Self Portrait Part 4: Road Trip.

Self Portrait is a four-part serial short story based on experiences described in my “Street Cred” series.

←——#1: Coffee Black.
←——#2: Unh huh. Unh huh.
←——#3: There you go asking questions again.

Podcast of entire story:

“I think I’ll drive Virgil part way home in December.”

It was the first time Bridget had said it out loud, although the idea had been pinballing around in her brain for weeks. She was sitting with her friend Tyler, a late-night musician and early-morning bread baker, at their regular bar on the corner of Main and Spruce. Bridget was drinking a Martini with a touch of Campari. He was drinking white wine. They didn’t need to order. They just sat down at their table in the corner and Chelsea brought their drinks over. Bridget once invited Virgil to join them there, but he’d looked at her like she’d asked if he wanted to go to the Ritz.

“Which part way?" Tyler asked. "Like to the Springfield train station?"

"I was thinking more like New York. Penn Station."

"Alone? Bridget, that ain’t going to happen…”

“Why not? If he were a hitchhiker, I’d pick him up.”

“Thirty years ago, you would have maybe.

“Well, it’d be interesting. And don’t tell me it’d be dangerous.”

“No. I wouldn't worry about Virgil hurting you. As long as he wasn't shit-faced drunk. But what are you going to do for four hours—five hours with traffic—in a car with a guy who won’t let you ask questions?"

“Well, I’d insist on that!” She laughed. “He’ll probably just get stoned and stare out the window the whole time anyway.”

Tyler knew it was a pipe dream. Bridget kinda knew it was too. She didn't dare tell him she was thinking of driving him further than that. Maybe Philly.

“Get someone to go with you. I would but I can’t that time of year. Family.”

“You think I need to take a guy, right?” she challenged.

“Not necessarily,” Tyler said. She should know him better than to think he’d go there. “Take Barb. You could go Thelma and Louise on old Virgil.”

“Why Barb?”

“She does Tae Kwon Do.”

“Virgil is not dangerous,” she insisted.

"Yeah? Well, at least go buy a few cans of pepper spray. I'm serious, Bridget."

Responses from other friends ranged from, “Bridget, you’re out of your mind,” to “I don’t know, Bridget…” Most just rolled their eyes, “Bridget, you’re too much…”

As the weeks went by, she secretly began to imagine driving him even further. Maybe Washington. Or Charleston—she had friends there. Eventually she imagined, just imagined, what it would be like to drive him all the way to Alabama. The further down the East Coast she visualized—the more nervous she got. Excited but nervous. Mostly nervous. Tyler was right: it was something she would have done 30 years ago. Not something to do now.

She bought a few cans of pepper spray.

One morning she woke up at 3 a.m. with a bolt of adrenaline. She only knew the daytime Virgil. People had told her that by evening he switched from beer to hard liquor until he crashed on his bed roll—layers of blankets, sleeping bags, and jackets that he set up in the parking garage, a bus shelter, porches of abandoned buildings, and covered entryways of downtown businesses. Until someone complained and the police told him he had to move.

He refused to stay in a shelter. Refused to stay any place where there were people who annoyed him. Which would include just about everyone.

Where does he wash up? Does he ever brush his teeth? Did he have a Covid shot? Jesus. I didn't think of that. I have to insist he get a Covid shot. A flu shot too.

Plus, Virgil had an easy way of throwing his arm across someone's shoulder—especially when that someone had said something that he thought was really funny. It never felt threatening to her. But some women told her that sometimes they had to tell him his friendly hug was lasting a little too long. Even push him away, depending how drunk he was. And she'd heard some talk that he could be really inappropriate late at night.

Well, she'd be driving in broad daylight, right? If she took him further, she was just asking for trouble. But she couldn’t stop imagining it.

A few weeks went by, and it started to get colder. How far she’d drive him began to feel like a mystery that she couldn’t wait to get to the end of to find out who done it and how. Meanwhile, even though she kept telling herself she was only taking him to like Philly at the most, she started looking at maps. Just out of curiosity. She didn’t even know where in Alabama Virgil lived.

Let's see. Esteyville to Mobile is just over 1400 miles. 21 hours. Two days. Be easier if he can drive. That's a scary thought. Gets dark early. We'll only stop at well-lit rest stops.

“Destination is in another time zone,” Google told her. No kidding.

