333 Miles (13 page)

The rabbit also did not appreciate how
quickly things moved at what was now eighty-seven miles per hour.
He was curious about the different terrain of the pavement and
hopped off the desert sand and onto the outer edge of the freeway.
Encouraged by the warmth of the asphalt and its solid feel, the
rabbit scampered about, zigging and zagging with amusement until he
reached the fast-lane.

Inside Alex’s BMW, Alice Cooper was very
excited that school was out for summer. Mike was still removing the
remains of the Kodiak, which he now very much regretted putting in,
from his mouth. He reached into his lip with his forefinger and
scooped out several more grains which stubbornly remained behind.
Mike gagged but did not puke. He spit into his In-N-Out cup several
more times and announced, “I’ve got to take a shit,” followed by,
“please pull over.”

Because he thought it would be highly
amusing, Alex started to probe Mike to see if the situation was bad
enough that he would consider shitting on the side of the road if
he pulled over immediately. Mike said it was not, so Alex offered
him $50 to do it. The negotiation, which was going nowhere, was
suddenly interrupted when the lower right corner of the front
bumper of the BMW struck the upper left part of the rabbit’s head.
The rabbit’s skull shattered instantly and its brain flew outward
like a shotgun blast with a slightly downward trajectory. The
rabbit never knew what hit him and died instantly and without pain.
Alex also never knew what he had hit, but because he was still
alive and was concerned about his car, he was more curious. “What
the fuck was that?” he asked no one in particular.

Though the rabbit only weighed twelve pounds,
he embedded a golf ball-sized dent into the bumper. This turned out
to be his lasting legacy.

The rabbit’s demise was quickly forgotten
inside the car, especially by Mike whose attention returned to his
previous concern. He had arrived to the point where he had waves
requiring him to forcibly clench his ass to keep from going in his
pants. Based on that way in which one just knows in these
situations, he estimated he had about fifteen minutes left before
the inevitable. “Dude, I’ve really got to take a shit. Please pull
over at the next gas station,” he pleaded.

Alex was not happy about having to pull over
again so quickly and was getting anxious to be in Vegas. He was
tempted to keep going on the small chance that Mike actually did
shit his pants, which he would have found hilarious had it not been
his car they were driving. But it was his car, and there seemed to
be little choice, so three miles later he took the first available
exit. The area was fairly barren. The only signs of civilization
were a Chevron station and, strangely, what appeared to be a yoga
studio.

The problem was that both were closed, though
the automated gas pumps were working and there were two other cars
filling up. Mike was not amused. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding
me!” he declared. Alex asked if he could make it to the next exit
and Mike replied that he didn’t think so.

Alex began to smile: “Well, it looks like you
are just going to have to go behind the yoga studio. I’ve got some
paper towel in the trunk.”

Mike: “No fucking way.”

Alex: “There doesn’t seem to be much
alternative, is there?”

Roger shared Alex’s perspective of the
situation and was by now laughing and poking Mike in the side
alternately with both hands: “Go behind the yoga shop. That will
give them something to meditate about.”

It was then that Gary noticed three
port-o-potties about fifty yards past the yoga shop where it
appeared someone was considering constructing another building. He
pointed them out to Mike, who had never been so happy to have the
opportunity to use an outhouse. He opened the car door and started
waddling briskly toward the port-o-potties.

Gary, Roger and Alex had a nice chuckle about
this and Alex decided to use the time to top off the gas tank even
though they had only burned a few gallons. Just as he was
maneuvering the car to line up with the pump, his phone vibrated in
his pocket. He checked the ID display on the outside and was
pleased to see it was Cindy, a girl from Georgia whom he had hooked
up with a few times last year.

Alex opened his car door and flipped open his
cell phone at the same time. “Hey. How is my sexy peach?” he said
into the phone.

Cindy sounded like she had already had a few
drinks and was being very friendly. After the requisite small talk
she asked Alex, “Do you know what I really want for you to do?”

Alex did not know, so he inserted the
gasoline pump into the opening of the tank, squeezed the trigger,
and simply responded, “No. What?”

