Road Tripped

by Pete Hautman

  There were a lot of things Gaia and I didn’t talk about much. Like the future. One time we were sitting on the stone benches in her backyard. She was texting back and forth with Maeve, and I was just sitting there.

  “Maeve has decided to go into politics,” she announced.

  “She wants to run for class president?”

  “No, she wants to study political science and run for Congress. But first she has to get through high school.” She laughed. “A month ago she wanted to be a marine biologist.”

  “Are you going to go to college?”

  “That’s not for two years,” she said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow.”

  “I thought you wanted to study art.”

  “I might change my mind. Why? What about you?”

  “My grandparents started a college fund for me, but I don’t know. My dad never went to college, and he did okay.” I laughed because it wasn’t funny. “I’ll probably just get a job. Drive a forklift or something.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I don’t want to think about it right now.”

  “Me neither.”

  I sometimes wondered if the only reason we were together was because there was nothing else pulling at us, like we were two solid planets in a universe of ghost planets, stuck in a tight orbit, together but not quite touching.

  Gaia was thumbing another text.

  “You ever think about why we’re together?” I asked.

  Gaia looked up at me so fast, it must’ve hurt her neck.

  “Why?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just . . . Sometimes I feel like we’re the only real people on earth, you know?”

  “Maeve’s real.”

  “Maeve is hundreds of miles away. She’s pixels on your phone.”

  Gaia nodded, giving me a careful look.

  “I just think you’re the only person I know who gets me,” I said.

  “Do you get me?” she asked in a small voice.

  I nodded, even though a lot of the time I didn’t get her at all.

  • • •

  I was thinking about that during the two weeks before school started, when I noticed that she was taking a little longer to respond to my texts. Often when I called her, it would go to voice mail, and it’d be half an hour before she called me back. A half hour is a long time. Enough time for me to start thinking she was mad at me for something.

  It didn’t take much to make her mad. It took less all the time. Sometimes it took nothing at all, like the time we were at the mall. Gaia said she needed some clothes for school.

  “What are we shopping for?” I asked.

  “I’m shopping for jeans and boots. I don’t know what you’re shopping for.”

  “I’m not shopping for anything,” I said, a bit startled by her tone.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I guess just following you around,” I said, trying to figure out what I’d done to piss her off.

  She shrugged and headed toward DSW. At least she didn’t tell me to go away. I watched her try on every pair of black boots in the store, everything from engineer boots like the ones she was wearing, to pointy-toed high-heeled boots that looked both painful and precarious. I made a couple of suggestions, which had the effect of her immediately ruling them out.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked as she was pulling on a pair of lizard-skin cowboy boots.

  She gave me a side eye. “Should I be?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  She compressed her lips as if holding something in, then said, “I’m just really tired of talking about how everything sucks.”

  “But everything does suck,” I said. I meant it to be a joke, but it didn’t come out that way.

  “I’m just sort of irritable.”

  I wondered if that meant she was having PMS, but I knew better than to ask.

  “Do you want me to go?”

  She tugged on the second boot and stood up. “What do you think?”

  “Um . . . they don’t suck?”

  She laughed. “Nice try.”

  “Okay then. They suck.”

  “Really?” She turned this way and that, looking at the boots. “I kind of like them.”

  After that we were sort of okay again. She didn’t buy the boots, but we had better luck in the jeans department at Macy’s, where she bought two pairs of black jeans exactly like every other pair of jeans she owned. We walked around the mall and I made it a point to comment on things that didn’t suck. It was funny for a while, but then Gaia clammed up and didn’t have much to say, so we walked down to the Cineplex and she picked a movie that turned out to be so awful, we left halfway through. I walked her home, and the only thing we talked about was how much that movie sucked.

  “Choctaw Bingo”

  James McMurtry

  8:48

  Columbia is right in the middle of Missouri. The guy drops me by a big McDonald’s right next to the freeway. He never told me his name, but I now know every glorious detail of his perfect son’s perfect life.

