This trip was going to save us—Jonesy and me. It was going to show him how the other half lived (which, precisely put, was not on their father’s money) and the trip would teach me about courage—making it on luck and a prayer. Jonesy said I had to learn to turn loose and fly because all the planning in the world won’t get you to the moon if you lack the courage to get on the spaceship.  It was the kind of talk from a guy that made you pack everything you own in a plastic bag and pile into a ten year old Ford Pinto for the trip of your life.  The kind of talk I'd have to be more careful about in the future.  

We ate scrambled egg sandwiches in the car by the side of the road and watched a herd of buffalo graze in the rain on the west Kansas prairie just on the other side of a barbed wire fence.  

"I don’t think Kerouac did it this way," Jonesy said.  

"I bet there were times when Kerouac would’ve given his right arm for an egg sandwich," I said.  

"We shouldn’t eat eggs that haven’t been refrigerated all day. You know that, Janice."  

"Desperate times require desperate measures," I said.  "Your mama spoiled you."  

"You’re gonna think desperate when we start thumbing it in this rain."  

"Somebody’d come along and see us if you’d put the hood up like I told you. That’s the national symbol for broken-down-car, you know."  

"Yeah, and I bet every mass murderer on the highway knows about it, too."  

I sighed and licked my fingers.  "I could use coffee. Other than that I think you’re just whining. We’re supposed to be on the road, not basking on a beach in the south of France."  

Two hours later I sighed deeply, again. The skies had cleared but there was still a layer of clouds that parted momentarily and let the sunlight glisten on the wet two-lane highway. Jonesy had slid down in his seat and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. I looked at his face and wondered how he’d become such a spoil sport. Anybody with a strong jaw and a genius brain should be full of the spirit of adventure, not scared to death of his shadow.  

I needed to pee but every few minutes a big truck came roaring by, rocking the car in its wake. It was hours until dark and there wasn’t a bush or tree anywhere around except the wild butterfly bush about twenty feet out into the buffalo pasture. There was nowhere to pee in private unless I wanted to test my theory about desperate times.  

I ignored my pain while trying to remember the title and the words to Joplin’s Busted flat in Baton Rouge. I started singing what I knew of it—not loud because I didn’t want Jonesy to wake up and start whining again. I was also pondering our shaky relationship. One thing about a man that’s important to me is that he can be macho in a pinch while maintaining an inner core of pure sensitivity. I was twenty-four and still looking.  

I really had thought I’d found it in Jonesy but this trip was not highlighting those qualities if he had them. I moaned a little and Jonesy opened one eye and peered at me.  

"In pain?"  

"Gotta pee. No worry. I’ll be okay." I was trying to set an example for him.  

"Well, I can’t wait." He reached in back behind my seat and pulled a yellowed plastic bottle out that he used to pee in when he was traveling.  

"That’s kind of disgusting. I bet you haven’t ever washed that thing. It smells."  

"Now who’s whining?"  

I watched him shift his hips around and unzip. I was curious about how well that bottle worked.  

He grinned ruefully at me. "I never could pee when someone was watching."  

I shifted around in the seat and muttered, "I’d let you watch me."  

"I wouldn’t want to watch."    

Jonesy and I were trying to put off the inevitable. We’d finished our MFA’s at KU in Lawrence, Kansas and now were faced with a few choices—get a job at a place where you can drive up and order burgers and fries, go back to school for a doctorate, or go out and learn something about life. We chose life, and we were using Kerouac for a roadmap.  

Jonesy came from old money in Boston. He ended up at KU by way of low incentive. His parents doled out a little money to him but not enough for him to buy a new car. They wanted him to learn independence. I grew up in Topeka, Kansas in a foster home and was one of three kids who’d aced the SAT’s my senior year of high school, which offered me the wonderful opportunity to move up the road a bit and go to college free.    

One thing you recognize in Jonesy right away when you meet him is that his brain is capable of great things, but that it isn’t likely to achieve them. On the other hand, I wasn’t a loser in the brain department but I wasn’t a genius like Jonesy. Still, I was certain that someday I’d chart a new course for the human experiment—the one that God had left unfinished apparently. Maybe I’d make war obsolete, or I’d wipe out world hunger—but I needed to get out of Kansas first.  

I waited until I heard the zipper being zipped and turned to stare at the man who could say such a thing about learning to fly and yet get all down in the mouth about the possibility of having to hitchhike in the rain. Staring at Jonesy could be a downright pleasure, sometimes. He had a beautiful body, and an easy way of moving—narrow hips that made you want to crawl right into his lap, straddling his legs with yours, and he never seemed to mind when I did just that.  

