On the Road with Bighorn

A couple of hours before midnight, I was deeply engaged in my most beloved hobby – I was parked on the couch, one hand scrolling through Facebook, the other deep in a bag of Lays, with a Seinfeld episode in the background. It was Fusilli Jerry, I think. I wasn’t paying too much attention. It was my zillionth Seinfeld binge, and at this point I pretty much have that show memorized.

Since the pandemic brought upon my untimely termination (doesn’t that sound better than “got axed”?), I was able to focus on my favorite hobby a lot more. In fact, in those many months at home, I have pretty much mastered it. I can watch a show, have an comments-section argument, demolish a pack of Oreos and chug a forty almost simultaneously. I would win the argument, too, in most cases, though the people I’d argue with never seemed to realize when they’d lost.

I wasn’t arguing during Fusilli Jerry – or was it the doorman episode? – I was hatescrolling and scowling at that annoying new Facebook trend. It seemed like every single person on earth did the #resolutions_2020 “challenge” (what a liberal interpretation of the word). People essentially posted the list of resolutions they had made for 2020 and wrote how they achieved them despite the pandemic. Stuff like “couldn’t join the gym like I wanted, so I started jogging” or “lockdowns are actually helpful when you want to get into baking lol.” Infuriating.

When the episode ended and the next autoplayed, I paused it. All these posts reminded me that I had made resolutions a year ago too. It had been an hour before midnight, and I had never looked at them again. I didn’t even remember what they were, so I decided to investigate. I opened the notes app – where I keep all of my important reminder, such as “out of Cheetos” or “told mom I got a telemarketing job” – and scrolled though all the garbage until I reached that list.

I’ll be honest, reading it brought some moisture to my eye. These resolutions described a completely different person. A cooler, more interesting, happier person. I haven’t fulfilled a single one. Frankly, I never even tried. Right then and there, with my feet on the coffee table and crumbs all over my beer belly, I made a decision – I will not end 2020 without completing one item on the list.

“Get in shape” was impossible; you can’t get in shape in an hour. If there was a way to do that, I would have found it by now. You can always trust me to find the path of least resistance. “Learn Spanish” and “learn to play guitar” were similarly eliminated. I haven’t even bought a guitar. “Get a girlfriend” – yeah right.

Surprisingly enough, the only goal that was in any way tenable was “visit a different country.” I obviously couldn’t fly anywhere in the time left (not that many countries let Americans in now, anyway), but I thought that if I set sunrise as my deadline instead of midnight, I might be able to make it to the Mexican border. It would be close, but Google Maps put the drive to El Paso at under nine hours, and with a seven-a.m. sunrise, I could make it with as much as an hour to spare. Would they let me through the border? No idea, but one problem at a time.

Having decided to go, I jumped off the couch and got dressed. No time for a shower; deodorant would have to do. I ran down to the car and drove straight to the nearest gas station, letting the attendant gas up while I stocked on water and snacks for the trip. With that done I was ready, and for the first time in months, excited. I think I was actually smiling. I got in my trusty 2010 Honda Civic and stepped on the pedal. By ten p.m., Colorado Springs was but a glimmer in my rearview mirror.

*

I was already in New Mexico at midnight, having just passed the town of Maxwell. I blew a party horn I had bought at the gas station and shouted “happy new year!”

I then choked on my spit and dropped the horn when a man appeared in my headlights, thumb raised for a ride. My heart skipped a beat. A serial killer, I thought. What other reason would he have to stand in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night?

I made sure the doors were locked and stepped on the gas. I was doing ninety when I passed him. Just then, my engine choked and stopped. “Damnit!” I yelled. “Not now!” It had died on me a few times before, though always at a stoplight. I knew I should have gone to the shop, I thought.

The car slowly cruised to a stop. I didn’t break; I wanted to put some distance between me and the psycho. When it finally halted, perhaps a mile down the road, I tried to restart the engine. Nothing.

Great, I thought. This is why I never leave the house. At least I had plenty of snacks to last me till morning. They would have to since I couldn’t get a signal out there. Someone would pass eventually, I thought. No reason to panic.

There was a knock on my passenger side window. Mortified, I looked and saw the serial killer. I checked the locks again and signaled him to leave. He waved at me with a smile and signaled me to roll down the window. I shook my head, and he gave me a lopsided smile, the kind Jerry would give George whenever he said something stupid.

I signaled him to leave again. He opened the door, and I stopped breathing. I was too scared to wonder how he could open a locked door. Looking back at it now, it doesn’t surprise me in the least. “Howdy!” He said, peeking inside. “Having some engine problems, are we?”

