God, I hate this fucking trip.  Every time I make it, it just seems to get more boring.
“It’s 12 o’clock now, I should be able to get home around 3 a.m.”
“If I speed up to around 80 I could probably cut 30 minuets off of my time.”
“What about cops?”
“Cops?  Are you crazy?  There’s no one on this road at this time.  Much less any cops.”
“Well I must be crazy.  I’m sitting here holding a conversation with my self aren’t I.”
“Well that may be so, but if I were you, and I am, I would speed up.”
“I think your right for once.”
Why not speed up.  I mean, shit, if there are any cops out here at this time they’re probably asleep.  A little more pressure on the gas.  Not much, just a little is all it takes.  Even though my speed hasn’t increased much, it seems as if I’m flying.  Senses alert, searching for any signs of the cops.
Then I see it.  Almost to late to dodge the enormous gash in the road.  Well not exactly dodge it.
Swerving into the fast lane, I catch the outside of the hole with my right side front tire, with enough force to rattle my teeth and make the CD player skip.
“Shit!”  Please don’t let anything be fucked up under there.  The next few seconds seem like hours.  Slowly I start to realize that my front tire is swiftly going flat.
“Just fucking great!  This is what I need.  I’m tired, 3 hours away from home, on a deserted road, with a flat, and only a piece of shit spare tire.”
Calm down.  One step at a time.
First turn on the hazard lights.
Hazards on.
Find a nice level place to pull over.
 It doesn’t look like this road was made to have an emergency on.  Well I can’t go any further or I’ll fuck up the rim, this will just have to do.
Then make sure that it’s only the tire that’s fucked up.
If it’s just the tire then things could be worse.  If it’s worse, then you can panic.
With the way my luck is going, I’ll open the door and someone will swipe it off.  Checking the mirrors my fears are proved unnecessary.  Not a headlight for miles, shit no light at all.
Ok, no one’s going to take the door off.  Just gotta make sure that I don’t lock the keys in the car when I get out.  Better unlock the passenger door just to be sure.
Alright, no one’s coming up behind me, I have my keys in my pocket, and the passenger door is unlocked.  What am I forgetting?
“You’re not forgetting anything, you’re just stalling.”
“O. K. maybe your right.”
Opening the door, it hits me like a tidal wave.  The air is not only hot, but the humidity has to be around 110%.  This isn’t going to be fun.  Nor very easy.  Now I know what I was forgetting, a flash light.  It’s as dark as coal out here.
I know that I saw one in the back seat a few weeks ago, but did I take it out or not.
Rummaging through a semesters worth of shit it only takes me a few seconds to find it.  And even less time to realize that it doesn’t have any batteries in it.
Now what?
What about that blue one that Aunt Ann gave me for Christmas last year.
But, where did I put the damn thing, and does it have batteries.  Probably in the hatch back with the rest of the junk from the summer semester.
Opening the hatch I realize that finding anything is this mess is going to be a probl . . . . . .
Hay, a red Cyalume chem light.  Maybe this will put out enough light.  Tearing into the foil wrapper, I’m disappointed when a few seconds later I realize that it doesn’t even put off enough light to piss by.
Well I can put it in the road by the car to act in place of a road flare.
I still don’t have a light, and there’s no way I can change the tire in the dark.  What if I loose a lug nut?  Shit, I can’t even see where they are on the tire, much less take one off to lose.
Searching desperately I’m eventually  forced to accept the fact that there’s not a flash light in the back.
The glove box!  Maybe that’s where the flash light is.
Rummaging through the small shoe box, bingo!  There it is, and heavy enough to have batteries in it.  Flicking the switch, I realize that it does indeed have batteries.  Very weak ones.
It’ll just have to do.
Five minuets and a few hundred curses latter, my back seat is down, my speakers are out of the way, and I now have even more junk in the floor board than before, but the spare tire is freed.  Now it is only a matter of getting the jack under the car and changing the tire.
That brings up another problem.  The shoulder of the road is , uneven gravel and broken pavement.  Will the jack work?  Only one way to find out.
Well it seems like it will work, I just hope it will hold.
Only ten minuets to get the old tire off.  Not bad considering that I can hardly see.
Damn the temperature really dropped off fast.  It’s freezing out here.
Well it shouldn’t take long to get the spare on and get back on the road.
No sooner had the thought finished than I was plunged into utter darkness, relieved only by the periodic flashing of my hazard lights.
Shit, the batteries must have finally died.  Now, what?
I guess I’ll have to try and use the chem. light.
“Do you need a light?”
“Hell yes I need a light. What, you think I can see in the dark!”
Wait a second.  That wasn’t me!
Grabbing the tire iron I spun around and crouched in a defensive posture not knowing whether to be relieved or frightened.
About five feet away from me standing at the end of the car I can see the shape of a man silhouetted by the red glow of the chem. light.
Slowly, as if sensing my unease, he turned a flashlight on and pointed it at himself.  Showing me that except for the flashlight he was empty handed.
“Names Jack.  My car broke down about a mile back and I was trying to get to the next exit.  If I help you do you think that you could give me a ride to Meridian?  I’m kind of late for an appointment.”
Must be a pretty important appointment.  It looks like he’s wearing a Tux.  Well, Tux or no Tux I don’t like the situation.  It seems pretty convent that he just happened to be the only other person that I’ve seen for the last hour.  But, he does have a light.  Fuck it if worse comes to worse I think I could take him.
“Uh, sure, my names Eddie.”
Still feeling a little tense I turned around and started back to work on the tire.
Amazingly enough it only took a few minuets to get it on.  With in moments we were back on the road again.
For his part, Jack was true to his word.  He held the flashlight for me, sometimes shining it to where I needed light even before I knew that I need it there.  Other than that he did nothing, and after making his offer did not seem very interested in talking either.
“Well it looks like I’m going to have a traveling companion for the next 20 minuets.  I must admit that for a while I thought I was going to go crazy.”
“Crazy?  Why do you say crazy?”
Shit!  What fucking luck.  The only guy for miles and he’s a psychopath.  Tick-tock.  Glancing out of the corner of my eye, “Uh, well I don’t know, just a figure of speech?”  He seems normal enough.  Maybe a little over dressed, but beyond that he looks normal.  Please be normal.
 Reaching for my CD case in the back, “Anything in particular you want to listen to?”
 “Love songs.”
 Not much of a talker, but hay I’d already figured that one out.  “Don’t know if I can help you there.”
Expertly managing the wheel with one hand and flipping through the case with the other, “What about Byran Adams?”
 “Sounds fine to me.”
 So now I’m back to square one.  Tunes on the radio, and the road just moving on by.  O. K., so now I can’t talk to my self out loud.  My friend in the next seat my just very well jump on the band wagon, and start talking to himself to.  That would be bad, very, bad.
 What’s that sign say?
Meridian
Next Exit
“Hay, Jack didn’t you say that you were going to Meridian?”
“Jack?”
Great, he’s in the car for 15 minuets and he’s already asleep.
Turning to wake him up, I realize that he’s not asleep.  I couldn’t be anything as simple as that, could it.
Well actually it’s real simple.  He’s just simply not there.
The door’s locked, the lap belt’s fastened, and he’s still not there.
 “What the fuck, over!”
 “I’ve got to get myself out of this state, out of this car, and into bed before I start seeing pink elephants fly.”
 “But how did you change the tire if you didn’t have his light.”
 “Don’t think about it!  Just drive, and drive fast.”
 
 

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