Driving somewhere yet nowhere

I had some stupid errand to run. Actually I was bored so I created an errand to be around other people yet have a reason to be there other than being lonesome. I got in my car, got on the freeway, settled into a lane and drove. I don’t know how much time passed, seconds, minutes, a half hour. But all of a sudden I had this wave of energy go through me. I actually didn’t know where I was or where I was going! It was actually a really cool feeling! Quickly I involuntarily gathered my thoughts and realized where I was and eventually remembering where I was headed. I looked down to see how much gas I had. I should just drive. See where I end up. I looked at my gauges yet locked on first to a photo of a girl I just met that I had placed in front of the illuminated oil light. God dam she is beautiful! I have never kept any photos in my wallet or bedside, especially not on my dashboard! She was different. I love looking at her. It’s a bit odd to look down at your gauges and have someone looking back at you. Almost like they are looking over you. To make sure you are alright. I have looked in other peoples cars and noticed photos of kids or Jesus or people but never thought of doing it myself. Maybe it keeps them focused, or safe. Keeps them from the road rage. Something to look forward to at the end of a hard day. Maybe it is distracting and will eventually cause them to crash. I like my picture of this girl. It makes me smile. I’m not a smiler. People think I smile a lot but I’m not smiling. I squint a lot because my blue eyes cant handle the sun.  I barely know this girl, but I’d kill to know her better.

 This is part of the beauty of this trip. I don’t know where I am, riding with someone new, on a dark, lonely, yet crowded freeway.

We keep driving. Get off at an exit to change freeways. Bad planning here, no interchange, but it allows me to get off and go through an unfamiliar area. Horse neighborhood, parks, cafes. We like it here under extra large trees which make the darkness darker.

I go into my wonderland. Inside my brain. I elaborate like no other, add to this scenario.

I slowly pull into a gravel driveway of a small liquor store/diner. Someone has already run out. More like high tailed it out. I was still rolling in as I heard the crack and saw the flame of the store tenders pistol. I heard the “thwack” of the slug hit what seemed like a tree or something yet I saw no tree. It was like the fellow was in more of a wrong place at the wrong time scenario than he actually did something considered wrong. He definitely wasn’t expecting to be shot at! The store tender went back inside seemingly oblivious to the fact that he shot blindly in to the darkness at someone in a populated area! Did I want to go in there? Be shot at? Spend time delving into someone else’s business? I don’t think so. F**k him. I’m not the police, I don’t care. I had just gotten out of my car while these thoughts shot threw my mind.

 I climb back in and smile at her. She smiles at me. She always smiles. When I’m speeding. When people are shooting people. She is the three monkeys. She doesn’t see, speak or do anything evil.

 Its getting late, still don’t know where I am and I don’t care. It’s as if I never cared. I fill up with gas which buys me more wandering time.

 The traffic is lighter. I’m headed into the desert. The air is warmer and smells different. Foreign and better. Like different bushes. The wind carried smells from a whole different world. I look down at the gauges again to check the water temperature. It’s an excuse to look at her even though my water pump is on it’s way out. The glow of the red oil light behind her gives her a nice devil like glow yet with the angelic smile. Her voice is smooth I remember.

BAM! I enter reality. I hit a coyote. Felt like a moose. If I was in a car I would have been fucked. I think he did a full revolution with the tire. Then like a pinball machine, I could feel him hit the muffler, driveshaft, underbody, rear wheel with sort of different dinging sounds. I think I got 1500 points. Not bad for not using the side paddles I thought. I looked up just in time to see a jack rabbit perched up on his hind legs making him look 8 feet tall in the headlights right in the center of my lane. BAM! I know that cocksucker’s body is in my radiator. I watch his head and front feet go over the hood, clipping the top of the windshield. Couple of points adding up as something goes underneath. I hear it hit a heat shield. I guess rabbit’s feet are lucky for anyone else but rabbits. Almost at the same exact time, I kid you not, 2 humongous bugs hit the windshield left and right side. I think one was really a mango and the other a hot dog with extra mustard. “What the f**k?!” I say to my self half out loud. I slow down a bit. I realize I’m doing just over a hundred miles an hour. The windshield wipers create 2 matching nasty yellow green rainbows of guts and legs. I wonder what it smells like. What does it taste like? Will someone miss them?

 As I slow I pass a cop. He pays no attention to me. I imagine him getting a blowjob from a goat. What a pig! Does his wife know that? Does she smell goat on him when he gets home? He doesn’t have a wife, he’s gay. Gay with the busboy at Sizzler with the bondage belt and Mohawk hidden under his Sizzler hat. That’s a different story for a different time.

 I’m on this journey to somewhere. You’re always going somewhere even if you don’t know where you are going. You cant go nowhere, because when you get there, you are somewhere.

 I look to her for the smile, it sort of comforts me as if she knows where I am and is worrying about me. In reality, she barely knows me and doesn’t have any f*****g idea where I am! It’s ok, in my mind she cares, that’s all that matters.

The sun should be up in a few hours. I find a highway that leads north. Less and less surrounds me. As it gets lighter, I feel the horizon getting larger and broader. the man made world gives way to more nature, except the asphalt line ahead of me with it’s fading yellow lines shooting into my grill. We haven’t slept in days, she smiles at me. I crack a toothy, goofy smile that only she can see. My face isn’t used to smiling but it feels good, like stretching in the morning.

I notice I have been driving north for a while but after a series of turns and arcs in the road, I now seem to be headed east and into the next day, I’m eventually heading south. I believe that I am probably subconsciously heading home. Sort of on auto pilot.

 I have been driving long enough, never actually achieving the goal of my errand, what ever it was. I should be home in a few days. I’m glad and looking forward to the ride home, both because it’s always good to be home and second, the entire trip is on roads unknown to me.

I haven’t really learned anything nor do I know her any better since I left but something has changed. Is it just that there are thousands more miles on my car? That I lost 10 pounds because I forgot to eat? That I now have even less of a concept of time? There are less varmints in the desert? Something has changed. Someday I will figure it out and it will be the subject of another story.