maps

“Whaddya mean you don’t have a freaking map?” I regretted the tone and the volume of my question almost immediately. Almost. But really, who goes on a road trip and doesn’t have a map in the car? Heck, I don’t go anywhere without a map in my car. You just never know when you’ll either actually need it, or just want to take a different turn on your way somewhere. Break up the monotony of life.

“You don’t have to yell,” she said. She was right. I didn’t have to yell. It’s a curse that I deal with. I get frustrated in the car, I yell. It’s really the only place that happens. “I thought my GPS on my phone would get us there.”

Ha. GPS. I read somewhere that they are making us dumber. I believe that.

“We are in the middle of nowhere, fifty miles past nothing and 10 years from no place. Did you really think that would work here? It doesn’t work in your parent’s house.”

Fuck, I’m a douche bag. Why she even gets in a car with me, I’ll never know.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Me too. It’s not like I put one in my bag.”

We kiss. Make up. And then look around. We really are in the middle of nowhere. Not that there is much of anywhere in Montana, but this, this is nowhere.

My mind slips into daydream mode. I try to figure out my wanderlust. And my love of maps. I have never liked those GPS things. When my sister got one, she used it to come visit me. Said “it only took me 4 and a half hours to get here.” I instantly said, well, I can get you home in four and some change. We turned on the GPS, and I gave her the turn-by-turn directions to beat it. Over and over again, that annoying Brit woman’s voice told us to turn around.

We got to my sister’s house in 4 hours and 17 minutes. Take that Brit bitch!

I remember as a kid, my dad having a drawer full of maps. He was a recruiter for Firestone. Used to go all over the country looking for the best and brightest who would take a job in a factory. I assume all of this because I have never had a conversation with my father about what he does for a living. He took me to his office once, I remember how awful it was. Wood paneling and brown carpet. A couple of plaques on the wall. Papers and filing cabinets all over the place. I vaguely remember my grandfather being there too.

So, he used to go to all these college towns. It’s why I grew up with an endless supply of shirts with college mascots on them. Florida Gators. Arizona State Sun Devils. Tulane Green Wave. University of Virginia Cavaliers. Texas A & M Aggies. Louisiana State Tigers. On and on it went. I was looking at photos at home not too long ago, and didn’t even remember having some of those shirts.

But other than T-shirts for me, he brought maps. From all over the place. And he’d stick them in that drawer. The top one, underneath the marble top. In the main entrance to the house. It’s still there today, all these years later. Most likely, still full of 1970s maps. Obsolete in their oldness, but awesome in their coolness. I’ll definitely take them when they move out, which seems to be something that may happen soon. It’ll be weird not having the old 108 Sherwood Drive to go home to anymore. But, unless you inherit and move in, I guess it happens to everyone.

Those maps used to put me in a trance. All these places out there that my dad’s been. Exotic pictures and advertisements covered them as well. Gator farms in the South. Big steaks in Texas. Snow drifts in Ohio. And these strange road signs. Route 66. Highway 61. The great America that I wasn’t getting to see. Sure, I did more traveling as a kid than most. We’d drive to Jersey and Philly all the time. Went to a bunch of Washington Redskins’ games. Even sat near George McGovern. Took a roadie to Texas at 12. But there was so much more out there. And I used to soak it up in these maps.

There was a cost, however. There always was when you messed with my dad’s stuff. Much like the giant pile of Playboys that precariously sat next to his bathroom, these maps were supposed to be off limits to me. Which, of course, made them all that more exotic and enticing.

I’d take one out when I got home from school. Run up the stairs and unfold it in my room with the door locked tight. My mom must have thought I’d found masturbation much too early. But, that wouldn’t happen until one night at the age of 13, so she had time to not worry about stained sheets and shirts and such.

On my floor I’d trace the lines of highways. Mapping out a course I’d take if I had the keys to my mom’s big brown station wagon. Faraway towns like Kansas City, Amarillo, San Francisco, Billings and New Orleans seemed as far away as Japan or the Soviet Union to this kid. But I wanted to see them all more than any foreign country. Guess that’s why, here at the age of 39, the only foreign land I’ve ever stepped on is Mexico. And if I wanted to go back now, I couldn’t. No passport and all.

Inevitably, I’d have to put the map away before going to bed. That meant a stealthy mission impossible. Folding the maps sometimes was a problem. In my haste, I’d do it incorrectly. But not notice. This is usually how I got caught, not in the act of slipping it back into the drawer, but later, when dad went to the drawer. He’d see a miss-folded map. And the scream of “Randy!” would boom throughout the house. Those were bad times.

“Have you been in my drawer?” he’d say. I knew it wasn’t a question, but an accusation. But there would be no trial. I was guilty and he knew it.

“Um, yes,” I’d stutter.

Whack! The belt upside my ass. Sometimes just once, if mom was around. But if not, it could be 10 times. I’d run back upstairs crying out loud and cursing under my breath. It would be years before I had the guts to cuss at my father.

Yet, it never stopped me from going back to the drawer. Staring at another map. Losing myself in other places that weren’t where I was. It’s why I read encyclopedias, too. And hung out at the library way too much for a kid.

When I interned in Alabama, I would drive from one end of the state to the other, sometimes in the same day. And when I got back to my little hovel of an apartment, I’d mark off the towns I’d visited. It kept me sane in that place. Still the only home that had a bed that folded up into the wall. Good times, for sure. That and a one-legged woman who always wanted me to drink with her. Thinking back, I should have taken her up on those. But I was scared. Of hurting my girlfriend’s feelings. And of what I might do.

That map ended up with 100s of Xs on it. I lost it a while ago. During a bad part of my life. I lost a lot of me then. Some of it good. Some of it bad. “One day, you’ll regret doing that,” my buddy Mike told me right after. He was right. But, it also pushed me forward in life. So, in some regards, I don’t. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I hadn’t.

“Darling, we’ll find our way,” I said with a smile. “And now it’s more of an adventure.”

She smiled and looked at me, shaking her head. The fading sunlight hit her face just perfectly. It was that time of day. When everything looks beautiful, no matter what.

“And that’s just fine,” she said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.

**proving that inspiration comes from odd places, this is thanks to agg's facebook post**