As it got colder, Virgil wasn’t sitting on the bench outside her coffee shop as often. Once in a while, he’d see her and amble across the street to pick up a few bucks without asking. His personal cash machine. “Unh huh. Unh huh. Your class ready to paint me nude yet?” She rolled her eyes. She still hadn’t told him what she was thinking.

She kept mulling over the logistics. What day of the week should they leave? What time of day? She moved digital pins on a Google map ’til she found a route that avoided New York and Philly. Maybe even Washington. What the hell. She'd get them both motel rooms and double lock her door. Could stop in the Blue Ridge Mountains and paint for a couple of hours while he got stoned. Funny. whenever she pictured him on the trip, he was getting stoned.

Can't let him smoke in the car. Cigarettes particularly. Would he come to the motel bar with her at the end of the day to have a drink? Would she even want him to? Where would they eat? All he wants is convenience-store and fast food. What kind of music will we listen to? Podcasts? Language tapes? Love to hear Virgil speaking French.

Three days before Thanksgiving, it snowed. A little early. Just four or five inches. Enough to get your attention. Virgil was standing in front of the little Indian market with a couple of buddies. Bopping to some unheard music. Turning and seeing her, he nodded his head up and down and then to the side as if indicating to his friends that he had an important meeting. He took a slow diagonal across the street to her. She smiled. He smiled. He was wearing high-top sneakers. Unlaced. A thin windbreaker of some sort. No hat. Across the slushy street.

“I’ll take you part way home,” she said, surprising herself as much as him.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Seriously,” she said. “Philly. Maybe Washington. Be cheaper. Maybe further. See how it goes. We'll put you on the train from there."

“Today?”

“No Virgil. Not today,” she said. A little exasperation in her laugh. Virgil could always see you and raise you one. Didn’t matter what hand he was holding.

“Getting cold,” he pointed out. It was as if having a 60-year-old woman offer to drive him a few hundred miles wasn’t a whole lot different from having someone offer him a smoke.

“We can leave in two weeks. You'll get home in plenty of time for Christmas. I got friends down there." She didn't say where "down there" was but wanted to imply it fit into her plans. “You can drive part of the way.”

“No license.”

“Yeah, guess I figured that.”

“Never learned to drive either.”

“Jesus, Virgil.” She shook her head. “You’re what, forty years old and you never drove.” Period. Not question mark.

“I said I never learned to drive. I can drive just fine.”

“I’ll drive,” she sighed. “OK. I gotta go.”

“Unh huh. Unh huh.”

Every time she saw him from then on, she’d tell him she was serious, although she was trying to convince herself as much as him.

“No drugs except pot,” she told him one day.

“Shit,” Long drawn out. “You know I don’t do that other crazy stuff, Mizzz Bridget.” (His contrarian way of trying to put her in her place when he felt like she was trying to put him in his.)

“And you can’t smoke cigarettes or pot in the car.”

He sighed. Figured he could wear her down on that one.

“And we’re going to listen to what I want to listen to.”

“Got my earbuds.”

She added them to her image of him sitting in the car the whole way staring stoned out the window.

As the day grew closer, she grew calmer. Relieved that she’d made the decision. It might not be fun per se, but it would be an adventure. A couple of days in the car with Virgil, then Christmas with friends in Charleston. It was like she’d freed herself from some chains that, over the decades, had slowly wrapped themselves around her imagination.

And would she have stories to tell....

A few days before she planned on leaving, she went looking for him to tell him exactly when to meet her.

He hadn’t been around for coffee that morning so, around noon, she went out for a walk in the slush, casually passing his usual hangouts. Ran into Richie by the library and asked if he knew where Virgil was. He gave her the traditional answer. “Virgil? He’s around.”  

She shrugged. It was cold. He was probably spending more time inside. She kept an eye out but didn’t see Virgil that day or the next. When she went out for a drink with Tyler the following evening, she kept looking out the window in case if he walked by. She had hesitated to tell Tyler she was actually thinking of taking Virgil even further than New York. Regardless, he was full of suggestions and cautionary tales. Made sure she'd bought the pepper spray. She hardly heard him. She was beginning to get a feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The next morning, she got her coffee and walked up to the convenience store. Three of the guys were outside, smoking. Passing stuff back and forth. No secret what. “See Virgil?”

Two of them shook their heads, but Richie said, “Virgil? He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Said he got a ride back home…”

The end.