Flight From Reality (pt 2)

Gas and tolls draining our funds at a rapid clip, we navigate via the map on the weather page of the USA Today, trying to estimate distance from city to city and relate it to fuel – also to figure out just where the hell we are. Delaware, Maryland, Washington, and Virginia all fall victim to the rearview mirror as we press farther south. We take turns driving, and stop at McDonald’s whenever we get to one that has a ninety-nine cent Big Extra sale. Money never seems to go as far as you think it will (note recurring theme).

We pass through the Carolinas uneventfully, marveling at the landscape and the seventy mile-an-hour speed limit. The windows creep steadily downward as we inch closer to our destination. By the time we hit Georgia, we’re tired, it’s night again, and we’re in serious danger of exhausting our funds before we arrive.

Dinner will be a shared seventy-nine cent bag of cheese curls that we’ve found on sale at a gas station. I have grandparents and an aunt who live in Naples, which is a solid stretch of travel if we hope to eat again.

Somewhere near Savannah we pull into a campground on a lake that is, so far as either of us know, infested with northerner-eating alligators. While reservations and an RV are required, Tom is able to convince the manager to take pity on us. We recline the seats and try to ignore our rumbling bellies in the hopes of getting some sleep.

Before my eyes close, however, I cautiously slip the bag of cheese curls from the driver’s side and sneak a few from Tom’s ration. I chew slowly and quietly, hoping to quell my insatiable pangs of hunger. My companion’s snores come soon, as he evidently has no qualms about our sleeping arrangements. The sultry weather does not couple with the passenger seat of a ’97 Oldsmobile Achieva to have the synergistic effect on sleep for which I might hope… nor do my friend’s infernal sounds of slumber have much of a sedative quality.

As I sit in the car by this Georgian lake, alone with my thoughts and the crickets, the situation strikes me as being so bizarre and having such a dreamlike quality that I can scarcely comprehend it as real. Not twenty-four hours earlier I was entrenched in a monotonous routine of alternately fighting the demands of work, winter and my relationship, with no discernible relief on the horizon. Now I’m fighting off mosquitoes in the Deep South.

Six the following morning comes quickly and we’re back on the road. Interstate 95 remains the one constant amid the ever-changing landscape. Nearing the Georgia border, we stop at the welcome center for the customary refilling of our Gatorade bottles with water. We’re hungry, weary, and I can’t imagine the fermented odor that we must radiate. But at least we have Georgia tap water, which I gather is an acquired taste.

“Did you steal some of my cheese curls?” Tom asks a little while later, irritation laced in his tone.

“Uh… why do you ask?”

“Because you left the bag open, idiot. The rest are stale.”

So much for breakfast.

We’ve been cooped up within feet of one another for nearly 36 hours without pause, and are beginning to grate on one another’s nerves. Tom tells me, when I decide to clean a little, “Don’t put trash in that bag.”

“Why not?”

“I’m saving it for my dirty clothes.”

“You’re saving the bag?” I ask, thinking how pretty goddamned courteous it had been for me to pick up in the first place. “Dude, I’m pretty sure they have plastic bags in Florida. Seriously, we might be able to find you one.”

“I want that bag. It’s oversized. It fits everything.”

“Fine, then you can clean.”

I’m also growing increasingly annoyed with Tom’s habit of checking the rearview mirror much more frequently than what can be considered normal. It’s completely irrational; what difference does it make to me how often he looks in the mirror? Yet it grinds on my nerves with the intensity of nails on a chalkboard.

I ask, “What’s changed back there in the past one-point-seven seconds since last you looked?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The rearview mirror.”

“I like to keep an eye on what’s going on behind me.”

“Does it vary that much every other second?”

“Do you want to drive?”

“Sure.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

We need to get to our destination soon; among other things, our sanity is at stake.

***

Hooting and hollering when we cross the Florida state line (home of the 1997 World Champion Florida Marlins), we find ourselves faced with a decision. Our cash reserves border on the non-existent, and we’re starving. Do we chance another Big Extra at the risk of running out of gas?

We compromise and buy one hamburger to split. Not to plug McDonald’s, but this is quite possibly the most absolutely delicious bit of food that has ever entered my mouth. I crave another half with the desperate hunger of a heroin junkie in need of a dope fix.

As we’re pulling out of the parking lot, I discover that I have a blank check I’ve squirreled away in my wallet for emergencies. Tom says we can use the check to get gas.

“You can use personal checks at gas stations?”

“Of course you can.”

A heartening development. Even another half tank of gas should be more than enough to get us to Naples, at least according to the USA Today. We get back off the highway and locate a run-down gas station, the kind you’d expect to come across on some desert road in Nevada. Inside, we meet an elderly black man who looks to be pushing 462, wearing a shirt that has Elroy stitched into it, yet sips coffee from a mug on which Jamal is stenciled. Go figure. When he goes to pick up the mug I get a disturbing mental image of his frail body crumbling to the ground in a heap of human dust. Poor Elroy.

“Hi, can we pay for gas with a personal check?”
Stupidly, Tom and I begin this sentence at the same time, so the first half of it is spoken in unison. We exchange annoyed glances. Frick and Frack.

Elroy, a.k.a. Jamal looks at us as if we’d just asked where the best place to go to find Jewish tail might be. He says, a bit more suspiciously than the situation calls for, “No checks. Pay with cash or credit only.”

