November 2nd, 2000 Please enjoy each delicious chapter, hotlinked below. Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Road Trip with Marcus part 4 of 5 By Gary If inline wheels could lose air, we would have rolled into Tupelo, Mississippi with four flats to match the cuts and bruises all around our bodies. The problems with having two captains aboard a vessel with two steering wheels becomes far more apparent when one of these captains doesn't know the directions "right," and "left." No less than four times on our trek through the Midwest did we rip our little "Lovescooter" in half, right down the center. I'd prep Marc for the turn: "We're going to turn left up here..." "No problem whatsoever," would be Marc's reply. "Ready... and, LEFT" And boom. I go left, Marc goes right, engine goes straight, and two hours later, having placed it all back together, including a half hour just to find a piece the size of an aspirin, we're back on the road. This time, however, we're making a clinking noise. I don't care, though, and Marc doesn't notice. He has now picked all of the foam off of his handlebar, leaving behind bare metal. His discomfort will be my only comfort, as I silently brood, praying for a bottomless pit to roll past his side of the scooter. The next time I decide to give him the wrong direction, so he'll go the way I really want him to. I see a left turn coming up, and I prep him with a "Right turn ahead Marc..." "Okay Cap'n," he acknowledges. "And... right" I go left, he goes right, and the scooter explodes once again. This mental game of trying to outwit Marc's "otherworldly" navigational sense would see the scooter fall to pieces two more times in the next few days, and I have to tell you, as funny as it seems here on the typed page - it isn't. It SO isn't... The third time took nearly 3 hours to patch, including another half hour NOT to find the piece the size of an aspirin. The scooter ran without it, but now the clinking was more of a thumping. It was kind of like if you tied a hamster to a length of rope, then tied the other end to a fan, and then placed it all in a cardboard box. The sound the hamster would make careening off the inside walls of the box is roughly the sound it was making as we hiccupped and sputtered our way toward the panhandle of Florida. Nothing big to report about the third and fourth times the scooter fell apart, other than that the third time I tried to use reverse psychology again, and actually messed myself up, turning left when we were supposed to go right. Marc did turn right this time, and so I guess in a way, that one was my fault. I still blame it on him. I don't know what happened the fourth time. I just remember everything shredding away from Marc, going into several header-rolls, and finally landing on my ass, watching him roll away, a lone man on a scooter. A quarter of a mile later he realized I wasn't next to him anymore and came back to help me rebuild it. I told him we needed to figure out a way to hold it all together this time, and recommended that we no longer steer it in the co-captain fashion that had been failing us for so many days now. It had suddenly occurred to me that we were on two scooters, not the Millennium Falcon. It wouldn't take much work for me to put a hand on each handlebar and turn the whole deal myself. We switched to a front seat/back seat method, where I got to be up front, and Marc got to practice karate in the back, all day long. I don't know where he gets the energy. I was tired just from standing for like a full week now. Oh, I forgot - the scooters broke apart once more when Marc started practicing jump kicks. I summarily banned him from all aerial attack maneuvers following this fifth and last time we had to rig the whole thing back up. My interpretation of Marc's backseat karate. Don't blame SPUNKY, I drew this mess. We stopped off in what seemed like a very friendly area of the Floridian panhandle, a place we hoped would be able to give us some better directions back to my front door. We entered yet another bar, remarking on how lucky we'd gotten at the last one. This one had a large array of motorcycles out front. We would soon learn that we had found our way into a "Bear Reunion Party." Marc and I were like "Cool! This is a reunion of guys who like to swim in freezing water!" How wrong were we... These weren't the "Polar Bears" at all. These were just "bears." North American, drunk bears. If you, like Marc and I, aren't familiar with the term "Bears," you may familiarize yourself at www.hairybears.com. However, we warn you not to go there if you are afraid of: 1) Bears      or 2) Large, hairy, naked, very gay men One of them yelled to the rest of the men "Hey, it's two kids, come for some lovin' boys!" All of them were on us at once. We were by far the youngest and "prettiest" males in the whole bar. It was only as one of them ran his fingers through my scalp, down my back, and pinched my buttocks that I got what was going on. "Oh my God!," I exclaimed, "there has been a horrible mix-up here, not that what you folks are doing here is horrible..." "No, it's wonderful in fact," Marc added, overcompensating for my stuttering. "I can explain everything," I quickly corrected. The bar had gone silent, and the quivering in my innocent little voice had more than doubled. "See, we're just lost. We didn't know this was a bear reunion. We're from the National Inline Scooter Association." "Yeah, that's right, NISA!" chimed in Marc, "and we're just lost, that's all..." Some of the men seemed to come around, understanding