  I go inside to use the bathroom, then order a fish sandwich and a Coke. It’s four in the afternoon already, and Kansas City is still a couple hours’ drive, assuming I can hitch another ride. I eat quickly, then head out to the I-70 on-ramp and stick my thumb out and count the cars passing me by.

  An hour later I’m at number 172 when a beat-up old Ford Taurus drives past me. One brake light comes on, and it pulls over about halfway down the ramp. The car backs up toward me, one wheel on the edge of the ramp, the other on the weedy shoulder. I jog toward it and meet it halfway. A woman in the passenger seat rolls down the window. She has wispy blonde hair and skin that looks dried out, as if she’s been left out in the desert. I can’t tell if she’s in her twenties or her fifties.

  “Need a ride?” she asks.

  I nod, feeling a bit uneasy.

  “Hop in,” the male driver says.

  “I’m going to Kansas City,” I say.

  “Cool,” he says.

  I think about how many cars passed me and didn’t stop. If I don’t take this ride, I could be here for hours. I take a breath, open the back door, and climb inside. I’m ankle-deep in empty Red Bull cans and Skittles wrappers. The car smells weird, like pancake syrup and Windex.

  The driver pulls onto the freeway. He has blond hair too, and a couple of prominent zits on the back of his neck. I look at the rearview mirror. He’s staring at me. His eyes are a muddy blue color, with red veins at the corners and dark pouches underneath.

  “Kansas City, huh?” he says.

  “Yeah. The part that’s in Kansas.”

  “Kansas City, Kansas. Got a buddy lives there, right downtown. Helluva town. Got them good barbecue ribs, right, Honeypie?”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Got them, what are they called? Jayhawks. Kansas City Jayhawks. Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, all kinds a sports. You like sports? Sure, you do. Everybody likes sports, right, Honeypie?”

  “You got that right, Babe.” She says it like it’s his name. Both of them have hoarse voices.

  “Saint Louie, KC, Oklahoma. Man, I been there, I been everywhere. Born in Texas, though. Texas born, Texas bred. Houston, Dallas, San Antone, Austin—man, that’s one hell-raisin’ town. Lubbock, Brownsville, Amarillo—that means yellow in Mexican. Yellow, Texas. Who names a town after a color? Shreveport—that’s Looseeana, right, Honeypie?”

  “I ain’t gonna argue, Babe.”

  “Been all the way to LA and every town in between. Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson, Casa Grande . . .” He keeps going, naming one city after another. I tune him out and look around the car. There are stubby bolts sticking out of the backs of the front seats, like something used to be fastened there. The backseat is black vinyl, with lots of cuts and tears. The console between the front seats has holes drilled in it. Jammed into a hole in the dashboard is a radio that didn’t come with the car. I try to ro
ll down the back window a bit to let in some fresh air, but the button doesn’t work, and the door handle is missing.

  I’m starting to get very nervous.

  “. . . Flagstaff, Vegas, Winslow . . .” The guy is still rattling off city names.

  “Is this an old cop car?” I ask.

  “Police Interceptor, baby. Got the four-point-six-liter V-8, heavy-duty suspension, the whole works, right, Honeypie?”

  “Yeah, Babe.”

  He swerves across two lanes and takes the exit onto Stadium Boulevard.

  “This is good,” I say. “You can drop me here.”

  “Drop you? Ain’t you going to Kansas City?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “We just got to make a pit stop at the Walmart. Have you in KC by suppertime.” He turns left off the exit and heads south.

  “Here’s the deal. We need you to do us a little favor, okay? Just run into the Walmart and pick something up for us. You think you can do that?”

  “Um . . . sure.” Anything to get out of this car.

  “You got any cash on you? Like, twenty bucks?”

  “No.”

  “I bet you do, but it ain’t no never mind. Honeypie can spot you.”