Great. “What about cheese curls?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Returning to the car, we scour it for (literally) every last penny to convert to fuel. We comb the undersides of the seats, reach between them, and check the trunk. We look under the floor mats, check the cup holders, and search the glove compartment. Our efforts net $1.87. I remain safely inside Baby Blue, unable to be the one to shamefacedly dump a handful of copper and nickel into Elroy’s ancient hands.

As we’re meandering through a purported shortcut in the northern Floridian back roads, we spot a hand drawn sign taped to a telephone pole that points in the direction of a church barbeque. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Tom crane his neck to get a better look at the sign, and know what he’s thinking even before he says, “Dude… maybe we can get some food there.”

I roll my eyes. “Great idea. Pass ourselves off as a couple of evangelists and con some religious zealots out of their food? People are pretty hardcore about religion around here. They’d probably exact some medieval vengeance.”

Tom replies, visibly annoyed, “Look. We haven’t had real food in two days. We’re running out of gas. We might wind up on the side of the road… on the side of one of these God-forsaken swampy back roads. Do you really want to pass up the chance for a meal?”

He has a point. My stomach is churning with hunger, and I’m growing weak with lack of nutrition. For the past couple miles I’d been pondering the potential nutritional value of some potato chip crumbs I’d noticed on the floor. I hit the brakes and spin a U-turn.

About a mile down we come upon the church in question, which looks pretty normal, other than the fact of it being in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The road is nearly overwhelmed by vegetation on either side, and for a time we’re convinced the barbeque menu offers Yankee tourists, the sign a mere ruse to lure us to a place where our screams won’t be heard.

“Don’t those satanic, cannibalistic cults hang around in these types of settings?” Tom asks.

“Backwoods… redneck country?”

“Don’t stereotype, I’m sure northern Florida is home to many fine-”

“But don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

Nevertheless, our hunger supersedes any reservations about becoming sacrificial offerings or going to hell for defrauding a church, and we park in the small lot. The humid air carries a thick smell of grilling meat. I nearly pass out.

“What if it’s one of those Baptist Churches where everyone’s black?” Tom nervously whispers as we approach the house of worship. “We’ll be nailed for sure.”

“Just act normal.”

“Act norm-”

“Hey, guys!”

The greeter is the most colossal person I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m not even convinced he’s of our species. Some hybrid, perhaps, like a cross between gorilla and blue whale. Tom and I are relatively big guys, and are utterly dwarfed by this unspeakable monstrosity of human being.

Fortunately he’s wearing a tee shirt that has a large caricature of Garfield on it, which I find disarming in a childlike-innocence sort of way. Or, it could indicate his emotional instability.

Six feet, seven inches and three hundred fifty pounds of raging whack job would present a problem.

“You boys here for some eats?” he asks excitedly. Something glimmers in his eyes. I hope it’s his love for said eats.

“Sure are,” I say, returning the jovial enthusiasm. “Where do we go?”

He studies us for a minute, and I can almost see his brain running our images through its familiar-face databank and coming up blank. He frowns. “You guys don’t come to church much, do you?”

Uh oh. I fight an impulse to give him a hard shove and sprint away. Hopefully he’d catch Tom first. “Er- no, not… not as much as we should,” I stammer.

“Well, the Lord always welcomes his sheep back into the stable.”

“Y-yeah.”

Beset by so many competing feelings, I’m not even sure how to react. I’m: (a) a little apprehensive that this devout ogre might decide we must atone for our sins and repent via physical purification – his treat; (b) uncomfortable, in the awkward sort of way I always feel when someone quotes (or at least approximates) scripture, especially in a sermonizing manner; and (c) pissed off that goddamn Tom is making me do all the talking.

“You can leave your donations with Marie,” Robodisciple says. “She’s at the table out back by the food.” His smile then returns and he adds,

“Hope you brought your appetites.”

“Our appetites brought us,” I tell him, immensely relieved to see a smile revisit his huge face. Little does he know this is wholly accurate. I don’t tell him that we actually came to steal their food under false pretenses.

There are enough people milling around out back so that we’re not too conspicuous. It’s a genial crowd, everyone happily socializing with one another and chowing down; we’re mostly greeted by pleasant smiles, though do receive a few inquisitive stares. Trying to avoid as much eye contact as possible, we stealthily bypass Marie and mosey up to the grilling area where we’re presented with two plates of chicken, greens, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread.

Tom’s looking at his plate and I can tell he’s mulling something over. I get the feeling he’s about to say something stupid.

He asks the griller, a burly, bearded man, “Can we get these, uh, to go?”

The griller’s eyes narrow. “To go? This ain’t Burger King, son… what’s the hurry?”

“No, it’s just, we-”

“We’ll eat here,” I interject. We take our plates to an empty picnic table and attack with the zeal of lions after a fresh kill. The meat is undercooked, the macaroni and cheese is burnt, and the greens are terrible. Nevertheless we devour every crumb of food. The corn bead is okay.
We decide not to press our luck by staying for dessert, happy to be back on the road with our stomachs full and hearts still pumping. Florida is a much longer state than I had remembered (you lose perspective when you fly) and the gas situation becomes an imminent crisis as we near our target.

I have directions to my aunt’s house, which I hurriedly read aloud. Tom and I are renown for getting lost, and a wrong turn at this point means a definite stranding. Without much choice we roll the dice and press on.

By the grace of God we find Naples and pull into my aunt’s driveway on fumes. We’re there.

to be continued...