Part Two: Road Trip

Note #8

“That’s a Michigan state trooper there... Ya see...?” Jenkins asks. “We gotta be in Michigan now.”

“Yeah, dark blue Impala,” I respond coming out of a doze in the middle of the night at a rest stop somewhere between Chicago and my hometown, Muskegon.

We get to Muskegon around four in the morning. I motor the Cutlass around the city just tripping out on the place. Past my family’s church, also the Christian school I endured for nine or so years. Past 604 Ninth Street in Muskegon Heights, the first house I remember living in.

We roll way out of town to Egelston Township, in the sticks. This is where my family lived just before moving to California. We end up at what is called ‘the power-lines’ a half mile from where I had lived as a teenager on Evanston Road. The power-lines is a strip of land around a hundred yards wide running through and dividing the woods in the area. It’s been cleared for high-powered electrical lines that go north past Black Creek and on towards Apple Avenue.

I pull the Cutlass into the woods just to the west of Black Creek and we fall asleep in the car just as the sun is coming up.

We wake up a couple of hours later. I fire up the 330 and begin to steer the Cutlass down a two-track through the woods and away from the creek towards Evanston Road.

“Yeah, I used ta drive around in these woods in a Vega with this guy Dale Stafford.”

“A fuckin’ Vega?” Jenkins laughs then pulls out the tape recorder and starts talking into it. “Yeah, we’re in this place called Muskegon.”

“Egelston Township,” I interrupt.

“Oh..., fuckin’ Egelston Township. An’ we’re out in the woods drivin’ on this trail.”

I veer off the two-track heading back towards Black Creek. Just cruising through weeds navigating around trees.

“We should be on the cover of Four Wheeler Magazine,” I joke as I gun it in a clearing.

“Fuckin’..., Cutlass through backwoods of Michigan!” Jenkins mimicking a motorsports radio ad roars into the cassette recorder. Then, BAM! Jenkins’ head hits the windshield as the Cutlass stops abruptly.

“Fuck...!” Jenkins yells. “Fuck dude...! I think I got a concussion or somethin’...! I’m..., I’m high as fuck!”

“Yeah..., we just crashed,” minutes later, out in front of the Cutlass, Jenkins is talking into the tape machine again. “And now we’re gonna try and uncrash.”

The Cutlass’ bumper is jammed firmly against a stump that had been hidden by weeds. I pull the hood open and see that the radiator is mashed up against the fan. I get back in the driver’s seat. Turn the key, “Row, roww, rowwww...,” the 330 grumbles, the radiator preventing the engine from turning over properly.

“Oh..., fu-uck...,” Jenkins mutters into the recorder.

We walk out to Evanston then west to Wolf Lake Road. There we turn north, walk up to Wolf Lake. We have breakfast at the Wolf Lake Diner, a place I used to hang out at as a teenager.

After breakfast, at a phone booth I dial my Aunt Louise’s number.

“Hi Aunt Louise, this is Jack.”

“Hey Jackie!” She yells into the receiver.

“Did my dad tell ya I was comin’ ta Michigan?” I ask.

“No-oh..., he didn’t honey.”

“Ahh..., me and my friend are here from California and we were wonderin’ if we could stay with you for a while.”

Photo by CirrosisAguda