On Jonesy’s allowance and my savings from working in the college bookstore we had set out earlier that day for a summer of traveling. Six hours later we were broken down in a rain storm on a remote west Kansas highway. Our plan to take only the back roads had already started paying off in lessons learned.  

The Colorado state line was a long way off. It wasn’t even close enough to see the mountains on the horizon. And I was having second thoughts about Jonesy. I needed to check Kerouac’s book again to see if Sal Paradise was really always cool or if he had had moments of pure chickenshit whinyness. I couldn’t spend my life with a man who wasn’t in Kerouac’s league.   

Just as the sun went down I got out to pee by the side of the car and the lights of a semi came around the curve. Jonesy had finally allowed me to raise the hood. I heard the brakes on the semi as I duck-walked to the front of the car, pulling up my panties as fast as I could.  

The driver took us all the way to Dodge City.  It was the loneliest stretch of highway you could ever drive. I guess that's why the trucker picked us up. He was lonely. He needed someone to say all those lonely things to that he thought about while he drove his big old rig across the country.  He didn't look like a trucker. His name was Eugene and I guessed him to be about the age of my foster dad—maybe fifty or so. Silver hair around the edges and a smooth, wrinkle-free face. He had pictures of his grandkids up on the visor and he told us all about them. Jonesy and I smiled at him as if they were the most amazing kids we'd ever seen.  

After that things got quiet in the dark loneliness of the highway. My eyes almost closed. Then I heard Eugene singing low, almost too quiet to hear. It was a song called  Lowlands, and he said he was from West Virginia and was hooked on every song Gillian Welch sang. After that he sang Miners Refrain.  

I'm down in a hole, down in a hole, down in a deep dark hole.    

After he got into the songs, Jonesy and I would try to harmonize with him. We'd mess up but he didn't stop. Then he started teaching us. He'd sing some and then tell us to sing it and he'd harmonize with us. We sang every Gillian Welch song he knew all the way to Dodge City.  They were the saddest songs I'd ever heard. I turned to stare out at the dark and felt a deep dark hole in my heart. I didn't know where Jonesy and I were going to end up and I didn't like it that I cared so much. I wanted to be unafraid and I didn't want to have to go down the road a long ways before I lost my fear.  

Eugene let us off at the first café we came to in Dodge City so Jonesy could call his parents to send money. I was feeling a little low—felt like maybe Kerouac was just a big fiction after all. The night air was chilly outside the café. Jonesy called his parents on the public phone that was inside a doorless phone booth. He shrugged out of his jacket and pulled me to him with his free hand. He worked the jacket around my shoulders and hugged me against his chest.  I felt small, like a child who needed a daddy, and I snuggled into his arms and dried my eyes on his shirt. Sometimes you can be lonely even when someone hugs you right up against them.  

When Jonesy hung up the phone he said we should go inside the café and get something hot to eat and then find a room. He said his dad wasn't in the mood to throw good money after bad and maybe we'd have to figure out another way. I don't know why but that made me feel better. Something down inside of me said we'd still have a chance this way even if we had to find jobs there and make enough cash to get the car fixed after we had it hauled into town.  

Jonesy wanted to find a decent motel so he asked the waitress at the café if he could use their telephone book. He spread it out on the table, turned to Motels in the yellow pages and wrinkled his nose at all the ones his wealthy parents would never have stayed at on their expensive family trips. Meanwhile, I glanced out the window and saw a sign that stuck up over the rundown auto repair and used furniture shop across the street. The sign said MOTEL. It didn't blink and it wasn't lit up by floodlights to get your attention.  

On the corner across the street were a dozen or so young men. Some had their heads under the hood of a bright yellow pickup. Some just stood around, smoking and drinking beer.  

I put my hand over Jonesy's searching finger and he looked up at me.  

"Let's go cheap," I said. "We don't need continental breakfasts and indoor pools."  

He looked a little wary and said, "Where?"  

I pointed across the street at the sign.  

"I'll pay," I said. "You can pay to have the car hauled in to that auto repair shop right there."  

Jonesy looked at the motel sign. He looked at the repair shop. And he stared for a few minutes at the kids on the street corner. Then he leaned back and slid a little ways down onto the seat of the booth.  

"Spiders," he said.  

"Spiders?"  

"Yeah. There'll be spiders in the shower."  

We both sat in silence for a minute.  

"Okay," I said.    

A sharp ray of sunshine struck my eyes at daybreak through the ratty blinds on the window next to the bed. Jonesy was pushing me nearly off the wobbly mattress. Outside I could still hear the voices of the Mexican boys, who had worked all night on that pickup right in front of our room.   

I elbowed Jonesy and said, "You first in the shower."  

"No, you first," he said.  

"Not me. You."  

He groaned and got up.  

I smiled and wondered if Sal Paradise had ever bathed in a dark dingy shower full of spiders.