Day 57 - Cross Country

 Cross Country 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Five days after turning graduation I turned eighteen. Five days after that I was on the road with my three best friends. We were going to drive from Pittsburgh to Seattle and see the country. College cast a shadow over us all, but that was the future and for now we were young and free. My parents didn’t want me to go, but they were no confrontational and bad at arguing. We also all lied about where we were going, telling them we were going camping off Lake Erie with a possible side trip to King’s Island.

It was Mike’s car because his parents were lawyers and not only had the best car, but also a credit card in case we got into trouble. Charles was my best friend so we would have fun no matter what. Adam was Mike’s best friend. But we all got along. We were idiots and geeks and this was the biggest most dangerous thing we had ever done. None of us expected trouble, but he was the only one really thinking ahead that we might have some fun.

I brought a bag of disc golf discs so we could stop and play a round in each state. Mike brought cards and a couple of board-games. Charles brought a fifth of whiskey. Adam brought a box of condoms.

We had very different agendas. We had very different levels of realistic expectations.

None of us had girlfriends. Maybe one of us had had sex before. Maybe. That didn’t stop any of us from dreaming about what could happen on a trip like this. We had all seen movies. We all wanted stories to tell. But some of us knew better than the others what was actually more likely.

I researched restaurants that had been featured on reality shows. Charles researched strips clubs where the age limit was eighteen. I mapped out routes to famous landmarks. He learned the marijuana laws in each state. I realized that even though we were best friends, we didn’t exactly know everything there was to know about each other.

We had made it across the border into Indiana when the car trouble began. Mike had money, but he knew nothing about cars, oil levels, or regularly scheduled tune-ups. I say that as if any of the rest of us did either.

We were less than twenty minutes away from Fort Wayne. Nowhere close to King’s Island. Hours past any camp grounds on Lake Erie. We had been gone for less that one day, but just long enough and just far enough that if we called home now, we’d all be proven liars. We had Mike’s credit card but that too would leave a trial easily tracked.

Charles had a plan. He had a AAA card that allowed for road side assistance and a free tow of up to 100 miles. We could almost get to Dayton. Still not close to King’s Island but a whole lot more believable.

The next day we sat at the counter at a 50s diner eating lunch, waiting on Adam’s parents to arrive. Cheese burgers and milkshakes in nowhere, Ohio. It was a far cry from a big cross-country adventure.

Charles disappeared and we found him in the booth in the back of the diner talking to a table full of teenage girls headed for King’s Island. They asked what we were doing and we were all a little embarrassed to admit what was really happening. We all spontaneously kept to the same story of driving and the open road and going to see the Pacific Ocean.

I think we impressed them. We even exchanged phone numbers. I think they were less impressed as they pulled away in their van when they saw Adam’s parents picking us up in the parking lot.