Somebody should always know where you are even when you're not quite sure. This is a theory I subscribe to, especially when I find myself doing the unexpected; like taking a trip I hadn't intended to take on a night not fit for driving any distance beyond the miles it takes to just get home.
I was in Amsterdam, pulled up at a drive through window paying the clerk for my blueberry coffee with one hand and holding my cell phone in the other, Brenda's voice buzzing in my ear.
- I'm checking in, I say, the sound of my voice tired and gravelly from a not gotten over yet cold. Just stopping for coffee and gas. I'll call you back after I'm back on the road, I tell her hanging up.
At the gas station, I keep to the outside edge beneath the lights, not as close to the store as I would normally be, choosing instead to avoid a small group of people loitering outside their doors. My eyes dart between the numbers adding up on the pump, and the loiterers with their music cranked up and their pants near down to their knees as new sounds drifting in from across the street draw my eyes outward into the night outlining the silhouettes of three people stumbling in the darkness towards my side of the road.
The tank isn't full yet but I consider leaving, estimating the amount of time it will take for these new hazards to reach where I am, to how long it will take for my receipt to print and to get inside my car where I can be safely locked inside. Alone in a place I've only been in long enough to just pass through, I err on the side of safety, and make myself ready to go.
It takes two hours of solid travel time to get from here to there. Amsterdam is my one hour mark. I pick up the phone to call Brenda back, setting it on speaker so I can drive hands free in accordance with the laws of New York State. (FYI…Mom.)
- I can't talk long I say even before I say hello. It's foggy out and I can barely see and some asshole behind me is riding my tail like I'm his Seeing Eye dog and my nerves are completely shot just trying to figure out where the road is and where it isn't and I've got to call you back because I'm got to concentrate on my driving, I manage to say all in one breath, I'll call you again when I reach the Northway.
These are my rules. They are quite simple. Someone must always know where I am at all times. Even if it's only to say, I last talked to her here when she was there. When I think about it, it's kind of funny this neurosis of mine. And even as I wonder what it means to be so fearful of getting lost or simply just disappearing from a place where once you were, the answer itself waves to me from the backseat of my car.
I know why and for me that's more than enough.
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