One Night in the Asphalt

"We have plenty of time before the sun goes down" I said to one of my class mates who was concerned about it getting too dark out. It was 4:30 pm when we started the extra-credit assignment the professor had given us. While we worked on this "no time-limit" project, he sipped his coffee and enjoyed his long Stephen King's novel. Me and Jenny had grown impatient on how long it was taking us to complete it, and it didn't dawn on us how quick the time would fly. Before we knew it, it was already 7:35 PM and the sun had set.

Jenny had the look of horror on her face, but we were both terrified about driving at night and wanted to get out of class ASAP. I was lucky enough to only live about 3 miles away but she needed to take a long freeway home at peak hours.

We handed our project to the teacher and me and Jenny bolted out as if we could somehow escape the inevitable darkness that would creep in.

"We're both goners" Jenny said.

I joined her walking to parking lot L where our cars were parked.

"Watch out for the ninjas" she warned. "You know those joggers and bicyclist that wear all black and sort of catch you off guard when you're turning?".

"Oh! Yeah there's a lot of them on my block" I laughed.

"Well, see you next week, Miguel. Good luck!" 

Our experiences were very similar, we seldom found ourselves driving except from college and home during the day. Sometimes when I felt daring I'd make the trip with my brother a few miles out of the way to FuncoLand. My entire life centered around a 5 mile radius.

Today marked my first time driving at night from the campus. I had barely gotten my license about a year ago. In those early awkward driving years, I would even refuse to play music too loudly because I felt it somehow cut off from my concentration. I needed to watch the roads around me scrupulously. That was my bad habit of over thinking and over analyzing.

I drove down a main street heading to my home and reminded myself to not forget making a right on Pine Ave. Then a car cut me off and I had gotten distracted.

"Don't forget Pine Ave. Do not forget Pine Ave!" I repeated to myself.

I made an effort to stare at every street sign I passed to make sure, but I couldn't find it after driving a while.

In dramatic fashion, I ended up missing it and the main street had merged into a major busy highway. I was upset for being so inattentive and scared I wouldn't be able to exit before getting too far out from where I lived. Unfortunately, the surrounding speeding vehicles forced me to stay in my lane for a couple of miles. Then I quickly turned on my headlights realizing I had been driving with them off for a few minutes. I was a mess that night.

After driving what felt like an eternity with fruitless attempts to escape the doomsday I created for myself, I finally ended up exiting to the city of Inglewood. I had briefly recognized it from years ago and knew it was a little ways out than what I was familiar with. The city smelled overwhelmingly like airport runway fuel and the traffic there seemed to move at a frenetic pace. 

I waved my arms desperately trying to alert a vehicle at a red light.

"Hey! Hey! Excuse me!".

A bald man slowly rolled down his window to turn to me.

"Do you know how I can get to Bellflower?!" I yelled out through the noise pollution of his music blaring.

He turned to me wearing his shades at night for some reason, his chestnut brown Rottweiler in the back poking his head out and growling aggressively at me.

"You're a long way from home, Ese", he said and rolled his windows back up.

I wasn't sure how to decipher that advice but, at least I knew I wasn't close, I guess. I kept trying to stop anyone I could find walking in the sidewalks at night. Obviously they kept walking refusing to talk to a weird dark vehicle trailing behind crying out for their attention. The next few attempts, I went pleading to taxi drivers and gas station clerks, but nobody seemed to know where my city was. A tribulation of living in a crappy humdrum of a place.

One friendly homeless woman was kind enough to give me directions. As if I was paying for them, I offered her all the money in my pockets. Eight dollars was a lot of money for a 17-year old without work experience, but I felt it was well earned. I was happy to get pointed in the right direction.

The directions unfortunately were more freeways I thought I could take in the moment. She had left and I had a change of heart. I decided I didn't want to get into them again. At this time I desperately wished for a compass of all things because I knew I had lived south and I was stuck doing circles in random cities.

I kept driving towards the direction I thought it might be, having found myself in a dark gas station in Compton where I spotted a payphone booth dimly lit. The street lights seem to flicker on and off like a horror movie. Maybe it was worth getting murdered to stop this endless loop. I had quarters in my pockets to use and called our home landline to beg someone to pick me up. No answer. So, I had left a voicemail.

"Please. Please, someone pick up. I'm in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how to get back, I see a street that has 18th street on it, a gas station named S-Mart and- " The beep tone cut me off.

"Great..." I slammed the phone. "And no more quarters".

I waited for a call back for 5 minutes, but I could hear the police sirens already buzzing from a distance in pitch dark neighborhoods. In my head I thought I would surely get stabbed before anyone came to my rescue. I walked back in my car and drove out of there speedily, exhausted and angry at myself for not owning a flip phone. 

When I had finally given up, I went back to try another gas station. One man had finally recognized my city and suggested a residential street I could take the whole way. I thanked him a hundred times and felt an overwhelming sensation of relief. I quickly followed the road and had found my way home.

My brother and sister had found the recording and laughed their asses off when I got home. They told me our parents went to the casino that day so they wouldn't be home until around 3 am. My siblings had gone out to see a movie that night in the mall so barely had gotten home before me around 11:45 pm.

I deleted the voice mail and pretended it never happened. I was just happy to make it home in one piece. My parents had made us promise we'd be home by 8:30 pm that night. I guess we were never going to make it.