Brett wanted to visit the campus before making his final undergraduate decision. Of course, the only reason he applied to USC in the first place was because that's where his online girlfriend—whom he'd never met—resided.
Okay.
I didn't want to go, but I wasn't trusted to stay home by myself for 5 days.
Okay.
We weren't exactly flush with cash for 4 plane tickets to Columbia, so we planned to drive the 950 miles from Massachusetts to South Carolina.
Okay.
We were going to do it in the most reliable car we owned—a 1987, 2-door Chevy Cavalier with 125,000 miles on it—still with the original clutch.
Okay.
My father opened up a 16-panel map of the United States and plotted a course. It included an overnight stay at what he believed was a good midway point—Richmond, VA.
Okay.
A month later it was time for our trip. It was Saturday morning. Brett's tour and orientation of the campus was on Monday. My mother packed a cooler of drinks, ice, and snacks and put it in the backseat between me and Brett. She had a stack of trashy romance novels at the ready to read while my father drove. My brother had a stash of science fiction books. I had a book of Mad Libs, some comics, and a Gameboy with back-up batteries. My father had several books on tape so he wouldn't feel left out. We were perfectly content ignoring each other until we got to Southern Connecticut.
I-95 is a fickle beast. It's the most direct route between the Northeast and Southeast but is guaranteed to make you cry at any given time. Just outside of New Haven, CT we were at a stand still.
"Dad. Can you put the air conditioning on? It's June and we're parked on the highway. Windows down ain't cutting it." I pleaded.
"Do you know what running the air conditioner in traffic does to your miles per gallon? Just drink some water. You'll be fine."
"But I already have to pee. I can't drink any more water!"
"There's nothing I can do right now. We're not moving. Just wait until we get into New York." He said as calmly as he could, but I could see him gripping the wheel in frustration.
"Josh, just go in one of the empty water bottles if you have to." My mother said into her book.
"I'm not peeing infront of my family in the backseat of a Chevy on I-95!" I wailed.
"You better not fucking pee back here." Brett barked at me.
"Alright. Shut up both of you. Just go back to reading and get your minds off traffic and piss." My Mother ordered.
Three hours passed before we crossed the border into New York. I think my father realized the gravity of the urine situation when I was tapping my feet so hard against his seat that he was getting sea sick. He took the next exit we could crawl to and stopped at the first gas station. He fueled up, and we all fueled down. Rather than getting back on the highway, Dad decided it would be faster if we took back roads following the highway and got back on it later. When we ended up in the Bronx Housing Projects, he thought better of it and got back onto the I-95 parking lot.
By the time we got into New Jersey, it was already midnight. We were easily 5 hours behind schedule and everyone wanted to stop for the night. My father took the next exit off the highway intending to find a reasonable motel. The sign read "Welcome to Passaic, New Jersey" but it should have read "Welcome to Thieving Crackwhoreville."
The first motel we spotted had no vacancy, which is just as well since there appeared to be a body floating in the pool. At the second motel, my father was greeted by a man jerking off to a porn flick at the reception desk. At the third motel, we got the keys to our room and kindly stepped over the passed out, drunken hooker slumped across the doorway. My mother slid her across the walkway, then shut and bolted the door behind us. The room was awful. It smelled like cigarettes, sex, and urine.
"This costs a hundred bucks a night?" My father asked incredulously.
"We're all exhausted and there's no more hotels. Let's just deal with it tonight and get the hell out of--" My mother started to say as she pulled back the comforter on one of the beds.
It was clear the sheets used to be white, but had faded into a dingy, egg yoke yellow. Complementing that were the dotted blood stains throughout. My mother backed away from the bed and herded us towards the door.
"Come on. We're not staying here. There's bedbugs and God only knows what else in this room."
