Who Wants To Go For a Ride?
One night, my friend and I went to a party where we knew absolutely no one. I have no idea how we got there, but I was bored to tears until I met the guy with the red Jeep.
In my memory, he will always be “the guy with the red Jeep.” He had a Southern drawl, unkempt curls and a crooked smile and I have no idea what his name might have been. But he had a red Jeep Wrangler with a convertible roof and it was beautiful outside.
Sometime after the sun went down, the guy with the red Jeep said, “This party’s lame! Who wants to go for a ride?” And he looked right at me. So my friend and I hopped into the Jeep, along with a handful of strangers, and off we went. As we pulled out of the driveway I thought, Gee, I wonder how I’ll get home. Then I forgot about “home.”
We drove a ways, then careened off-road and drove down into the woods. Driving off-road meant we could all stand up in the Jeep, which we did – hanging onto the roll bar, hooting and hollering and bouncing way up into the air with every bump.
In the woods, there are a ton of bumps. We rode and we rode and we hooted and we hollered and we all had a great time. And then, quite suddenly, we drove into a muddy ditch and … the Jeep. Just. Stopped.
We all barreled out over the sides without opening any doors, laughing and cavorting and waving around what was left of our very spilled beers.
We all continued to laugh, until the guy with the red Jeep started to yell at us. It had occurred to him that he might not ever get the Jeep out of that ditch, and that we weren’t helping the issue. All the fun immediately drained from the evening as everyone started pushing and pulling and trying to figure out how to get the Jeep out of the ditch.
We got very muddy but it wouldn’t budge.
Someone must have taken Physics because he looked at the quicksand-textured ground and said, “If we could put something under the tires, they wouldn’t just spin around in the mud like that.” So we searched for big branches and eventually found one big enough to put under the tires for traction. The Jeep moved a little, then a little more, and with some more pushing the Jeep finally lurched from the ditch.
The ride back to the party was substantially less fun. There was no more hooting or hollering, and we all sat squashed together in the seats. When we got back, the guy with the red Jeep put the roof back on his very muddy vehicle, then he drove us home.
I was silent in the back seat, and very very cold. Even with the roof on and the heat blasting, there was no way to stop my shivering. The guy with the red Jeep let me wear his coat but I was freezing. Many years passed before I learned that withdrawal from alcohol causes the exact same kind of shaking.
It was almost dawn when I climbed into bed, finally, sincerely grateful to be alive.