that we were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was still scared, knowing that several more of these men might just assume we were play-acting some little fantasy, you know, like "Oh, we're lost, and we need a couple of big hairy men to show us the way (Cue the "wakka wakka doo" music)." My body shivered. I whispered to Marc "How can we prove it to them?" Marc knew immediately. Let's show them our NISA bumper sticker," he whispered back. "Great idea!" was my excitedly whispered reply. We led the crowd, now in a low, but rumbling murmur of confused voices, out to our scooter, where Marc flipped up the back end to reveal it. The murmur continued as all the eyes of these hairy bikers focused in on our mangled little scooter, with its giant pink triangle "NISA" sticker. I ask you, my faithful readers... "Did YOU know that the giant pink triangle WASN'T the symbol of the National Inline Scooter Association?" I sure as hell didn't. The murmur exploded into a deafening war-cry as Marc and I were dragged helplessly back into the bar for a night of education about what bears and pink triangles really meant. We didn't talk about it for the rest of the night, after we finally crawled out of the back door of the kitchen, finding our way to our scooter and "getting the hell outta Dodge." The only thing Marc said at all that night was "I don't ever want to find myself crawling through anyone's back door again." I just nodded, staring into space, not even breaking a smile at his attempt to find the humor in it all. As we rode off down the highway, Marc didn't practice Tai-Chi, he didn't peel pieces off of the motor, he didn't even talk. Not one bit. I think I would have liked to hear him talk this once, just to hear a voice and know that everything was going to be alright. But all he did was sit there on the engine, warming his sore behind. We were on my highway, the one that leads straight into my city, straight to my exit, the exit that runs right past my house. For all intents and purposes, I was home, but I didn't even care. Nothing would ever be the same now. Not for us anyway. We took off on our journey only three weeks ago, and when we did, we were little boys, bickering about glued vents and peeled handlebars. But tonight, as we made our way toward my apartment, we were men. Gay men. What would my mother think about this. I knew I couldn't tell her. We couldn't tell anyone. Everyone, except for our shock-proof misinformant, Timb, wouldn't be able to handle it. SPUNKY, our resident artist misinformant would probably tease us constantly, and draw all sorts of all-too-lifelike recreations of the event. I didn't know if I could handle seeing it all again. And with that, we scooted right onto my exit ramp. We were only 2 miles away from sleep, a shower, food! Well, Ramen Noodles. But that's food. It would be Heaven to our war-torn, and horribly ravaged bodies. I had to tell Marc the great news. Me: Marc! Buddy! Marc: Me: Hey Marc, wake up, we are HOME!!! Marc: Me: Marc..? Aw shit! Marc wasn't on the back of the scooter. He was nowhere to be found. Actually he was somewhere to be found. He had fallen off 15 miles back. I was as mad as I was sympathetic when I found him sitting on the side of the road, crying to himself. Marc: You LEFT me! Me: I'm so sorry, honey. Gary didn't mean it! Marc: Yes you did yes you did! You HATE me! Me: I don't hate you. Marc: You hate me! You hated that I glued your vents shut. Me: No, well, yes, but I love YOU, sweetheart. Right? You're my special boy. Marc: No I'm not! You hated my songs, and you hated "Backwards Day," and... Me: Backwards Day was very annoying, true, but it doesn't make me hate you... Marc: And you hated "Pig Latin Day," and "90 Degree Angle Day," and "Naked Day"... Me: Now that's just not true. I really thought 90 Degree Angle Day was funny, really I did. Marc: And, you, you... Really? Me: Yes, remember how you reminded me, all day, that I could only move in straight lines...? Marc: Yeah, and you could only turn in turn in 90 degree angles too, remember? Me: And you made us speak like robots? Marc: Yeah, that was so cool. So you really liked that? Me: I... sure.. DID! Marc: (Speaking in a monotone) So, do you want to, maybe... Me: No, not tonight! Marc: Okay. Me: Now we're almost there, so hang on this time, and we get to sleep in a real bed tonight! Marc: I'm sorry, I guess I fell asleep. Me: That's okay, honey. Marc: Can I sleep in your bed with you? Me: My couch folds out into a bed. You can have that! Marc: Really!? Oh, that's so great! It'll be like a sleepover party! Me: Yeah, you can even do my nails. After helping him up and obliging his "hold me for a little bit" request while he worked out the rest of his tears, we were on our way again. I didn't realize how tired I was as we passed the exit sign once more and finally made our way into my apartment complex. I think I may have been in autopilot mode, not even realizing I was pulling right into my parking space. I guess it was all habit, but stopping sure wasn't, as evidenced by my plowing straight into the cement parking bumper. As the scooter disintegrated into a fine powder around me, I looked around and Marc was nowhere. "Awww, Jesus H. Ch-" "I'm okay! I'm right here!" Marc had fallen asleep again, and fallen off, but this time it was at the entrance to my parking lot. We made our way up the stairs, legs about to give out on us, opened the door, and fell asleep for about 14 hours, feet still in the hallway outside. We dreamed vividly.

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