It turned out Cindy was in San Diego for a
few days for a family event and she wanted to meet up later that
night at around midnight. Alex explained that he would be in Vegas,
which disappointed Cindy. “Nooo, that sucks, sweetie,” she cooed.
“I want you to be with me tonight.”

Alex concluded the call quickly before she
started going into any more detail about her desires. He was
pleased to realize that he was not at all upset about missing Cindy
in San Diego. As the gas flowed, he again pondered the fact that
physical encounters with random girls were not as rewarding as they
used to be. Frequently it even led to something closer to regret
than satisfaction. He wondered if he should avoid trying to hook up
in Vegas altogether. Then he smiled and shook his head, chiding
himself for having such an utterly stupid idea.

Another six Southwest miles earned, Alex
quickly replaced the gas pump, indicated that he did not want a
receipt, and returned to the warmth of the car. “Let’s go fuck with
Sourpuss,” he suggested. He started the car and slowly drove over
to the large blue plastic portable toilets. As they pulled within
fifteen feet he asked Gary, “Which one do you think he is in?”

Gary reluctantly put down the
Club
magazine and leaned forward, squinting at the toilets. “He is in
the one on the right,” Gary declared with confidence.

Alex: “How do you know?”

Gary: “It is the only one with the red
occupied signal on the door. He is in there. The other two are
green.”

Alex: “Oh yeah, good call.”

Alex lifted his foot off the brake and turned
the wheel slightly toward the right. “Watch this,” he said. Two
seconds later the front of the BMW impacted the targeted outhouse
at about five miles per hour. The force was significant enough to
move the whole facility about two inches backward.

In the back seat, Roger was delighted. He
took out the can of Kodiak and instinctively started to open it.
Between bouts of laughter he suggested, “Hit him again.”

Alex put the car in reverse and backed up
about ten feet. Then he flashed the brights a few times, gave the
horn a few light taps and accelerated forward into the outhouse
again. This time he hit it at seven miles per hour, causing it to
rotate slightly in a clockwise direction. Alex was not sure, but he
thought he heard a sloshing sound coming from inside the structure.
Additionally, the front door was now pinned shut by the car so it
could not be opened.

A banging noise began from inside the
outhouse and the front door started to bend slightly outwards as
the occupant tried desperately to get out. This was too much for
Alex, Gary and Roger to take. All three were now laughing
uncontrollably, Roger trying to put in a dip at the same time. Alex
had tears rolling down his cheeks and tried to ask a question
between bursts of laughter. “Jesus, you don’t think anything
splashed up on him, do you?” he finally managed to ask before
tapping on the horn a few more times.

Gary indicated that he didn’t know. “How long
should we keep him in there?” he asked, starting to feel
guilty.

Roger: “I don’t know, but I just put in a
freshy so I don’t mind waiting a bit.”

Alex: “Let’s just let him soak up the
ambiance for another thirty seconds. If we leave him in there too
long he will be way too bitter the whole weekend.”

Alex wiped the tears from his face and spoke
again, “God, this is way too funny.” Just then, Gary glanced in the
passenger side rearview mirror. Then he rapidly swung around in his
seat to look out the back window.

“Oh shit, there’s Caminiti!” he nearly
shouted.

Alex pivoted around and saw Mike leisurely
walking toward the car from the direction of the Chevron station.
“What the fuck?” Alex wanted to know. This was followed up by a
quick, “Oh, shit!”

Alex put the car in reverse and quickly
backed it in Mike’s direction. At the same time he rolled down his
window and yelled, “Quick, get in the car. Just get in the
car.”

Mike slightly increased his pace, then opened
the door and hopped in the car behind Alex. Alex put the car in
drive and rapidly accelerated back toward the direction of the
freeway onramp.

“What’s the rush?” Mike wanted to know.

Alex replied hurriedly, “Oh nothing. We just
pinned some random person in the shitter so we need to get the fuck
out of here. Where did you go? Did you use the outhouse?”