  A Walmart is coming up on the left. He pulls in and parks at the far edge of the lot. Honeypie is digging in her pockets. She comes out with a ten and a handful of ones. The guy grabs the money from her and turns to face me.

  “Sudafed,” he says. “Not the timed release, just the regular.”

  “Sudafed? You mean the stuff for when you have a cold or something?”

  “Yeah. Honeypie and me, we got bad allergies.”

  “You got that right,” Honeypie says.

  “Twenty bucks’ worth.” He waves the money. “Don’t worry. You don’t need a prescription. Just a driver’s license. You got a license, right?”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “The pharmacist will need your ID. They keep the Sudafed behind the counter.”

  “I mean, why do you want me to do it?”

  “Because Missouri has this stupid law about how much you can buy, and me and Honeypie, we already bought our monthly max. They keep records, right? Goddamn police state. Only, here’s the thing. You got to leave something with us. So you don’t take our money and run, you dig?”

  “I don’t have anything,” I tell him.

  “You got shoes? Leave us your shoes.”

  I figure, why not? I can run in, buy the allergy medicine, come back and get my shoes, and then not get in the car.

  I take off my shoes. He hands me the money. Honey-pie gets out of the car and opens my door. She smiles, showing a gappy set of teeth that don’t look so good.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, even though I’m not sure I will. I cross the parking lot in my stocking feet. There is a sign next to the door: NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE. I ignore the sign and walk into the store.

  A Walmart in Missouri is the same as a Walmart in Minnesota. I locate the pharmacy instantly and walk up to the window. A young woman looks up at me and raises her eyebrows.

  “I need some . . . um . . . I need some Sudafed?”

  “Sudafed? What kind, honey? We have twelve-hour, twenty-four-hour, multi-symptom, or just Sudafed.”

  “The regular kind.”

  “Box of twenty-four or forty-eight?”

  “This much.” I put the money on the counter.

  “That’s enough for two boxes of forty-eight,” she says. “Why so much?”

  “It’s not for me. My . . . my mom sent me to get it.”

  “Okay. I’ll need some form of identification.”

  I give her my driver’s license. She sets it on her computer screen and starts typing in my name and number.

  “You aren’t a tweaker, are you, honey?”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “You say this is for your mom? Does she use drugs?”

  “No!”

  “Lot of meth addicts buy Sudafed. That’s why we keep it back here.” She squints at her screen, taps a few keys. “Okay. I’ve got you in the database. That’ll be seventeen thirty-six.” She takes the money and gives me some change, and a few seconds later I’m walking out of the store.

  I stop. The ex-cop-car has been joined by a real cop car, its lights flashing red and blue. Honeypie and Babe have their hands on the hood. They are being frisked. I stand and watch as the police handcuff the two of them, put them in the back of the squad car, and drive off. I wait a few more minutes, then cross the lot to their car. I look through the window. My shoes are in the backseat. I try all the doors. They’re locked.

  I walk back into the store. This time I’m stopped by a security guard.

  “You need to get yourself a pair of shoes, you want to shop here,” he says.

  Part of me wants to blurt out the whole story, how I got kidnapped by a couple of meth addicts who forced me to give them my shoes, and then they got arrested, and my shoes were locked in their car. But that would lead to all sorts of questions.

  “I need shoes,” I say.

  “I’ll say you do!” The guard laughs.

  “I mean, I came here to buy shoes. Mine got stolen.”

  The guard thinks for a moment, then shrugs and says, “Okay, then. Aisle twelve. But you better come out of here with something on your feet.”

  “Holiday in Cambodia”

  The Dead Kennedys

  4:39

  My new Walmart shoes look dorky as hell, but they’re dry and comfortable. I bought new socks, too. When I walk out of the store, the guard gives me a thumbs-up.

  “Lookin’ good, kid.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  The tweakers’ car is still there. I set the bag full of Sudafed on the hood. It was their money. Maybe they’ll be back.

