Day 2 of 3

Day 2 of 3

                After my Dad called, we packed up all of our stuff and got on the road, but not before Sam wanted to roll another blunt and smoke it with Kelly.  I took a hit as well, of course, but I was interested in seeing how far we could get that day.  It had begun to dawn on me that my speed would be drastically reduced from the rate I had managed the previous week. 

                I don’t remember much about the drive that day.  We did make surprisingly good progress though, looking at the distance between Harrisburg and Natural Bridge, VA on an online map.  But like I said, I remember practically nothing about the drive that day.  It was smooth.  We followed each other well.  We agreed about all of our pre-determined stops.  I think there may have been a moment where I stopped at a gas station and waited for Sam and Kelly to arrive for about forty-five minutes and became extremely impatient, but that might have even been the previous day.  Our time together was so abbreviated, it all seems to blend into one long day, almost.

                I do remember one thing about the previous evening, at that motel room in Harrisburg.  I had broken out my camcorder, and was watching a twenty or twenty-five minute video taken some six and a half years earlier.  It was of my play—what I frequently tell people is the proudest moment of my life, as pathetic as it may seem—Four Hours in Avalon, the only student-written one act in our high school that year.  About a teacher and a student hooking up.  About an illegal affair.  I wrote it when I was seventeen and it was staged right before I turned eighteen so I felt it appropriate to maintain an ambiguous attitude towards the subject matter.  It was only performed for one night, to a very filled house, (because that was the only night tickets were free—it was the “dress rehearsal” night) and according to my sister, Meredith, everyone thought my play was far and away the best.  It may have just been for its titillating low-brow romance novel-style entertainment or its Lolita-esque approach to potentially off-putting material.  In any case, I was very happy that people in my dorm seemed to congratulate me for writing it, and congratulated their more popular friend, Mike, for doing such a great job in the lead role, despite having little or no acting experience himself.

                After I watched this tape and marveled at my own past promise, I took a short video of Sam and Kelly and talked to them about the road trip.  I may have mentioned what happened to my brother or I may have ignored it and surreptitiously tried to suggest what happened through roundabout discussions of the “craziness” of the last few days.  In any case this is the only document of that evening.  Perhaps later I will transcribe the audio and give a description of the video in the space below this paragraph.