Road Trip

by Dan Taylor

  “Just freaked us out a little, is all.”

  He reaches into his pocket, takes out a piece of paper. “My apologies. And here’s a coupon to go and eat at my bar and restaurant for free, minus the tip.”

  I refuse to take it from him, but he insists, says it isn’t for us; it’s for himself, to make himself feel better about all the crazy shit his brother does.

  “If you won’t take it, then I’ll give it to your wife,” he says, and holds it out to Grace.

  Grace says, “You really shouldn’t feel bad about it, but I’ll take it. Is it good for two?”

  “It sure is.”

  She takes it.

  We get up to leave, but he has one more thing to say to us before we do: “When you saw him, was he wearing his old bumbag?”

  Grace and I look at each other, confused. Then I say, “Bumbag?”

  “His fanny pack.”

  “He was.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ll phone ahead, let Jenny know you’re coming. What are your names?”

  Grace goes to speak, but I get there first. “Jeff and Julie. Jeff and Julie Adcock.”

  “Well, Jeff and Julie, it was nice to meet you.”

  36.

  We’re sitting in the bar and restaurant, having been seated by Jenny, who confirmed with us we’re the Adcocks. I put my phone down and say, “Yep. A fanny pack is called a bumbag in the UK.” I think a second. “That’s a dumb name. No one wears it ass backwards.”

  Grace is reading the menu and seemingly not listening, until she says, “Ass backwards?”

  “Yeah. Ass backwards in an abstract sense, and ass forwards in a literal sense. If anything, it should be called a crotch bag over there.”

  “What are you going to order?”

  “Or hip bag. I prefer hip bag.”

  She puts down the menu. “If I respond to what you’re saying, will you choose so we can order? I kinda just want to get as far away from this place as possible.”

  “Relax. I’ll drop the subject.” I pick up the menu and start looking at it. Grace does the same.

  I scan a few of the items on the menu and say, “I’m just saying, if it rested on your ass, or your bum, then that’s a good name.”

  She puts down her menu again. “Do we, as in Americans, rest fanny packs on our fannies?”

  Without stopping looking at the menu, I say, “I don’t wear a fanny pack, and I’m American.”

  “But if you did, would you wear it ass forwards?”

  “You know what, this conversation is trivial.” I put down the menu, and she raises an eyebrow; I lean over and go to kiss her smack on the lips, but she turns at the last second, making me kiss her on the ear.

  She wipes it dry with the back of her hand.

  A second later Jenny comes over with the biggest cocktails I’ve ever seen. They’re in sundae glasses, are decorated with both a sparkler, which aren’t lit, and a mini umbrella, and contain a liquid that has a green, ominous hue.

  She sets them down and takes out a lighter, gets the sparklers going for us.

  Then she says, “Braith says these are on the house.”

  “Tell Braith thank you,” I say. “Do these contain alcohol? Because we’re thinking about driving today.”

  Without saying anything, she puts down her tray on our table and goes to pick one up, but hesitates when she realizes she lit the sparklers. Then she says, “I’ll be back to pick these up when the sparklers have burned out.”

  “You know what, you can just leave them here.”

  “Okay. Are you guys ready to order?” Jenny asks.

  Grace smiles at her, making an obvious attempt at eye contact. “Not yet, Jenny.”

  Jenny smiles and walks away.

  As we lean back in our seats, keeping the sparks from igniting our hair, I say, “Well someone’s got to address the elephant in the room.”

  “What’s that?” Grace asks.

  “Our honeymoon, is it officially over?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I think we’ve had a run of bad luck, and that if we kept on driving, we’d have a much better time. But at the same time, I’m shit tired. You?”

  “I think that carrying on wouldn’t be much fun if I have to walk around on a crutch.”

  “Shit, I totally forgot about that. It’s sad to say, but I think our honeymoon period might be officially over.”

  “Say that again, but drop the period this time.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  The sparklers go out, and I say, “I’m not going to drink the whole thing; I’m just going to try it.” I pull out the mini umbrella and sparkler, and lay them on the table, and then I take a sip. “I taste rum, whisky, and a whole host of fun stuff.”

  “Does it taste good?”

  “Good isn’t the word I’d use. Powerful, maybe brutal. This isn’t a daytime drink.” I hold it up and look at it. “Come to think of it, I don’t think this is an anytime drink.”

  I put it down. Say, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do, you know, the big C.”

  She frowns. “Cancer?”

  “No, career.”

  “Oh. You probably shouldn’t use that term in that way in front of other people.”

  “Career?”

  “No, ‘the big C.’ They’ll think you mean cancer.”

