By the time that summer rolled around, things between me and She Who Must Be Obeyed, my girlfriend of about two years, had reached the point where my only answer to "So what do you want to do this summer?" was a shrug of total indifference. Not that a clearer response did not insistently present itself, but I was insanely in love with her and couldn't bring myself to say, "Well, I want to smash you into curry with an aluminum bat, then see if I can't win back at least a few of the friends you've cost me, you vicious, paranoid, controlling ice-bitch." That shrug drove her batshit with frustration, and I must have done it one too many times, because She got all calm one day and said,"I have an idea. I think we should take classes at U.C. Berkeley. The drive would be fun, don't you think?"
I started to shrug and I think I teared up. I love road trips more than dirty sex and Slurpees, and She knew this. I thought, Maybe there's some hope left here. Anyway, as Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, unusual travel invitations are dancing lessons from God. I said yes, let's do it.
While I still respect Mr. Vonnegut, I suggest you keep in mind that the God he's talking about tortured Job nearly to death on a bar bet with Satan, if you decide to use his writings as a rationale for spending two weeks in an non-air conditioned car with someone who detests you.
She didn't have a car, didn't drive stick, and wouldn't let me teach her how, so I did all the driving, which amounted to ten or so hours per day because I had an excuse not to fight with her if I was driving. Since She had nothing to do all day but change the tape and complain, She didn't need much sleep and would scourge me from the bed at six in the morning and seethe if I wasn't chipper. We stopped for nothing but fuel, primary bodily functions and insurmountable obstacles. She violently belittled any suggestions concerning things that amused me (to be fair, She was right about not taking a picture of me simulating giving head to a statue of Lincoln in South Dakota) and was furious if I did not gush over her idle notions.
After 5 days of blast furnace heat, no sleep, and constant abuse, I took off into the endless waste of Utah and Nevada. After one stop for food in some town where they had apparently butchered all the women years ago just for something to do and She was propositioned in front of me by about ten guys all rubbing their crotches, we decided that we were just not going to stop again until we hit civilization. This meant me driving though the desert for nearly 24 hours straight, four hours of which I spent stolidly ignoring hallucinations brought on by exhaustion. We hit the California side of Lake Tahoe at 4am after I had witnessed most of the book of Revelation acted out by Muppets. She let me sleep until 9am.
We got to Berkeley that day. We hated it so much we left three days later. I don't remember much after that until we got home. I couldn't sit down for days without getting sideways vertigo (Horigo?). She fucked some guy a month later and I moved out. I still have that car, and to this day when I miss a turn or can't find a parking space I bark at the empty seat next to me to shut the fuck up.