We stepped back over the passed-out prostitute and got back into the car. My mother took the driver's seat this time as my dad was just too tired to keep going. Brett and I tried to get some sleep in the backseat, but my mother didn't know how to drive the stick-shift Chevy, so we would be jerked awake by cars honking at us as we lurched forward and stalled out. Then my mother's cascade of cursing would follow.
When we crossed over the state line into Virginia, it was 5:00 a.m. and my mother couldn't drive anymore. She took the next exit and found the first hotel. We shambled into the lobby of a Super 8 Motel and asked for a room. The night clerk informed us that check-out was in five hours and were we sure we wanted to stay? My mother assured him that yes, we did want to stay, and that if we were woken up before noon, he would regret being born.
We woke up too late for any sort of breakfast and too early for any sort of lunch, so we just got in the car and drove the rest of the way stopping once at a Dairy Queen to make sure everyone had indigestion for the rest of the trip. Accomplishing that, we arrived in Columbia, SC at our Howard Johnson's hotel at 10 pm. Again, it was too late for dinner anywhere except at the local Bojangle's Chicken Shack—always a great idea to eat heavy right before bed and when you have to get up early and tour a large campus. We all slept miserably and raced for the toilet as soon as we got up. I've never been so close to leaving a deuce in the corner of a hotel room.
When we piled back into the car and headed towards the campus, I asked if my parents would drop me off at a mall or something. I really didn't want to walk around a campus I didn't care about and I didn't want to be far from a toilet. They said they would drop me off somewhere on the way if it looked safe.
As luck would have it, we pulled up to a red light and there on the corner was a video arcade! "Family Fun Amusement Center" it was called, and featured purple stripes and clown faces all along the exterior.
"Just leave me there." I pointed.
My father pulled into the parking lot and fished out some quarters from the cupholder.
"Here ya go. It's all we have."
"Thanks Dad! I'll see you guys when you're done."
I skipped up to the front doors and ignored all of the warning signs—the tinted glass doors, the cigarette smoke eminating from within, the fact that there was not a single window on the exterior of the building, and the only cars in the parking lot were pickup trucks and big rigs.
I swung the door open with my handful of quarters and screeched to a halt. Inside were a line of men hunched over on stools, looking at strip shows on arcade screens. Most had a a cigarette in one hand and an exposed crotch in the other. I must have made a squealing sound because they all stopped fondling themselves and leered at me. I stammered something, dropped all my change on the dirty carpet, and fled from the building.
Running across the parking lot, I saw my parents' car pulling out of the parking lot.
"STOOOOOOP!" I screamed, waving my arms with frantic abandon. "DON'T LEAVE MEEEEEEE!"
They pulled across the intersection and down the highway.
I sat down on the curb, looking back at the "Family Fun Amusement Center" and grimaced. The South Carolina sun was scorching my pasty skin already. I wandered across the street to the only other building I could see—Hank's Pawn Shop.
Spending the day with Hank wasn't so bad. He taught me how to tell the difference between silver and nickel just by biting it, how to tell if a gun was loaded without checking the chamber, what the difference between a stogie and a cigar is, and a few pointers on how to tell if boobs were real or fake. He kept me entertained with stories of his first ex-wife, Maggie, who left him for a Jewish vacuum cleaner salesman. It was pretty sad. He got stuck with a house he couldn't afford on his own, while she took their two kids and left him with a bill for four vacuums.
"Who the fuck buys four vacuums anyways?" Hank asked me.
"Bitches." I replied.
"You're all right kid. Promise me you won't ever marry."
"I won't."
"Good. You're better off being a fag."
"Thanks Hank."
Around dinner time I saw my parents pull into the lot across the street looking for me. I thanked Hank for his hospitality and went to meet them. They seemed surprised to see me coming from the opposite direction.
"How was the arcade?" My mom asked.
"Not what I expected." I replied. "How was the campus?" I asked, seeing my brother in the backseat sulking.
"Not what we expected." She answered. "But it wasn't a total loss. We got you a little something."
"It's not real silver." I said.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Let's go home."
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