  “News to me. Anyway, I haven’t been able to come up with any other viable options, which I think is maybe, probably a sign I’m going to have to accept you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  I expect Grace to say I’m not old and that I’m totally capable of learning a new vocation, but she says, “Phew! I’ve been a little worried about that. I made a bet with myself how many career choices I’d have to shoot down before you realized the inevitable.”

  “Did you win the bet?”

  “I lost at the twenty mark.”

  I think a second. “What suggestion was that?”

  “Cage warrior.”

  “Yeah, in hindsight, that’s more of a hobby than a profession.”

  She shakes her head no.

  “I’d have a shitty standup game, but that ground stuff doesn’t look too difficult. I’d just have to avoid getting kicked or punched anywhere on my body or face before I executed a takedown.”

  She pats my hand. “I love you too much to see you get mounted and choked out by another man every fight.”

  I sigh. “You’re right. Plus, there’s the whole claustrophobia thing to deal with and having to take PEDs to even compete at a fringe-amateur level.”

  “But still, I’m happy for you. The PI thing. I thought I’d have to make you feel a little henpecked so we could pay the bills.”

  “That’s silly. I’m a modern guy, and more than happy to share the pants. Just a modern couple, looking like a couple of freaks in a giant pair of pants, one leg each, coming to comprises on everything. If that isn’t cause for a toast, I don’t know what is.”

  She looks at me a second with a funny expression. “Is that your way of manipulating me into enjoying one more day on our honeymoon?”

  “I prefer the word persuading or, at a pinch, maneuvering.”

  She shakes her head, but has a smile on her face while she does so. Then she raises her glass.

  I raise mine, but before we clink them, I say, “You might want to take out the mini umbrella and sparkler before we toast. I don’t want you to poke yourself in the eye with either one of them.”

  “This thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a parasol, silly dummy.”

  “Or umbrella, or whatever. Just take it out so we can get drunk and then go back to the motel room and get into, and eventually out of, our pajamas.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “Mrs. Hancock, I order you to get drunk and have a silly yet romantic evening with me.”

  Grace puts down the umbrella and takes out the parasol, and then she raises an eyebrow, and we clink
glasses. Then she says, “To happiness.”

  “To happiness,” I repeat.

  Epilogue

  Grace and I do enjoy one last night a couple miles outside of Pants, Oklahoma, in our shitty little motel room.

  What Grace doesn’t know, is that I have a surprise planned for us while we get served free cocktail after free cocktail, and it doesn’t involve an adventurous position I read about in The Kama Sutra or a recreational drug.

  When we get back to the motel room and are changed into our pajamas I get down on one knee and propose to Grace a second time. She thinks I’m drunk, which I am, but not too drunk that I don’t remember the little signs that Grace may not have been completely satisfied with eloping to Las Vegas and getting married by a dude in an Elvis wig. I remember her reaction to when we looked at the marriage blog after she saw the photo of the couple getting married with their friends and family there, and it only took me a couple days to put two and two together. I’m good like that.

  Grace tries to laugh it off, saying it’s not the wedding that’s important, but the marriage. I tell her that’s bullshit she thinks that; I know she wants the wedding with all the bells and whistles, the one where her family are forced to come, along with all her high school friends, most of whom she thinks are bitches now, and whom she’d like to make jealous by marrying a guy with disposable income coming out the wazoo and with looks like a classic movie star. I also tell her I know how.

  “How?” she asks.

  “The big stupid smile on your face when I showed you the imaginary ring I’m holding. And the tears.”

  Grace says yes—“Fuck yes!”—but does not agree to allow me to recycle the ring I already gave her.

  Grace and I move back to SoCal, renting a little apartment north of San Diego, just to get started. We talked about going back to Hollywood, but we both agreed we’d grown out of living in a place where the bums are stacked two high, the hookers three high, and the tourists five high.

  We stayed the first couple weeks in a hotel, and I told Grace that the reason we hadn’t gone back to my apartment was for two reasons: 1) The whole apartment building had been overrun by roaches, and it was expected to take weeks of fumigation to fully address the issue, and 2) she deserved a little vacation after what was supposed to be our honeymoon.

  The real reason is I’d had it on the market during our honeymoon, and received a call on our way to California from my Realtor Tracy Adams that my apartment had been sold and I needed to move my shit out forthwith.

  FYI, when lying to your wife who you’re going to marry twice, it’s best to think of excuses in pairs, to cover your bases.

