Road Trip 2016. Part Six. L'aventure Finale.
It's been a while and I realize I never did share the last leg of my summer New England road trip. This only proves two of my most repeated character flaws--1. I have some surface commitment issues, and 2. I never have known when to end a story. But at the time I had so wanted to let it be known that there are no gentlemen in Connecticut.
We made it to Mystic just as the sun was going down, learning there were only three motels within town limits. None of them being diamond properties, the first one we happened upon was the winner. An old school place with what used to be a full service eat in restaurant. The lobby was brand new and beautiful, until we approached the front desk. Where we were greeted by a girl who likely looked at a lot of pictures in Mademoiselle magazine and drove a Ford Probe, but missed the prom to have a baby. With lopsided eyebrows stenciled in with greasy yellow-brown kohl pencil. BTW-one of them was smudged as if someone had run their finger tip straight down through it. She booked us into a double room, and outside and upstairs we went--into a damp, dark, outdated hallway topped with water-stained drop ceiling tiles. Some of them broken. Some of them missing altogether. It may be the first time I ever inspected for bed bugs, including the time I stayed in a NYC hostel. The only logical next step was to find some dinner and strategize ways to keep our bare feet off the carpet and bathtub, our bare butts off the toilet seat.
And so I found myself at Mystic Pizza looking at all things Julia Roberts and a dining room full of forty-something women who'd probably spent some time in the late 80s deciding if they were a Kat or a Daisy (nobody wants to be a JoJo)--and a few men who probably fancied themselves Charles Windsor types. Then the waitress asked me if I would like to keep the menu and I realized she thought I was one of them. I politely declined.
The next morning was sunny and blue. I woke up alive (lung fungus to be determined)--ready for the final leg of the trip. The one I'd looked most forward to. But my travel companion became unhinged no sooner than the bags made it to the car. And she raged. And yelled. About everything. About nothing. And raged some more. The girth of it taking up so much space there was no room for argument or reason or defense strategy. And a feeling welled up inside of me--a slow stirring mix of defeat and indifference, and an anger at having to feel it. And I knew. That all of the giving up, giving in, going along, missing out--none of it mattered. And never would. I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.
I never made it to the water that day. But I experienced Mystic Pizza. Walked through a Black Dog Boutique I could've taken a shit in. Shuffled through a gallery tended by a man too busy to answer my question. Then we left for home. With no photo evidence.
I've never been so caged. Sharing 70 cubic feet of space through rush hour Bronx traffic, and the never-ending Jersey Turnpike. With a balloon in my chest and a snake in my gut. It's the only drive I ever took that made me feel less free.
And I deserve a do over.
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