Thou Shalt Not Road Trip

by Antony John

  “Never mind,” she says. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, Fran, I remember! What’s your point?”

  “You used to laugh a lot. But not anymore.”

  “Am I supposed to be laughing now?”

  Fran shakes her head; it causes a fresh round of vomiting, although there’s nothing but bile left. She shudders.

  I put a washcloth under the tap and wring it out. When I place it against her forehead she sighs, a sound I recognize from a former life when we were friends, and sharing the same air with her was enough to complete me. Of course I used to laugh. Of course I seemed happier back then. How could I not?

  Fran places her hand over mine and guides the washcloth back and forth across her forehead. Her black fingernail polish has chipped, and when she pulls the cloth away and looks up at me she can’t even focus. Will she remember this in the morning?

  “I should get back to bed,” I say.

  She reaches for my hand. Misses. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

  I turn to leave.

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  I stop in the doorway, but I don’t turn around. “No, you’re not. Nobody’s making you do this, Fran. Nobody wants to see you mess up your life. Especially not me.”

  Her breath catches. “Why do you hate me?”

  “I don’t hate you. I just don’t know who you are anymore.”

  I glance at the mirror above the sink and see her reflection. She’s on her knees, eyes closed. Tears stream down her cheeks.

  “Do you need anything before I go to bed?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

  I want to scream at her—If you’re so sorry, why are you doing this? Why don’t you come to church anymore? Why did you give up debate? Why do you ignore me? What have you done with Fran?—but instead I take a deep breath and swallow my questions. I mustn’t judge her, no matter who she used to be. No one is perfect, certainly not me. Even though people seem to think I am.

  I climb into bed and pull the covers tight around me. I want to go back to sleep, but I can still hear her—the rush of water and the clatter of objects falling to the floor.

  Then she gasps.

  I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom. Fran is leaning over a sink full of water, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she drives a needle through her left earlobe. Dripping blood forms pink clouds in the water. She’s choking on her tears.

  “Oh, my—” I struggle to catch my breath. “What have you done?”

  “Go away.”

  “I’ll get help.”

  I turn to leave, but she grabs my sleeve. There’s blood on her fingers.

  “This isn’t happening,” I say.

  She releases my arm and extracts the needle from her ear, wincing in pain. Blood falls freely, and she’s having trouble staunching the flow with the cloth. The water in the sink is uniformly pink. Eventually she gives up on the washcloth and reaches for a hoop she has placed beside her. She lifts it to her ear, but she’s nowhere near sober enough to find the hole.

  She’s not the only one crying now. “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

  She prods around her ear, but she can’t find the hole because of all the earrings around it. It’s brutal, sickening. “Because I can. Because it’s my body, and I can do whatever the hell I like with it.”

  “You need help.”

  “Then help me.”

  “Not my help. Professional help. A doctor or something.”

  She almost smiles at that, but the pain is too much. “Go away, Luke.”

  She tries to find the hole again, and the blood keeps flowing. The water has shifted from pink to red. I don’t know how much blood it’s safe to lose; I’m afraid we’re going to find out.

  I pick up her toiletries bag and rummage around. There’s a tube of antiseptic ointment in there, a pack of Q-tips, even a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I unscrew the lid and pour some over a Q-tip. My hands are shaking so hard that most of the liquid ends up in the sink.

  “You need this.” I hold out the Q-tip, but Fran shakes her head. “It’ll get infected,” I say.

  “So?”

  “Don’t you want it to heal?”

  “No, I don’t!”

  She grits her teeth and this time she finds the hole. She drives in the hoop and screws it in place with a tiny metal ball. Her ear looks mangled.

  I’m still holding the Q-tip. “Please, Fran. Please use this.”

  “Stop pretending you care.”

  “I do care.”

  She stares at my reflection in the mirror. “No, you don’t,” she says, but softly. Maybe seeing me cry is making her unsure. Finally she takes the Q-tip and attempts to clean her ear with it. Then she takes a cotton ball from her bag and douses that in rubbing alcohol. Repeats the process with shaking hands. Finally she looks at what she has done, and bursts into sobs that rack every part of her body.

