Three more hours. Just pretend to sleep for three. more. hours.
I know that Craigslist can be sketchy sometimes, but after I posted for a ride from Denver to California a nice-looking 44 year old blonde woman responded with a friendly manner and nice photo; I was darn tootin' sure that she was fairly sane. Darn tootin' right up to the point where she drove up to meet me in her half-smashed Volvo at the 7/11 in Denver. Then she spoke words. Mean words. And everything went downhill.
I dealt with Lisa's psychotic attitude toward everyone who did not bow down to her as she passed or spoke. I went along with stopping in Vegas for a night. I close my eyes while she recklessly zoomed past most everyone on the interstate. AND, I even handed Lisa her foot-long "AA" out of the glove box so she could toke up every now and again on those crazy-making desert roads. (AA is what Lisa likes to call her "attitude adjustment". Marijuana, in an honest-to-god foot long bowl. I prayed a lot on this trip). The last straw was in nowhere, southern California right near the worlds largest thermometer when Lisa asked me what I thought of taking the back roads. Lord help me.
"I'd really rather get there sooner than later. I dont know the back roads well, and we'd have pay to get into Yosemite just to drive through. Let's just go the way your GPS tells us."
Sweat is rolling down by back, the sun is melting the ice cream in my hand, and the worlds largest thermometer is as red as the desert clay around me. I have serious car-butt, and my bank account is under $25. At this point I just want to get somewhere. Anywhere. NOT in the middle of no-where. And not with Lisa.
I'm pretty sure I heard Lisa gashing her teeth at me and huffing fire between her words when she responded, "Well I thought you were up for anything. That's what you said, and I want to take the back roads."
Bitch. "I did say that, but you asked what I thought about taking the back roads, so I'm telling you what I think about taking the back roads," I said in a semi-sarcastic tone, rolled my eyes, and patted myself on the back. Juvenile, I know, but I'm dealing with a woman who's been fifteen for the past 29 years of her life. My tongue is going to bleed from biting it for this long for goodness sakes. I've been somewhat timid around Lisa across half of this country. I'm done. I'm talking back, and I'm getting bitchy. If I have to start scoping out different rides to central California, then so be it. huff.
I pictured myself getting a ride from a nice, old RV couple pumping gas as this bickerment is going down. They'd let me in their air conditioned home on wheels, ask about my travels with sincerity, feed me, and then I'd rest on the bed in the back while re-gaining the curvature of my butt, and erasing the past 24 hours from my memory.
Instead, my daydream was interrupted when Lisa asked if I would go take a look at the map she saw in the gas station. Apparently it shows the back roads pretty well, and she says it looks fun. (Lisa describes fun. Are there men and booze lined up along the back roads?)
I followed her into the gas station and she is buying the "road map" she insists I look it. I have tried so many times to block this moment in time from my memory because of the utter horror that came upon me. Lisa was buying a laminated map of California. Laminated, and water colored map of California, complete (of course) with dolphins and palm trees painted into the coast. Ah, it really captured the essence of the Sierra Nevada. I love when the sun sets on the mountains and you can see that thick black outline on everything. It's very realistic.
She followed along the back road with her finger up through the mountain range and showed me her preferred route. Preferred over the GPS, preferred over my opinion, and preferred over the other scenic dolphin route we could have taken according to her new watercolor poster.
"Whatever. Do what you want. I'm tired and I'm going to sleep in the car now." Or, I'm tired of you and I'm going to pretend to sleep. Even if I did want to sleep, she would continue talking to me with my eyes closed and my headphones on. Finally I understand the phrase "ignorance is bliss".
For four butt-smashing hours I pretend to sleep in Lisa's car. "Waking up" about thirty miles outside of Fresno to a double rainbow, and a phone pouring with text messages from people making sure I'm still alive. Just barely. We did not take the back roads after-all.
The excitement of getting away from Lisa for good wore off, and the reality of being dropped of in Fresno at dusk with no place to sleep started to sink in. I've never been to Fresno. I know no one in Fresno. I have no money. And so far, Fresno looks like a shithole.
Yep. Definitely. No doubt about it. Fresno is a shithole.Speaking of shitholes, I think Lisa is mad at me. No telling why, though. I probably forgot to respond to one of her brilliant career ideas while I was in the middle of a REM cycle.
I start texting my dad to look up somewhere in Fresno that is open 24 hours "...just in case" I told him. I'm you can imagine the utter horror of the entire situation for any father; his daughter jumping in a car across country with a stranger carrying less than thirty dollars, being dropped off in a strange town with nowhere to go, and still having not much of a destination after that, and then ending it with, "just in case...". Poor dad. That was the night that he told me that I put the grey hairs on his head. He told me that over the phone as I was sitting on a pleather sofa in a 24 hour truckstop in Fresno watching a Chinese woman wait for her next "massage" client.
"I pray for you so much," he said. I survive on those prayers. I really do.
My main goal at that point (other than feverishly praying and trying to not make my dad have a nervous breakdown) was to find internet! If I can just get internet access I can jump on couchsurfing. I know I can get a place to sleep tonight. I know it. And I ended up in a Starbucks down the road. Did I mention Fresno is a shithole?
Never have I had to go through so much work to get internet. I tried in the truck stop: no-go. I walked through a construction zone to a Starbucks in a lonely Fresno night, and I had to buy a gift card, call my dad back so he could register it online so I could sign into my Starbucks account and get 2 free hours of wifi. Goodness. Okay, so it's not that bad, but considering my circumstances and my thin wallet, it was.
I must have e mailed about fifteen couchsurfers in Fresno praying and hoping that one of them gets online in the next two hours. Copy, paste. Copy, past... Checking my phone every two minutes for a phone call. In the mean time, I used my five dollar gift card to buy a bagel, and secretly hoped that one of the baristas would just take me to their home when Starbucks closed. I projected my voice a bit in my phone calls with dad, and chose my subjects wisely. Maybe they'll hear I have no place to stay tonight. Nah, what was thinking? It's Fresno.
But Fresno must have some good people in it, because shortly after I got an email from a couchsurfer saying that he had a couch, and my phone number didnt work! Dangit. All of that, and I forgot a didgit in my phone number. But! I had an inquiry, and after a short game of phone tag my new couchsurfer friend, Jay, drove all the way across town to pick me up.
Dad was THRILLED to hear that a 30-something male stranger was picking me up to bring me to his house across town so I could stay the night. In the long run, though, he was thrilled. Jay was a wonderful human being, even though he liked to complain about government, kids, and of all things.. Fresno!
"I grew up in TEXAS, and I'd rather be there than Fresno. And I hate Texas" he shouted. There's nothing like bonding over common ground. "I've only been here five hours and I hate Fresno TOO!" Whooo!
Jay took me to his home with his eight month pregnant wife, and showed me to my private room with a huge blow-up bed. I got to feel the baby kicking, and best of all I got to use the last of my dollars (literally) to buy an Amtrak ticket to San Luis Obispo. I will be sun-bathing on the coast at 1500 hours. Thank you Amtrak, and Thank you Jay for dropping me off at the station. The station where I sat between four ex-cons waiting for the train, talking about prison-life: Fresno.
I didn't quite have sun-bathing on the mind when I booked my ticket, though. I didn't know what I had in mind. I thought I wanted to go to San Francisco, and everyone knows that if you're going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. I didn't have flowers. I didn't have money. I didn't have direction. Just the direction the little Polynesian man driving me on the Amtrak bus. The direction to a place I've never been, far away from anyone I know.
What the hell am I doing?