I wanted to tell him to leave me alone but couldn’t speak. “You got a real deer in the headlights look there, fella. Don’t worry, I ain’t no danger. I’m here to help.”

“Who-“ I managed to eek out.

“Who am I? My name’s Austin Thomas Farmingdale, but you can call me Bighorn. It’s a long story but a good one.”

“Wha… Wha…”

“What am I doing here?” He laughed. “Man, I got no doggone idea. I just go where the wind takes me, you know? Today it decided to blow me to this here stretch of desert.”

My initial panic died down quickly. There was something about him that calmed me, almost like he was exuding Xanax. I thought it must be his relaxed and friendly demeanor. Now I suspect it was something more. “How did you get here?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. Walkin’, runnin’, drivin’, ridin’, how does anyone get anywhere?”

I accepted the cryptic non-answer without protest. I didn’t actually care in that moment where he came from. A new wave of panic washed over me, over the ease with which I let my guard down, but that worry evaporated quickly as well. It was almost like my brain was hardwired to trust him.

“Driving works,” I said. “Get in before you freeze your nose off.”

“Much obliged, fella.” He got in and closed the door. I turned the interior lighting on so I could see him properly. He had pale green eyes and a dark goatee, and was wearing the most random assortment of clothes I had ever seen; Vans, slacks, a red polo shirt, a denim jacket, a straw boater hat with a blue feather tucked in the hatband. A large button was pinned on his jacket, depicting a ram head with flowers – roses, I think – growing around its horns like vines.

“No problem,” I said, “though we won’t get far like this. My engine gave up on me.”

“I’m sure it’ll play nice. What do you say, old girl?” He patted the dashboard. “Will you be so kind as to give us a turn? This fine fella here has a long way to go and he needs your help, hon.”

I chuckled and said “let’s see if she listened.” I turned the key almost jokingly. The engine immediately roared to life. “Wow, you’re like the car whisperer,” I said.

“Cars like me, man. Dunno why, never asked.”

I turned off the interior lighting and pulled out of the margin. “Where do you need to go?” I asked.

“You go where you like,” he said, “I’ll get off when I need to.”

“You are a mysterious man, Bighorn,” I said.

“I am?”

“Yes,” I said. “You don’t share; you keep your cards close to the chest.”

“I don’t play cards,” he said. “I can’t share what I ain’t got. I don’t bother with the whats and the whys and the wheres. What I need to know, I know, and where I need to go, I go.” I don’t know why this answer satisfied me, but it did.

*

We drove on, chatting all the way. In retrospect I realize we weren’t having a conversation, so much as I was talking and he was responding. He never told me anything about himself, only listened to my boring stories – with surprisingly genuine interest – and responded with stuff like “ain’t no thing but a chicken wing” or “that musta dilled your pickle din’t it?”

He never asked a question, either. When he made a comment, it always seemed like he was helping me tell the story rather than hearing it for the first time. Like when I told him about getting fired; I said “my boss called and said ‘the whole work from home thing isn’t really working for us, and you know we aren’t making nearly as much money as before the pandemic.’”

Then Bighorn said “I bet he told you he was sorry, cuz you’re a friend and all, but he had to let you go, din’t he?” and he was right, that’s almost exactly what my boss said. It may not sound like much, every rational person could probably tell where that story was going, but I could tell Bighorn wasn’t just guessing.

About four a.m. we made our first and last stop (interestingly enough, in a small town called Corona). I hated stopping but my bladder was on the verge of bursting. I also thought it would give Bighorn the chance to leave if he wanted to, though I hoped he wouldn’t. At this point I considered that strange, disheveled man one of my closest friends, and I didn’t even care that I didn’t know anything about him.

When I got back to the car, I found him exactly where I left him. He hadn’t opened the door. He hadn’t even unbuckled his seatbelt. I got in and said asked if he was ready to go. “As ready as a can of Campbell’s,” he said.

I laughed, started the car and left the rest stop, and Corona, behind. I feel silly now for having assigned this a symbolic meaning (especially since the pandemic is still raging), but at the time, it felt like a cosmic confluence – Corona was behind me and the sunrise was ahead of me. The future is mine, I thought. I will make it to Mexico in time and achieve my goal, and that will be the first success of the best year of my life.