  I reach out, but I can’t touch her. “You need help,” I whisper.

  “Screw you, Luke Dorsey! Screw you and screw your moralizing and screw you for pretending to give a crap about me.”

  This is one of those moments when Christians prove themselves. It’s my chance to be a Good Samaritan. So I open my mouth, trusting that the right words will come just because I need them to. I can always conjure words. I wrote a book full of them.

  But when our eyes meet in the mirror, blood is seeping from her ear again. I try to cast aside the image of the Fran I used to know—the one who bubbled with energy and undiluted joy—but I can’t. If she were a stranger I could offer a kind word, or simply listen. But I’ve seen what she was, and I’m seeing what she is, and though it kills me to admit it, I don’t believe she’ll ever be the person she used to be.

  So I say nothing. I just cast my eyes down, retreat to my bed, and pray for her: that she’ll get help; that she’ll find God again somewhere, somehow.

  When I’m done I wait for a feeling of calm to overtake me—the way it used to—but instead there’s just emptiness and a bunch of unanswered questions: Why won’t God help Fran? Why did He allow this to happen in the first place? Why has my life felt wrong for the past year?

  I should feel ashamed. I’m more popular than ever before. I can’t get through a day without someone telling me I’ve inspired them. I know I ought to be happy. But somehow none of it matters. I don’t want to inspire others; I want to feel inspired myself. I don’t want other people to tell me that humor has a place in Hallelujah; I want to know what it feels like to laugh again.

  I’m afraid I never will.

  TUESDAY, JUNE 17

  Mishaps 3: 4–9

  4. Four days did the boy suffer. And lo, on the fifth day, he stood his ground and asked the bully, “Why do you bully me, bully?” And the bully spake thus: “I don’t know. It’s what bullies do, right?” 5. And the boy heard these words, and was much troubled by them. “But would it not profiteth you to sow love, not hate?” he asked. “To salve, not hurt?” 6. And the bully thought about this. And thought about this. And thus did several seconds elapse. 7. And the boy knew that his words had been received by the bully’s open heart, and said: “For disagreement is sadness. And accord is joy. Therefore let us help one another, that we may all be joyful.” 8. And the bully bowed his head, and left the boy alone. 9. Until Monday.

  8:40 A.M.

  Supai Café, Supai, Arizona

  I down my cup of coffee in a single gulp, but it can’t undo a sleepless night. Across the table, Matt and Alex look rejuvenated.

  When Fran finally joins us, Alex stares at her, head tilted to the side. Then she shifts her attention to me. It’s intense, that expression of hers.

  “Come on, Fran,” says Alex gently. “Let’s go sort it out.”

  “Sort what out?” asks Matt.

  “It’s fine,” says Fran.

  Alex huffs. “It’s not fine. It might already be infected, and I really don’t want you losing your ear while you’re in my care.” She f
orces her lips together in a tight smile. “I can be selfish like that.”

  “Sort what out?” repeats Matt stubbornly.

  Fran sighs, but follows when Alex heads to the restroom.

  Matt waits until they’re out of sight. “Okay, what the hell was that about?”

  “Fran got drunk last night and stuck a needle through her ear.”

  Matt rests his elbows on the table. His head sinks into his hands. “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing! She showed up drunk in the middle of the night. She couldn’t even walk.” The words come out fast, like an alibi that even I’m not buying. Matt seems unimpressed. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Luke, I’m listening.”

  “I never wanted to share a room with her in the first place.”

  “No, you didn’t. It’s just…” Matt’s fist connects with his arm, and he inhales sharply. “I’m so freakin’ stupid.”

  “Are you crazy?” I grab his hand before he can hit himself again. “What’s going on?”

  “I told Alex that Fran would be okay with you. I said you’d have time for her, listen to her. If the author of Halle-freakin’-lujah can’t be there for her, then who the hell can, huh?”

