(Author's Note: This is
part 5 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit
jonpenfold.com)
Chautauqua:
A Story in Seven Parts
Part Five—Good Directions
The
first town we come to, I pull into the local Dairy Queen.
“Why
are we stopping?” Tommy asks.
“To
ask directions,” I answer.
“We
don’t need directions.”
“If
we don’t need directions, then tell me what town we’re in.”
Tommy
cranes his neck to look out the windshield. “We’re in the town of Dairy Queen.
It says it right there on the sign.”
“I’m
getting directions.”
The
girl in the ice cream window is about the same age as us and when I ask her if
we’re close to Chautauqua Lake, she laughs. “You’re not even close. At least
two hours away.”
Tex
and I both look over our shoulders at Tommy, who is studying the menu board
like it’s a guide for the SAT’s. “Order me an Oreo Blizzard,” he says.
I
shake my head and ask the girl if she know how to get to the lake.
“Of
course, I’ve driven there a hundred times,” she says, echoing Tommy’s response
from earlier in the day. She’s goes on to give us the most complicated
directions I’ve heard in my life. “You’re going to go back the way you came.
It’ll be dark for a while. When you finally see a street lamp, you’re going to
want to take your second left. Follow that road for awhile. I mean, seriously,
you’re going to think you missed a turn, but trust me, just keep driving.
You’ll eventually come to a town that has an arch…”
“An
arch?” Tex asks in disbelief.
“Yeah,
an arch, like the famous one in St. Louis. Drive under the arch and take a
right, then a left, then another right, then another left. Take that road for
awhile. When you see a giant gas station, you’re almost there. But whatever you
do, don’t get gas there. Just drive past it. A few more miles, and your there:
Lake Chautauqua.”
“You
mean Chautauqua Lake?” Tex says.
“Yeah,
that’s what I said.”
I
finish up jotting the directions down and order an ice cream cone for the road.
“Let’s
stop at that McDonald’s,” Tex says as soon as I pull out of the Dairy Queen.
“Why
didn’t you get something at the Dairy Queen?” I ask.
“I
don’t want food. I want to get directions to Chautauqua Lake.”
“We
have directions.”
“That
girl had no idea what she was talking about. I mean, come on, an arch; like the
one in St. Louis. She’s obviously setting us up for a wild goose chase.”
“I
trust her,” I say.
“Why?”
“She
had a nice smile.”
“Well,”
Tex says, nodding his head towards the back seat, “the Pinball Wizard back
there has a nice smile too. Look where that got us.”
“We’re
following the directions!” I say. “The directions from the Queen of the Dairy
Queen.”
So
we drive, back the way came and it’s dark for a long while. “I don’t see a
street lamp,” Tex says, “and I don’t remember seeing a street lamp the first
time we drove down this road.”
“That’s
because you weren’t looking for it.”
“There
it is!” Tommy has climbed in between us and is pointing through the windshield.
I
pass the first left after the light and then turn at the second one. And we
drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And
drive…
“That’s
it,” Tex yells as he presses the button on his door to roll the window down.
“I’m throwing the directions out the window!”
“No!!!!!!”
I yell, reaching for the piece of paper as I press the button on my door to
roll the window back up.
The
window goes up a bit and then down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. I wrestle
with Tex until I rip half the paper out of his hand—the bottom half! “Go
ahead,” I say. “Throw it out the window. See if I care.”
Tex
throws it out but when he goes to roll the window back up, it won’t budge. “You
broke the window,” he says.
“I broke the window? You broke the window!”
“It
doesn’t matter who broke the window,” Tommy says. “The only thing that matters
is that it’s freezing back here new.”
“That’s
what you get for giving us bad directions,” I say as I roll my window down to
add to his misery.
“Holy
shit!” Tex says. “An arch.”
“Just
like the one in St. Louis,” Tommy adds.
“Ha!”
I laugh. “Aren’t you glad we still have the bottom half of the directions?”
I
take a left after the arch and then a right and then a left and then another
right. After a while I spot a giant gas station—the largest I’ve ever seen in
my life. I swing a left and pull Suzy Q up to the nearest pump.
“What
are you doing?” Tex asks. “The Dairy Queen Queen specifically told us not to
stop here.”
“Well,
we’re running on fumes, so unless you want to push her the rest of the way,
we’re going to have stop. Plus, earlier you didn’t believe a word the Queen
told us.”
“I’m
a different man now.”
“Come
on, it’s only 87 cents a gallon. Where could we possibly go wrong?”
Suddenly,
out of nowhere, a large Native American man is standing next to my window,
which scares the hell out of all of us. “How much?” he asks.
“Excuse
me?”
“How
much gas do you want?”
I
realize that we’re on the reservation and that here they pump the gas for us. I
hand him a ten dollar bill and pull the lever to pop the little door to the gas
tank open. He walks back and pours the
gas. As soon as he pulls the nozzle out, I pull away. A few seconds later Tommy
starts yelling. “He’s after us! Drive!”
I
look into the rearview mirror to see the Native American man sprinting towards
the car.
“She
told us not to stop,” Tex screams.
“Hit
the gas!” Tommy yells. “Faster!”
But
it’s too late. The man is pounding on the back of the car, and I’m afraid if I
turn around I might run him over. So I stop. He walks up to the window, clearly
out of breath. “You drove away,” he says, “before I put the cap back on.”
“Sorry,”
I say.
“Idiots,”
he mumbles as he puts the cap back on.
Another
few miles down the road and we pass a sign that reads: “Welcome to Chautauqua
Lake.” We finally made it.
“The
Queen of the Dairy Queen,” I say with a smile.
“What
about her?” Tommy asks.
“If
I could sleep with one girl on Earth, it would be the Queen of the Dairy Queen.
She obviously knows what she’s doing.”
“Don’t
get too far ahead of yourself,” Tex says. “Tommy here still has to get us to
Mike Smith’s house.”
“It’s
right there,” Tommy says.
We
pull into the drive, get out of the car, and knock on the door. A middle-aged
man answers.
“Is
Mike home?” I ask.
“Mike’s
grounded,” he snaps. “Just go home.”
“But
we just drove four hours to get here.”
The
man lets out a sigh and yells for Mike before disappearing into the house.
“What
are you guys doing here?” Mike asks when he gets to the door.
“Came
down to get drunk with you,” Tex says. “You know, at your dad’s bar.”
“My
dad sold that bar years ago.”
Tex
and I look at Tommy in frustration. “Well, let’s go out anyway,” I say. “There
must be somewhere around here to get booze.”
“It’s
one in the morning,” Mike says. “Plus, I’m grounded.”
“What
do you mean, you’re grounded?” Tex asks “Your eighteen years old. We just
graduated high school. How can you be grounded?”
Mike’s
eyes wander down to his feet. “Well, I didn’t exactly graduate. Sorry guys.
I’ve got to go.”
The
door shuts in our faces.
“Now
what?” I ask.
“There’s
still the girls that Tommy knows,” Tex says.
We
look at Tommy and his eyes too suddenly wander down to his feet.
“You’ve
got to be fucking kidding me,” I say.
To be Continued...
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