Tap. Tap. Tap. Lifting my eyes from the flashing red and blue lights clicking against my windshield I turn to my left and see the barrel of a 9mm pressed against the driver’s side window. I glance at my travel companion; his eyes echo my thoughts, 'how did we get here?'
Sure, she lived 600 miles away, but who cared? She was cute! I uttered those famous first words nursing the bruise my mate left me trying to steal her phone number. I had swallowed it out of spite and sometime during the donnybrook crossed my 4’s and 9’s. Imagine my surprise when a thick Italian accent answered. Two more attempts, and it was her voice on the other end.
After a few weeks it slipped that she and her friend would be at an academic competition only 5 hours away. I didn't miss the hint, although my travel companion still wishes I had. He also didn't fail to comment on my GPS when we left. “Hey, a Magellan! He died halfway around the world right?”
Frowning, I shifted into first.
325.5 miles stand between Eau Claire, WI and Fargo, ND.
162 miles into our trip, just west of St. Cloud, MN, our car died.
I punched my wingman.
A man named Jose pulled over to help and suggested that our alternator was likely dead. Thanking him, but not wanting to believe him, we called my aunt who took us to get a new battery. We plugged it in, and power restored, cranked the radio and barreled on.
As our gas tank emptied, the sunset's palette turned our windshield into a canvas, and stretched a duplicate across the flooded Minnesota flats. But a beautiful sky cannot replace a dead alternator, and 19 miles from our goal, we were again stranded. Not thirty seconds later a flashing Crown Victoria pulled a vehicle over in front of us. Still as gargoyles, we watched a man in a blue uniform exit his cruiser, gun drawn. I blinked, “If bullets fly, get behind the engine block.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
'Don't die.' Ice and confusion course my open palms as I press them to the window. The barrel nods, once. I lower a hand to pop the door ajar, my words as hollow as spent shells, "I think you want that car up there." The dark eyes behind the cannon blink, twice. An officer's eyes.
He holstered his Glock as we explained our situation. “I’ll come back when we’re done,” he grinned.
Checking into the hotel that first night my wingman and I were greeted by a stout unkempt night clerk, he smirked, “You know, there’s only one bed.”
Exhausted, we collapsed into stiff sheets and drifted off smiling. I love road trips.