  “She was drunk! Anyway, why did you tell her that?”

  “So she’d actually stop worrying for one millisecond!” Matt takes a deep breath. “They were inseparable, remember? Alex blames herself for what’s happened to Fran.”

  “Huh? What did she do?”

  “It’s not what she did; it’s what she didn’t do. Alex wasn’t around last summer, so she didn’t know how bad it had gotten. Fran wasn’t telling her half of what was going on. Problem is, I don’t think Alex really asked either. She’d finally gotten away from her parents, she was in L.A., and everything was great. It wasn’t until she heard about the tattoos that she realized how messed up everything was.”

  I almost wish he were right—that Alex is responsible for Fran’s transformation—but I don’t believe it for a moment. “I can’t look after her, Matt.”

  Matt rubs the red spot on his arm in slow circles. “I don’t want you to look after her. I just want you to get along.”

  “Why?”

  He looks directly at me. “For disagreement is sadness. And accord is joy.” He waits a moment to let my own words sink in. “But I guess that depends on the situation, right? Or maybe who you’re disagreeing with.”

  Fran and Alex reappear before I can reply. When Fran sits beside me I catch a glimpse of a Band-Aid wrapped around her left ear. Suddenly I have no appetite at all.

  11:10 A.M.

  The Havasupai trail, Supai, Arizona

  The hike back is torture. My feet are blistered, and I remember the final mile of the trail will be a series of switchbacks that slope upward. Fran and Alex press ahead, holding hands. Right about now Fran must be feeling pretty smart that cross-country was the one school club she didn’t ditch.

  Meanwhile, Matt bounds along like a mountain goat. He shuttles between the sisters and me, pointing out rock formations and the crystal-clear water that crosses our path from time to time. I guess that hiking eight miles with an ascent of two thousand feet isn’t much of a workout for him.

  We’re halfway back when the distance between the others and me grows enough that I lose sight of them. I’m not really worried because the trail is obvious, but it makes me think of my event tonight, and whether I’ll make it on time.

  Right on cue, Matt reappears. “You okay?” he shouts. His voice echoes off a nearby rock face.

  I don’t answer. It’s a stupid question.

  As he waits for me to catch up, he bounces up and down on his toes like he’s afraid his legs will cool off in the ninety-degree heat.

  “Dude, I thought we’d lost you,” he says. “You trying to avoid us?”

  I drop my backpack on the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me we’d be hiking on this trip?”

  “It just came up.”

  “Oh, for— I’m not stupid, Matt! Colin told me he’d kept Monday free, and I never asked him to do that. Plus, that lodge was completely full. Are you telling me we just happened to grab the last two rooms?”

  Matt bites his cheek. “Okay. I was afraid you’d say no, so I didn’t mention it.”

  “I would’ve said no. This is a book tour, not a camping trip, you dork.”

  “Actually, it’s a combination book tour and road trip. Did you really just call me a dork?”

  “Yes. And will you please stop bouncing on your toes? Just ’cause you’re wearing appropriate footwear doesn’t mean you have to rub it in.”

  He looks at my feet and stops bouncing. “Oh,” he says.

  My sneakers are wet. A strip of fabric trails from my right shoe like a decorative ribbon. Tiny stones have been creeping into the hole left behind, and I know when I look at my foot later I’ll find raw skin. Or maybe no skin at all.

  “Sorry, bro. But you have to admit, the waterfall was beautiful.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “No, it’s not. See, that’s the thing about you—you’re always so freakin’ intense. This whole trip is stressing you out; I can see it is. But a hike like this forces you to slow down and look around. I watched you when you saw the falls, and I swear, it was the most relaxed you’ve been since I met you at the airport.” He glances over his shoulder, but there’s no one else around. “You’ll remember that moment forever. And whenever you think of it, you’ll imagine yourself back there. Which is a good thing, right?”

  Maybe it is a good thing. But Matt knows me well enough to realize how uncomfortable I am with this detour. “You should’ve told me.”

