Pryor Sullivan, “Unexpected Road Trip”

Unexpected Road Trip

My father and I had been planning a road trip for years. He always said that the best way to experience the US was a road trip. Throughout my fathers childhood, he took several trips with his father on special occasions. His first year of middle school, first year of high school and when he graduated. Before my grandfather passed away, my father promised to continue the tradition of road trips. A month before my first day of middle school I turned 12 years old. We celebrated my birthday at home with the rest of my family. My little brother and sister love birthday parties. I remember them waking me up early that morning and singing happy birthday. At the time I was annoyed, but looking back on it I think about how much they love me and how much I miss them right now. The rest of the day was a blur. I think I don’t remember my birthdays very well because I don’t enjoy them. My birthday is one of the worst days of the year. My birthday passed and I was annoyed, but excited for the trip my father and I had planned for the next 3 weeks. After the party, we packed the last few items into the car, said our goodbyes and hit the road. Coming from Montana the road trip started slow, lots of fields, oil rigs and empty land. My father and I passed the time by listening to our favorite songs, all the classics. We loved AC/DC. Ever since I was a little kid I remember my dad playing old rock and roll songs in the car and he would make me play guessing games to figure out which band it was. He made me fall in love with music, and because of him I know a lot of music from the generation before me. We sang for hours and my father, like he had done so many times before, would cover the radio screen so I couldn’t see who the band was. He would always give me three guesses before he finally told me. I wasn’t having my best day of guessing and I started to get frustrated, but luckily we needed gas and pulled over to pee, get food and drinks and fill up. Thirty minutes after we had gotten back on the road, my father noticed a man on the right side of the highway. The man was covered in dirt, tan, leathered and it was very obvious that he had spent some nights outside recently. He carried a dark bag, with letters on it, probably his initials. His clothing was torn, and I could smell it just by looking at it. He wore a hat with words on it that had been worn off, only a few letters remained. The hat appeared to have been red at one point, but the color had worn off. I looked over at my father in the driver’s seat and could see that he was thinking as we approached the man slowly in the car. My father rolled down the window and said, “Hey there.” The man replied in a soft, raspy voice, “Hey how goes it”. My father replied, “Pretty good. Where are you headed?” The man paused for a moment and stared off into the distance as if he were really thinking hard about the question. As this conversation was occurring I sat awkwardly in my seat, scared and unsure of why my father had pulled over on our special road trip for this weird man. The conversation continued as the man snapped out of the weird mental fog he was in and he replied,

“Nowhere and everywhere. That’s where I’m headed.” My dad looked over at me, and muttered back to the man, “You need a ride?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I said, “Dad, no wait.” My father looked back over at the man, rolled up the window and said, “Excuse us for one second.” My father turned to look at me, taking his attention away from the man, and as the window inched its way back up, the man on the road stared at me in a way that I have never seen before. There was something off in his eyes. Something about him told me that there was something different. In that moment he was the scariest man in the world and it sent a shiver through my body. The window closed and our staring contest ended for the time being. My father turned his head to me and said, “Son, what’s the matter?” I replied, “Dad are you crazy. This guy looks nuts. I can tell just by the way he looks at me that he is up to no good. He also looks really scary, and this was supposed to be our special road trip.” My dad replied, “Listen son, I know that this man may look like a bad man, but you should never judge someone based on their appearance. And he clearly needs someone to help him.” I replied, “But dad this is our trip and I’m not just judging his looks, the man gives me a very weird feeling in my stomach. I really don’t think you should let him anywhere near us.” My dad replied, “Son, I have been in a situation similar to this man before. It was during a very dark time in my life and I need to help him the way that a man once helped me. The man who helped me is a big part of why I am still alive today. It would not be right for me to not help this man. I know this may be confusing, but one day you will understand.” My dad rolled the window back down, and the man had seemed to slip off into one of his trances again. My dad said, “Excuse me sir, would you like a ride somewhere.” We were probably over two hours from any sort of civilization, truly in the middle of nowhere. The man replied, “That would be lovely.” In an eerie tone. My father stepped out of the car and helped the man with his luggage. My eyes were again drawn to the small letters on the bag he carried, probably his initials I thought to myself again, but I could have sworn that I had seen those letters before. I watched as my father loaded his bag into the trunk and the man opened the back door and slowly stepped into the car. Instantly I could smell him. Within a second of him being in the car his stench filled the space. He smelled as if he had rolled in a field of cow shit and then decided to do it again for fun. But it wasn’t just that, I noticed as he stepped in the car that he wore lots of jewelry around his neck as it made quite a bit of noise when he moved around. I stared at him and he stared back at me. He breathed in slowly and said, “Hello boy, what is your name?” It was then I realized what the initials on his bag were. I saw them on TV a few weeks ago. They were initials that represented a clan of men who have escaped from maximum security prison. I now knew the road trip had just begun.