Boy’s Trip

Boy’s Trip

By Alex Brown

Greg’s truck smelled like smoke and stale hot Cheetos, but it was surprisingly spotless, besides the rosary hanging from his mirror and the novelty bobbleheads that filled up his dashboard. Greg himself was louder than normal, and he and Mateo acted like nothing had happened. Like the whole reason we were on this trip wasn’t to get Greg off the floor he had been lying on for two weeks. He was uneasily positive. He shouted “BIG BEND!” when we rang the doorbell this morning, like would trick us into thinking everything was fine. That’s how this whole drive had felt, like a trick. I wasn’t giving him enough credit. He was hurting, and forgetting about it for a weekend was the idea. 

Mateo took shotgun, and I sat in the middle of the backseat. We had been on the road for three hours, and so far Mateo, Greg, and I had already rehashed all our high school stories and listened to every classic road trip song we could think of. It still felt like we weren’t any closer to the Guadalupe Mountains. Four whole Willie Nelson songs worth of staring at the desolate Permian Basin made Mateo speak up. 

“Look man, I know this was all to get away from this, but we’ve been worried. I want you to know that you don’t have to be doing perfect.” 

Greg acted like he didn’t hear Mateo, but his left hand shot from the door to the steering wheel. After a few long seconds he responded, “I mean, yeah, it’s been tough. She just walked out.” She wouldn’t have done that. “I got to where I am because of her. I can’t even talk to her family, and her parents got me my job.” His voice failed at the end. I already hated whatever cliche thing was about to come out of my mouth. 

“We’re here for you, man,” I said. He half-turned his head around from the road toward me, nodded, and then quickly snapped it back around. I wanted to ask exactly what happened,

but he would just tell me a story. Part of me didn’t even care. Greg had been there for me my whole life, but for the last seven years, so had Mia. Everyone went back to staring at the desert. I shifted left and rummaged through the seat pocket for my peanuts, and when I buckled back in something moved me to speak. 

“Listen, whatever happened, we’re still good, man.” 

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized I had said too much. 

“I should hope so.” 

His shields were up, I scrambled to de-escalate but didn’t have anything to say. I felt like I hadn’t even said half of what I wanted to anyway, and prodding him on this before three days in the wilderness seemed like a worse idea than dealing with some awkward silence. Mateo looked back at me, disgusted. 

“I think he just means whatever happens we’re gonna stick it out,” Mateo said, doing some of the best on-the-fly diplomacy I had witnessed in some time. Was Greg really this fragile? Maybe it’s because he knows I saw him at Lucky’s three months ago, but maybe I should just shut up.