*

We crossed the Texas state line at six-thirty and entered El Paso soon after. It was a tight race against the sun – it hadn’t risen yet, but the black night sky had already turned to the pale yellow and blue of dawn. “You better decide where you want to drop off,” I told Bighorn as we passed a sign directing to the border. “I’m crossing into Mexico and you don’t look like you carry a passport.”

“When it’s time, it’s time,” he said. I didn’t give it much more thought than that. He’s a grown man, I thought, he’ll leave when he wants to. The later the better.

I missed a couple turns inside El Paso but managed to make it to the Paso del Norte port of entry in time. At ten minutes to seven, fifteen minutes before when Google said the sun would rise, I pulled over next to a closed seafood restaurant called Casa del Mar. The border was no more than five hundred feet ahead, and even though we were still in Texas, most signs on the street were in Spanish.

“Last stop, buddy,” I said. “This train is leaving the country.” It suddenly occurred to me that, even though I had already told him pretty much everything that happened to me from dropping my ice cream at the age of three all the way up to my trip to WalMart two days ago, I still hadn’t told him why I was out here.

He didn’t make a move to exit the car. “Why are you goin’ down there?” he asked. It was his first question in seven hours. I gave him the short version of the story, mindful of the clock. Like before, he had the expression of someone who already knew the story he was hearing. When I was done, he was silent for a moment, then said “that’s an idea.”

“You don’t approve?” I asked.

“Seems to me,” he said, “those resolutions ain’t for checkin’ boxes like a grocery list, but to do somethin’ real in your life. What’s you goin’ to do in Mexico?”

“I- I don’t know,” I admitted. “Honestly, I was probably just going to cross over and make a U-turn, go back home.”

“Checkin’ boxes,” he said.

“What the hell do you know about it?” I shouted. I wasn’t angry, not really; I was hurt that my friend looked down on my – admittedly not thoroughly fleshed out – idea. “You’re just a drifter, what do you know about goals? About dreams? You don’t know anything.”

“What I need to know I know,” he said, “what I don’t I don’t.”

I looked ahead so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “It’s time you leave,” I said. “I don’t have much time left.”

“I’m gone like a piece of paper in the snow,” he said. I didn’t hear the seatbelt click or the door open, but when I looked, he wasn’t there.

What the- I really hope I didn’t imagine him, I thought, and saw the dashboard clock. Seven minutes. I’ll deal with that later. I put the car into gear and put my foot on the gas pedal but didn’t press it. There was a voice whispering in my head. It wasn’t Bighorn’s voice, but it wasn’t exactly mine, either. How will those five hundred feet change your life? If you crossed over and turned back, how would your life be any different than if you turn around right here and now?

I will have completed a resolution, I thought.

But wouldn’t that be cheating? I thought. It’ll just be-

“Checkin’ a box,” I heard through the open window. I looked over and saw Bighorn leaning on the restaurant wall. His boater hat was in his hand, revealing a shaved head.

“You’re right, Bighorn. This is pointless. This isn’t the way.”

“Good on you,” he said. “What you gon’ do then?”

“I’ll start by going home,” I said.

Bighorn smiled. He put his hat back on, straightened it, and snapped his fingers.

*

My phone chimed. I woke up, startled. I was on the couch, covered in crumbs. Seinfeld was paused on the TV. I checked the phone. It was seven a.m.

The notification was a text from my mother reading “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Was that all a dream? I thought, even though I knew the answer. It was real. I knew it was.

I put on a T-shirt and went downstairs to check the car. I thought I would have to check the odometer for proof, but I didn’t. The party horn I had bought and blew at midnight was on the dashboard, for one. There was a better clue on the passenger seat – a large button depicting a ram head, covered with roses. I smiled and pinned the button to my shirt.

He was real, and he was out there. “What I need to know I know,” he had said, “and where I need to go I go.” He wasn’t kidding; he knew everything about me, I’m convinced of that, even if he never showed it. And he was right where I needed him, not to teach me a lesson, but to nudge me in the direction I already knew was the right one. He knew what he needed to, went where he had to go, and was who he needed to be, for me. I wonder where – who – he is now, and for whom.

I went back up, brushed my teeth, and pulled out an old notebook – a remnant from my last job – and a blue ballpoint pen. I sat down to write the account you are reading right now. I don’t think I can ever forget the drive to El Paso (especially with the souvenir Bighorn so kindly left me), but you never know. When this is done, I have to do some thinking about 2021. I won’t be making resolutions, though; I’ll be making a plan.

But I might watch one last episode first. I can tell by that paused frame that this is the one where Jerry almost kills Mr. Pitt; it’s one of my favorites.