Mike explained that he intended to, but on
the way over he saw someone working inside the closed mini-mart of
the Chevron and they had let him in to use the store bathroom. None
of the other guys had noticed.

It was quiet for a few seconds as the BMW
sped down the onramp.

Then Gary excitedly exclaimed, “No fucking
way! Who do you think was in there?”

“Probably whoever was driving the Acura at
the other pump. Someone who is probably scared shitless right now,”
Alex replied, adding, “literally.” Laughter dominated the next two
miles of the drive. With a renewed sense of energy and purpose,
Alex slowly brought the BMW up to ninety miles per hour to continue
its quest to Las Vegas.

Interlude Eight

Roger (20)

In the summer of 1994, just after Curt Cobain
blew his head off, Nirvana was, unsurprisingly, rapidly losing
influence. It was nearly three years after Guns N’ Roses released
the
Illusions
albums, and there was a lull in any kind of
musical leadership. In mid-July, the albums on the top of the
charts included Green Day, Soundgarden and Oasis. It created a
perfect window for a good, but not great, rock band like Stone
Temple Pilots to be considered pretty huge. So Roger was quite
enthusiastic about having tenth-row tickets to their show along
with three of his buddies whom he worked with at the TGI Friday’s
next to the Long Beach State campus.

Roger was in the middle of a three-month
self-imposed gambling hiatus and was flush with cash from his
bartending job at Friday’s. Therefore, he had splurged on a twelve
pack of Corona to share for the pre-party instead of Meister Brau
or Natural Light, which were his standard choices purely for fiscal
reasons. After finishing two beers each in the parking lot during
the opening act, each of the four shoved one of the remaining
bottles into the waistbands of their shorts and prepared to enter
the arena.

Once inside, and both needing to pee quite
badly, Roger and Steve—a nineteen-year-old busboy at Friday’s who
happened to be black—headed immediately to the left where a sign
indicated the nearest restrooms were located. About halfway there,
they encountered a troubling situation. Seven black men in their
early twenties had formed a ring around a pretty black girl who
looked to be about seventeen and was wearing jeans and a pink GAP
sweatshirt. They were shoving her lightly back and forth around the
inside of the ring and raining insults on her. Each of her futile
efforts to escape was blocked, and she was returned to the
middle.

Roger had always felt comfortable around
people of all races. He generally found black people to have a good
sense of humor, and that summer he counted as many blacks as whites
among his better friends. He stopped to try and better understand
what was going on.

At this point, the treatment of the girl
became markedly rougher. One of the guys in the circle caught the
girl on the perimeter, grabbed her shoulders, then spun her around
to face inward and wrapped his arms around her tightly. “You should
learn to think, you dumb bitch,” he said loudly into her ear before
releasing her and pushing her as hard as he could into the open
space. She flew forward and was intercepted by another guy on the
other side who stepped forward, lowered his shoulder, and drove it
into the upper body of the oncoming girl. Outweighed by at least
sixty pounds, she dropped to the ground like a quarterback who
never saw the hit coming. Once down, her body curled slightly but
she did not move much. The circle started to open with a few of the
guys bending down and pointing at her, wanting to add one last
comment.

Roger instinctively moved in and lifted the
girl up, asking her if she was all right. She wrapped an arm around
him weakly and began to walk slowly. They had only advanced a few
feet when the guy who threw her the last time stepped in front of
them.

“Who the fuck are you, bitch?” he demanded of
Roger.

“Just leave her alone. She needs some air,”
Roger said, at this point still not overly concerned about his own
safety.

“She got what she needed. Maybe you should
think about what you need, bitch,” the guy said, moving his face
closer to Roger’s.

At this point, rage at the whole situation
took over Roger’s actions. “Why? Are you tired of beating up
girls?” he asked loudly. The comment elicited a round of laughs
from the rest of the group. The largest of them was the most
audible. He was slightly overweight, very muscular, nearly six and
half feet tall, and was wearing a black oversized Dr. Dre tee shirt
over Air Jordan shorts. A massive gold chain distracted attention
from the rest of the outfit.