The Journey

We were 22 years old so, in theory, we should have known better.

I, along with two of my friends from high school, decided to visit our other high school buddy Jimmy who was living in Telluride, Colorado. Melinda, Evan and I lived in Los Angeles at the time and somehow didn’t consider that December might not be the best time for an interstate road trip. But Mel and Ev are skiers and knew Christmas break was a great time to enjoy some fresh powder; I, however, preferred to hang out in the lodge, sip cocoa and check out the hot guys. It was a win-win situation as far as any of us were concerned.

I don’t know who first suggested the idea but after just three hours on the road, we turned on each other.

The weather when we left Los Angeles was perfect: bright blue skies, crisp air and a light breeze. We happily drove across the state to Arizona, munching on bad food and listening to mixed tapes and new CDs we brought along to keep us awake. The drive should have taken us 12 hours – not a lot of time in the grand scheme of road trips. Our last stop in California was a dump of a town called Needles, which had nothing much to offer save a small diner, a gas stations and tumbleweeds. We made fun of the little hamlet as we drove away. But as soon as the tires of Melinda’s rabbit convertible hit the pavement on the Arizona border, we were faced with an unimaginable scene: ice. Not just on the road, but everywhere. Huge flakes of snow began to pummel Mel’s little car from all directions (and seriously – a VW convertible? What the hell were we thinking taking that car up a mountain?). No one said a word for several minutes, until we realized we had practically zero visibility.

Then, Evan spoke. “I miss Needles,” he said.

Needles, indeed. It was only at that moment we could remember that town fondly, because even though Needles didn’t have much it had one thing we wished we had at that moment: safety. We swerved a few times and finally, after braving the storm (or, rather, stupidly going through it – is there a word like ‘braving’ that really means ‘stupiding’?), we hit Gallup, New Mexico. By the time we arrived, the blizzard had blanketed the town with several inches of snow. Even the snowplows hadn’t had time to clear the paths.

“We need to get chains,” Mel said. “My car won’t make it without them.”

I didn’t think any town could be worse than Needles, but Gallup came a close second. There we were, holed up in a smokey mechanic’s office. It was after an hour of examining our car that he gave us the first piece of bad news: “We don’t have the right chains for your tires.”

Melinda, who will never take ‘no’ for an answer, said, “What? Come on. You have to have chains.”

The mechanic shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Not for your car.”

“Then put on the chains you think will come close enough,” she told him. “We can’t go on without them.”

He shrugged and did as he was told. After another hour (or two – it seemed like an eternity), we piled back into the car and drove. Immediately we heard a painful, scraping sound.

“What is that?” Mel demanded. The car screeched along. “What is it?”

“I think it’s the chains,” Evan said.

“What are they doing?” she screamed.

She didn’t have to ask. We knew. The chains were just as the mechanic described: they were too big for the tires. The clatter was horrific. Every time the tire rotated it sounded like the chains were slicing through her car.

“Get them off, Ev!” Mel said as she pulled the car into a parking lot. “Get out and get them off!”

“Why me?” Evan asked. I looked at him. In his light jacket and jeans he was hardly dressed to go out in the snow, let alone get down on the ground and do some hard labor.

“Because you’re the only one who can do it,” she said. “So do it!”

“How is he going to do it?” I asked.

“He just has to, okay?” Melinda said. “Come on, Evan. Do it!”

He looked at me and I shrugged. “Fuck,” he said.

He got out and began to pry at the chains. “I can’t do it,” he called out from under the car. “I can’t do it.”

“Do it!” Mel screamed back at him.

“Jesus, Mel,” I said. “Give the guy a break. He doesn’t even have any gloves on.”

We looked at each other and started laughing. We laughed so hard we couldn’t stop. We doubled over, our bellies aching and our faces hurting from smiling so much.

“What’s so funny?” Evan asked. He gave up and crawled back into the car to get warm. His fingers were stiff and frozen.

“Who takes a convertible to Colorado?” I asked, wiping the tears.

“Who goes on a road trip in December?” Mel asked.

We all started howling.

“We miss Needles,” we said, laughing even more.