  He still doesn’t apologize—just picks up my backpack and walks away.

  “I can carry my own stuff,” I say.

  “Yeah, you can. But you also want to get to your next book signing. And you won’t look so good onstage if you can’t stand up straight.” He waits for me to join him. “Speaking of which, you should start lifting. You’re like a stick insect.”

  I pretend to be annoyed that he’s taking my bag, but I don’t think he’s fooled. He simply adjusts it on his shoulders and forges ahead as though it were empty.

  3:15 P.M.

  Route 66, west of Seligman, Arizona

  We’re back on Route 66 when Matt’s cell phone breaks the silence with “We Will Rock You.” He taps the steering wheel in time with the song’s incessant clapping and stomping. We’re halfway through the verse when he stops. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’ll go to voicemail.”

  The song continues as the desert moonscape grinds by.

  “It might be Colin,” I say. “I’ll get it.”

  “Don’t bother.” He grabs the phone and the car veers to the side of the road, kicking up dust. “Yo, this is Matt.”

  I detect a New York accent on the other end, and I only know one person with that accent.

  “Is it Colin?” I ask.

  Matt waves off my question with a flap of his hand, which means that neither of his hands is on the steering wheel. I try to relax by picturing one of those posters showing a field of corn blowing gently in the breeze, with the word stillness underneath.

  Matt contributes an occasional “yeah” or “sure” or “great,” but otherwise the conversation is one-sided. I’d swear that Colin is in mid-sentence when Matt announces: “Absolutely. Good idea. We’ll talk later.”

  He hangs up and slides the phone into his pocket.

  “Did you just hang up on my publicist?” I ask.

  “Huh? No!”

  “What did he want?”

  “Oh, just stuff. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. Was he annoyed? He sounded kind of loud.”

  Matt doesn’t speak for a while, but he takes his foot off the gas and for the first time we’re going at the posted speed limit. “Okay, if you must know—did you tell him you slept badly on Saturday night?”

  “Uh, I guess so.”

 
; Matt exhales loudly. “Bad move.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, let’s see—this little jaunt of yours is costing a fortune, and what do you do? You complain. It wouldn’t hurt for you to be grateful, you know.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Here, give me the phone. I’ll call him and apologize.”

  “No way. Give him time to simmer down, bro. Apologies can wait.”

  There’s an ominous silence after that. I’m actually grateful when Matt accelerates, and the engine drowns out my thoughts.

  7:25 P.M.

  The Good Samaritan Bookstore, Flagstaff, Arizona

  I’m dressed in a white shirt and creased khaki pants. I’m sleep-deprived, and my freshly bandaged feet are killing me. My calves, butt, and even my shoulders ache. I want to lie down and sleep until the weekend.

  Meanwhile, the questioner awaits my response, and the rest of the audience waits with him. He’s small—maybe six years old—and I’m sure he should be in bed already. Instead he’s here, tormenting me with curveball questions.

  “What about Santa Claus?” he asks.

  No one is going to interrupt this kid. He’s cute, funny—in a what-the-heck-is-he-talking-about? kind of way—and he’s on a roll. Plus he has a lisp that’s reducing the grandmothers in the audience to tears.

  I throw the question back at him to see if I can get a clue where he’s going with all this. “What about Santa?” I ask.

  “You tell me.”

  “Well… Santa Claus isn’t really part of Christian mythology. You know that, right?”

  “He’s not?” This is clearly news to the kid.

  “No. Neither are Christmas trees. Those are a pagan tradition.”

  “Pagan?”

  “Yes. It means not-Christian. Sort of.”

  “So… but… Santa puts presents by the Christmas tree. And God sent Santa, right?”

  Deep breath. This could take a while. “Not exactly, no. Actually, the history of Santa Claus is kind of interesting. Earliest references link him to Saint Nicholas, but it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that he was depicted with red robes and a white beard, and then Coca-Cola used his image in advertising and…”