Trip 2000 ~repack~: Road

In Butte, Montana, they ate gas station burritos that tasted like regret and discovery. A grizzled man at the counter asked where they were headed. “Nowhere,” Maya said. The man nodded like that was the only correct answer. “Then you’re already there,” he said, and gave them a free pack of peanut butter crackers.

“That’s not Florida,” Maya said, not looking up from her flip-phone. She was trying to compose a text message using T9 predictive text, which felt like defusing a bomb with her thumbs. “It’s a dead jellyfish.”

That night, at a motel that charged by the hour but they took by the night, they watched the 2000 election results on a fuzzy TV. Al Gore. George Bush. A nation holding its breath again. Leo turned it off. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” he said. “The world always does.” road trip 2000

“This is the real America,” Maya said, squinting into the prairie wind.

They didn’t have answers. They had gas station coffee, a roll of duct tape, and a year that felt like a door swinging open. 2000. A new millennium. And somewhere between here and there, between the dead jellyfish and the duct-taped radiator, they had something better than a destination. In Butte, Montana, they ate gas station burritos

Somewhere in South Dakota, they saw a billboard for Wall Drug. Then another. Then fifty more, spaced exactly a mile apart, like a subliminal command. By the time they reached the actual Wall Drug, they were too exhausted to resist. They bought five-cent coffee and postcards they’d never send, and stood in front of a giant fiberglass dinosaur, taking photos with a disposable camera.

They had the drive.

Somewhere in Idaho, the Civic’s check engine light came on. It glowed like a tiny, judgmental eye.