  The Scarecrow Killer’s court case, as he’s inaccurately and affectionately referred to by tabloid papers and Fox News, has been getting a lot of coverage. It’s just a matter of dotting the Ts and crossing the Is, as far as the court battle goes, as there’s more than enough evidence to put that lunatic away without Grace’s and my testimony. But what is interesting is the coverage of the man himself, Dirk Field. The reason he got sacked as one of Sheriff Winter’s deputies? Well, it was for many reasons, but it seems like the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he borrowed the sheriff’s patrol car, drove to a diner for lunch, and allowed the car to be vandalized without noticing who the perpetrator was. The article that covered this didn’t state that it was the tires that were let down, but I can’t help but think I contributed to the stress-induced psychosis that ultimately led to him going on a wild killing spree.

  I also have a theory that he didn’t believe me when I said I’d let down the sheriff of Hollywood’s tires down and that he worked out that I was the guy at the diner that day who got him into trouble. I’m not convinced that he was as dumb as he seemed, and I was convinced that he was more than aware that Hollywood doesn’t have a sheriff. I believe this is the reason why when he spoke to the scarecrow sheriff he heard it say he should kill us.

  I’ve had a few sleepless nights over my being at the center of his breakdown, and I think it’s best that this stays between you and me. I certainly won’t be telling Grace, who, even though she was shot by the lunatic, feels sorry for the guy that he’ll be spending the rest of his life in prison.

  We delay the wedding until Grace is fully recovered from her gunshot injury and can walk again, “Without looking like a lady of the night who’s lost one of her stilettos.” Those are her words: I would’ve said hooker.

  The wedding’s a blast. She invites her family; I invite mine. And both parties get along much better than I expected. During the reception, there’s only like one fist fight. The best part is, as we’re swanning around San Ysidro Ranch in our tux and wedding dress, feeling the potent buzz of a couple mid-afternoon glasses of champagne, is that we know we can make the marriage work, which is more than most couples can say during their marriage ceremony.

  Just before the first dance, I remember that I never asked her what the ambulance dispatcher told her not to forget. Grace thinks a second, a curious look on her face, then says, “She said that I’m a lucky gal to have you.”

  My response? “Bullshit.”

  Our song starts, ‘Stuck With You’ by Huey Lewis and the News. So Grace says, “Come on, we need to dance.”

  I look around to see everyone watching us. Then say, “Just tell me.”

  “Can we start dancing if we do?”

  “Of course.”

  She sighs. “She said the opposite of what I said before.”

  “That I’m lucky to have you?”

  “And that I should remind you of that every day.”

  I shake my head, smiling.

  Grace says, “What?”

  “You ladies… Put you in a room together and you’ll want to scratch each other’s eyes out. Put a dude in there with you, and you’re BFFs.”

  “Just dance.”

  “I’m on it.”

  We start dancing.

  Thirty seconds in, Grace says, “Jake?”

  “What?”

  “You’re lucky to have me.”

  “I know. Every week I can deal with. You say that shit tomorrow you can go on our honeymoon by yourself.”

  “You’d never pass up an opportunity to go to—”

  “Just try me.”

  We decide not to go on a road trip for our honeymoon this time, instead opting to go to Disneyworld. It was a good choice for a few reasons. You don’t have to do shitloads of driving, and eight-dollar sodas tend to keep away the country-living psychopaths.

  On our second day, some dude or gal dressed as Goofy comes up to us, waving his or her arms about, indicating he or she wants to take a photograph. Unlike last time, I don’t tell him or her that they’re a jackass, and agree to have a selfie taken with them.

  Just before I snap the photo, Grace whispers something in my ear that I ask her to repeat. She does, saying, “This is probably the last time we’ll be able to take our picture with Goofy with it just being the two of us.”

  I get a feeling in my stomach I don’t know whether I like or not, and ask, “What do you mean? It isn’t just the two of us. Goofy’s here.”

  “Not like that, silly dummy,” she says, and winks.

  “You mean—?”

  “Yep. Smile for the camera!”

  Oh, boy.

  The End

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  About the Author

  Dan Taylor is an English dude stranded in Oslo, Norway. His girlfriend, a blonde-haired Norwegian national, kidnapped him, but he doesn’t require rescuing. He’s the author of the Jake Hancock series and doesn’t take himself seriously as an author, though he works his ass off to make his readers and himself laugh. He doesn’t like skiing, probably because he sucks at it, but he can build one hell of a snowman. You can read his blog at https://jakehancockbooks.wordpress.com/

  The Jake Hancock P.I. series

  Bad Guy Detective

  Out of Crime

  Served Ice-Cold

  Saving Grace

  Our Little Secret

  Dead Friends Don’t Lie

  Road Trip

  Jake Hancock Universe Thrillers

  No Hitmen in Heaven

  Lloyd Onion Eats at Night (coming soon)