spun joint.
“John, how would I know to ask? Should I just randomly throw questions out there and see which ones stick?”
John’s eyebrows were knitted together as he thought on my words.
“Okay…for instance, do you have a helicopter?” I asked him.
“Of course.”
“Wait, what? Are you kidding me?”
“Why would I do that? Kid, I mean. I have a Safari two-seater kit helicopter.”
“Okay I’m going to try and hit the pertinent points all in one shot. First, does it work?”
“Yup.”
“Second, can you fly it?”
“Yup.”
“Wait…real quick…so you don’t have a license to drive your van, but you have whatever license it takes to fly a helicopter?”
“A lot more people on the roadways than in the air,” he answered.
“Got me there. On to the bonus round where the right answers are worth double.”
“Excellent I love the bonus round,” John said excitedly. “So how many points are we talking about?”
“The sky’s the limit!” I said, going along with his madness.
He paused for a moment. “I get it! Because it flies!”
“That’ll work, hey, John the Tripper, can I shorten your name up to Trip?”
“Is this still the bonus round?”
“Added bonus maybe.”
John’s lip started to quiver a bit.
“You alright, man?” I asked him.
“That’s what my wife calls me. I miss her, man.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad feelings.”
“Naw, it’s cool,” he told me. “You can call me Trip, it helps me to remember.”
“She’s not really in Washington is she, Trip?”
“No.” He buried his face in his hands. “It’s worse.”
“We’ve all lost people we love, Trip. There’s no shame in showing it,” I said, standing so that I could rub his shoulder.
“She’s in Philly,” he sobbed.
“Trip, what the hell are you talking about?”
“My wife, she’s not in Washington she’s in Philly.” His wails started anew.
“I’m confused, man,” I told him.
“The City of Brotherly Love, how can you not know about it?”
“I know about Philly, and I’m not sure why that’s such bad news. It’s actually good because she’s that much closer.”
“She is? I figured Philly was another country, you know ‘PA’ for Panama.”
“It’s more like ‘PA’ for Pennsylvania.” I hastily drew a rough representation of the United States and the states in question. John’s face was beginning to register the new information. I desperately wanted to get home, but his wife was not entirely out of the way and I would feel better if he had company. I shuddered thinking of him stopping to ask some ‘funkies’ for directions.
“Want to go get her?”
“More than anything, followed closely by seeing Jerry Garcia.”
I didn’t tell him that our odds were better of seeing Jerry than his wife. “Let’s do it then, back to the helicopter.”
“Bonus round,” he sniffed.
“Bonus round,” I echoed. “Can we get to it, or is it in Philly or D.C., too?” I asked, trying for some levity.
“Asheville Regional Airport, it’s about twenty-five miles from here.”
“So not Philly then, that’s good.”
“What’d I win?” he asked expectantly.
“An all expenses paid trip to Rocky’s hometown.”
“The squirrel?”
“What? No not Rocky and Bullwinkle. Rocky the boxer.”
John was slowly shaking his head from side to side.
“Sylvester Stallone, famous series of movies.”
“Never heard of them.”
“How about the home of the Cheesesteak?”
“Who puts cheese on a steak?”
“You’re killing me. The City of Brotherly love, man, we’re going to go get your wife.”
“Wow, that’s awesome! What a great prize to win!” he said, clapping his hands.
I had to admit, it was nice to not be the craziest person in a group, but I wasn’t really sure what footing that left us on…if any. “We’re going to need another car. Any chance you got one waiting somewhere?”
“No, and it’s not much fun going out the other side.”
“So that hole does lead out then?” I asked, pointing to the other side of the cavern.
“It longer and narrower than the one we came in from.”
“You’re kidding, right?” But I already knew the answer. John wasn’t much of a kidder. Right now, asking the ‘funkies’ to move seemed like a better option. “Maybe we could widen it,” I said.
“It’s carved through rock, that one’s natural.”
I was already starting to breathe heavily and we weren’t even in the damn thing yet. “Trip, I don’t know. I have this thing about tight places.”
“It’s just like being born.” He smiled.
“I don’t remember what it was like to be born, Trip.”
“You don’t? I thought everyone did. Well it’s just like it! No sense in thinking about it… you ready?”
“Not fucking really,” I said, starting to work on a world class panic attack.
“It’ll be fun,” he said as he went over to a large plastic storage bin. He pulled out a small drum-shaped container.
At first I couldn’t register what he was doing; my legs were bobbing up and down so fast I couldn’t focus on anything. Then he started to grab big handfuls of the white substance and starting at his tin foil hat, began to apply liberal amounts over his whole body.
“Can you get my back?” John asked me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Lard, it simulates the fluids in the placenta.”
“I think you’re taking this a little too far,” I told him.
“First time I went through there I almost got stuck. As it was, it took me four hours to get through. It goes by a lot quicker with the lard.”
“Trip, I can’t be in that hole for four hours! I’m bigger than you, how am I going to fit? Just go, get your wife, I’ll stay here until the zombies leave and go back up through the cabin.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
Relief flowed through my system, but co-mingled with it was despair. I would be alone.
“Let’s have one last lunch together,” John said as he wiped his hands clean of the heavy lubricant and dipped back into his storage bin; he grabbed a couple of MRE’s and some chemical packets to heat them up. Within a few minutes, my packet of corned beef and hash was piping hot. I grabbed the closed (and sealed) packet from him before he had a chance to open it.
“If you don’t stir it around some it of stays cold.” He said as he popped a soda and handed it to me.
“I’ll do it,” I said with a shudder, his hands getting entirely too close to my food, even if there was nuclear safe material between him and the sustenance. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He grabbed his food, stirred it around, and began to eat heartily.
