquist’s dummy, “I kinda figured that.”

  He makes the signal to wind down the window, and I oblige.

  He smiles, wide and ostensibly friendlily, if not for the action displaying a gold left incisor, and says, “You folks leavin’?”

  I think a second about how I’m supposed to reply, from the driver’s seat, no less. And then say, “We were thinking about it. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “That’s because I didn’t tell you.” He smiles again, and then sucks his teeth, as though getting bits of T-bone from out between them. And then he says, unclear whether it’s a question or not, “Nice night for drivin’.”

  “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  I look around. “It’s clear, no headwind, and you can be damn sure we’re not going to hit a traffic jam.”

  “Not that. Why you folks thinkin’ about leavin’?”

  I’ve always been bad at small talk, especially with psycho-looking dudes who wear shades at night, denim on both their upper and lower body, and who approach my vehicle late at night, asking questions like I give a fuck about answering them. So I say, “Excuse me, but what the hell do you want?”

  If he’s taken aback, he doesn’t show it. “No need to be rude. I just thought I’d come over here and ask for your key.”

  “Oh, you’re working the night shift.” I laugh a little out of relief, feeling as high as hell.

  “Something like that.”

  “As for our leaving early, the couple next to us, in the neighboring motel room, between you and me, those guys are having a marijuana smoking party. At least that’s what we thought it smelled like. That stuff was drifting into our room, through the ventilation system, and my wife and I, we don’t partake.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We sit in silence a second, Grace and I, him with a crooked little smile on his face.

  Then he says, “Well… the key?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I start looking in my pockets for it as I say, “Sorry about acting a little hostile. I was a little spooked. I thought you were some random psycho. Here it is.”

  I hold out the plastic keycard to him and he takes it. The way he looks at it, slowly spinning it around, examining each side and edge, I assume he’s looking for signs of damage. Maybe it’s a semi-regular occurrence, people vandalizing their motel room keycards.

  Until he says, “You start your vehicle with this thing?”

  14.

  Upon being asked by what I can only assume is a crazed lunatic if the keycard he’s holding is the key to Winnie Pooh, I shoot the guy the same look I shot the college kid who was dressed as Goofy at Disneyworld when he indicated with flappy arm movements that he’d like to take a selfie with me and my then-wife Regan.

  But instead of asking, “Do you see a kid, j
ackass?” like I did the college kid, I ask the lunatic, “Are you serious, jackass?”

  I’ve been bitch slapped by many women, and most of those times I could hold up my hands and say it was probably my fault. I deserved it. That one time maybe it was dumb of me to assume she’d like to stay the night on the sofa, even though the king-sized bed we’d just occupied for seven minutes and thirty-five seconds can easily accommodate two.

  But this is the first time I’ve been bitch slapped by a man. He wasn’t able to get a decent backswing, because of the window frame, but it hurt like a bitch nonetheless.

  I see stars, and not because this part of the country isn’t plagued by light pollution.

  Grace shrieks. My eyes start to water. And then the lunatic standing in front of me says what can seem like a logical response only to him: “Did I ask for your opinion?”

  “You kinda did,” I say, surprised at how steady my voice sounds despite the manly drops of eye perspiration welling up in the corners. I point to the keycard. “You asked if that’s the key to the car. My response was in the negative.”

  He stands there, grinning.

  At this point, I’ve worked out that the guy standing outside the driver’s-side window probably isn’t the guy working the nightshift for the motel. I’ve also worked out, based on the way Grace is shaking beside me, that A) not getting back the keycard to the motel room is probably the least of my worries, and B) maybe now’s not the time to take a honeymoon selfie.

  Which is what I think Grace is doing for a second with her own phone out until she holds it up, points it at the Marlboro Man, and says, “I’m recording you, motherfucker. Hit my husband again and you’ll wish prisons stocked their showers with soap-on-a-rope, instead of the regular kind, which is difficult to pick up and easily dropped.”

  Smooth, Grace.

  Marlboro Man waves for the camera, a shit-eating grin on his face, and then turns his attention to me. “You going to get Missy under control, or do I have to go around there and slap the sand out of her mouth, too?”