  The freeway is about half a mile away. By the time I get there, it’s almost six o’clock. I’m not too excited about hitching a ride that’ll land me in Kansas City after dark. There’s a hotel nearby, the Rest Stop Inn, with a sign that says $39.99.

  As I enter the lobby, I can see right away why it’s so cheap. The carpet is worn, the potted plant is plastic, and the guy behind the chipped, fake-wood counter hasn’t shaved in a week. I ask him for a room. He looks me up and down and says, “How many?”

  “Just one room,” I say.

  “I mean how many of you are there?”

  “Just me. For one night.”

  “I have a room with two queen beds, second floor, sixty-five dollars.”

  “It says thirty-nine on your sign.”

  “That room’s taken.”

  “That’s false advertising!”

  “I’m not in charge of the sign, kid. And I don’t set the rates.”

  “You don’t have anything cheaper?”

  “Nope.”

  We stare at each other for a couple of seconds. Then he says, “Look, kid, if you’re a Triple-A member, I can knock off six bucks. I won’t ask you to prove it.”

  I don’t know what “triple A” is, but I nod. It’s not like I have a lot of options. I hand him Mom’s credit card. He looks at it and says, “Your name’s Amanda?”

  “That’s my mom,” I say.

  He shrugs and runs it through his machine. A few seconds later he frowns and tosses the card back on the counter.

  “Looks like Amanda canceled her card.”

  • • •

  I leave the hotel with no idea what to do. Was it just a few days ago I left home? Back then I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do, and I liked it. Back then it felt like freedom; now it feels like a trap.

  I could have paid cash for the room, but that would have used up a quarter of all the money I have left. I have two choices. I can find a park, or someplace with bushes to hide in, wrap myself up in discarded newspapers and Bran’s hoodie, and wait for morning. Or I can go stand on the entrance ramp with my thumb out and hope for a ride. The thought of arriving in Kansas City in t
he dead of night is not appealing, and I sure don’t want to catch a ride from another car full of meth heads. I probably won’t be able to find Prairie Village until tomorrow in any case.

  I walk, my thoughts going in circles, until I come to a huge mall with a Taco Bell in the parking lot. That sets off my hunger pangs, so I invest five dollars in a combo meal: a taco, a gordita, a burrito, a bag of cinnamon twists, and a Dew. I sit in a booth and eat slowly, hardly tasting the food. I can’t believe my mom canceled the credit card. Yes, I can. But now what does she expect me to do?

  What do homeless people do? I’ve seen them in parks, under bridges, or just walking. Do they eat at Taco Bell? Do they eat scraps out of dumpsters? I don’t know anything about surviving on my own without a car and a credit card. Allie and Randy and Bran got along okay by stealing food and, in Bran’s case, stealing my car. Also, they had all that camping gear.

  I’m not exactly destitute, but I sure feel destitute. Maybe there’s a bus station nearby. I wonder what it would cost to take a Greyhound. I take out my iPod. There’s no Wi-Fi at this Taco Bell, and my iPod battery is down to 10 percent. I finish my last cinnamon twist and head for the mall.

  A few minutes later I’ve found what I’m looking for: a fifteen-dollar charger from Target, and a Wi-Fi signal at the Starbucks. I buy a small coffee, load it up with cream and sugar, and then plug the charger into an outlet next to one of the tables and search for a Greyhound station in Columbia. I find it right away. It’s about four miles away. I should be able to walk there in an hour or two. The next bus to Kansas City doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning. I sip my coffee, making it last. I wait for the iPod to get up to 50 percent, then plug in my earbuds and start walking in my Walmart shoes while getting my ears shredded by some old band called the Dead Kennedys.

  Calculus

  A week before Labor Day, Gaia went up to a resort on Lake Vermilion with her dad and her brother. She said it was something they did every year. It was the first time since we’d met that I’d gone more than a day without seeing her. She wasn’t coming back until Labor Day, and the day after that was the first day of school. It was also my birthday.