BY JON FOMBONNE and EMILIANO RODRIGUEZ

In print | Published October 28, 2004

We woke up at our campsite, amazed that we had survived the night (see previous column). Jon insisted on driving us out of the national park because he thought the drive was pretty. On the way out, we stopped at a riverbend for a swim and witnessed killer hicks during their recreation time. Imagine this: 50-year-old redneck, mullet down to his ass, tattoos covering his arms, drunk at 11:00 a.m., jumping from a 50-foot cliff into four feet of water, and then encouraging his three sons and pregnant wife to do the same. Realizing that we were hanging out at a river bend in Tennessee, we decided it was time to hit the road.

The tranquility of the mountains was interrupted moments later when a friendly disagreement turned into a two-hour fight. Emiliano insisted that Powerade, unlike Gatorade, was lightly carbonated. Jon insisted that Emiliano was a lying sack of shit and that the only difference was Gatorade’s higher sodium content. We stopped at a gas station where we clearly weren’t welcome (well, Emiliano wasn’t) and purchased two bottles for our study. As if reading the labels wasn’t enough, Emiliano vigorously shook the Powerade bottle for 20 minutes to test for “slight” carbonation before turning the radio up and insulting Jon’s Canadian heritage.

As if Emiliano didn’t feel stupid enough, Jon pointed out that we’d be in New Orleans (for the breasts … chicken, you perverts), but had planned to explore Nashville, Memphis and maybe Alabama for a few days. Leave it to our dickhead friends to ruin our plans. We got to Nashville expecting to spend some quality time with our good friend “Muscles,” eating ribs and listening to blues. Instead, Muscles had taken off for Florida, and we had no place to stay. Still, we had to eat some ribs. We found ribs with little effort, and while we didn’t catch any blues, we did hear a family band playing some bluegrass on the street. Family bands apparently form when Daddy loses his job to Third World labor and exploits his children so he can pay his online porn subscription fees. Needless to say, the band sucked, but the ribs were awesome — almost as awesome as watching the dude behind us eat, by himself, the same rib platter we had shared. The waiter said he was a “regular.”

Nashville sucked, and we were pissed, so we decided to head for New Orleans. It sounded like a good idea, until we realized it was 9:00 p.m., we were over 500 miles away, and we would have to drive through Alabama at night. Shit.

When that James Dean feeling wore off, we started thinking about where we might be able to stop along the way. Suddenly, we remembered our large Hollandish friend Bayne Heersink, formerly of the class of ‘05, who had transferred to the University of Alabama. We called our friend Katie Schlesinger to get a cell phone number, but she said he was likely vacationing in the fjords of Noraland, the magical land of enormous white people. We called anyway, but got the voicemail. Defeated again, we drove on. (Later, we’d find out that Katie was a liar, and Bayne actually was in Birmingham. We had missed his call.)

We had to stop for gas, so we looked for the best-lit rest stop we could find. Two important things happened here. First, Jon downed a Red Bull and two shots of Starbucks canned espresso. Second, a local girl with a really cute ten-tooth tooth gap started stroking Jon’s — no Dave, not that — recently acquired mohawk. Enthused by the demonstration of his manliness and by the caffeine, Jon decided it was time to speed like he was racing. Emiliano noticed a maniacal smile on Jon’s face and asked, “Jon, why the maniacal smile?” Jon twitched and said, “What? Nothing dude, nothing. Relax. Relax. Relax.” Emiliano spent the next few hours with his eyes glued to the speedometer, trying to convince Jon to slow down. Given how fast we got to Mississippi, it clearly wasn’t working too well.

Some time around 3:30 a.m., Jon’s caffeine failed him and we needed to sleep, but Emiliano was crying like a girl at the prospect of sleeping at a truck stop in Mississippi.

The conversation went something like this.

Jon: Oh look dude, a rest stop.
Emiliano: Shit dude. Where’s my knife dude.(Truck pulls over. Engine stops.)
Emiliano: Jon, look behind us. Is that dude wearing a hood? Dude, give me the knife.
Jon: Dude, relax.
Emiliano: Easy for you to say dude, I am keeping this kitchen knife right here on the dashboard … dude.

Eventually, we got some sleep. At 6 a.m. the next morning, Emiliano took the wheel and drove through to New Orleans. On the bayou that morning, we looked at each other, smiled, and let out a sigh of relief. While we would never express it in words, that night, both of us had realized how much we meant to each another. It was clear: The road trip wasn’t about the driving, the drinking or the breasts. It was about those moments, those precious moments ….

Jon and Emiliano are seniors. You can reach them at jfombon1@swarthmore.edu and erodrig1@swarthmore.edu.

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