Tuesday morning, August 4th 7:00am
Tom pulls up in front of Paul’s apartment building. He gets out and rings Paul’s bell. A voice comes over the intercom,
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?” Tom says with a beaming grin intact.
The muffled sound of nervous laughter squeaks out of the speaker.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted to do anything more than this” Tom says. They both laugh.
“I’ll be right down.”
Tom returns to the car and starts it up. Moments later Paul appears in a casual two piece suit with a spare suit over one shoulder and a duffel bag over the other. Tom pops the trunk and the sound of glass clinking together is heard as he deposits the duffel. He gets in.
“What is in that bag? It sounds like a bag of Pyrex cookware or something.” Tom asks half in anticipatory wonder and half in accusatory judgement.
“Tom, if I’m too make it through this next week I may need to be slightly inebriated for a portion or let’s face it ALL of the time so I brought as the add suggested ‘a personal amount of alcohol’.”
“Paul that is a full military duffel bag, what percentage of it is alcohol?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Ok, what is in that bag besides alcohol?”
“Four undershirts, six pair of socks, six pair of underwear.”
“Oh my God. Did you even bring a toothbrush?” Tom is frightened and amused all at once.
“No Tom, I want to fit in.”
“Paul, I brought make up for that.”
“I don’t know if I want to fit in that bad.”
They laugh in unison at the ridiculousness of the whole endeavor as Tom pulls away from the curb and the journey begins.
“I got the passes and amulets in the glove box. It should take us about 16 to 17 hours to make it to Pastor Josh’s place. If we drive strait through that puts us there at midnight. He and his wife agreed to let us have the master and guest bedrooms as they will take the pull out couch. My lady friend packed us some snacks and sandwiches and in preparation, I stopped by the record store and picked up this garbage.” Tom holds up a copy of The Great Milenko and hands it to Paul. Paul inserts the disk.
45 seconds later…
The cd flies from the passenger window as the case flies from the drivers side window.
“That was a bad idea.” Tom says regretfully.
“I can’t decide weather to vomit or cry.” Paul is visibly shaken and pulls a full flask from inside his jacket and proceeds to empty it into his face. Meanwhile Tom puts ‘Living with the Living’ in the cd player.
“Are we really doing this?” Tom asks with a quiet apprehension. Paul stares strait ahead into the middle distance.
“Tom, there’s no turning back now.” Paul says ominously. The intro to The Sons of Cain comes over the speakers, Tom turns it up and they listen as they both settle in and try to and prepare themselves for whatever may befall them in the near future.
Over the course of the next 16 hours they talk, they laugh, they eat snacks and sandwiches, Paul drinks a half rack of Little Kings that he had on his person stashed in various pockets. They arrive at Pastor Josh’s home at 11:30. He and his wife are warm and accommodating. There beds are made up and there is a warm meal of pot roast, potatoes, carrots and homemade cornbread and honey-butter as well as a bottle of red wine. Tom and Paul are physically exhausted but their minds are racing with a heavy mixture of excitement and at this point full blown terror. They eat and make small talk about the road trip. The food is delicious and after Pastor Josh’s wife turns in. The guys stay up for a few hours talking about music, films, The Best Show, and just about everything else except the thing that brought them together on this particular evening… The Gathering of the Juggalos.
