Somewhere south of Colorado Springs, I leaned back in the passenger seat and fell asleep. I woke up screaming, “Ahhhhhhh!”
While our car bounced off the highway guardrails like a pinball, my best friend Bob was beside me, saying in the calmest voice, “It’s okay. It’s alright. We’re fine. It’s no big deal.”
When the car finally slid to a stop, I was covered in ice from the cooler. The windows were plastered with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And all four wheels of the car had come off.
It was the spring of 2008. I was finishing my fifth year of college. And Bob had just read Donald Miller’s memoir, Through Painted Deserts. He thought we needed to go on an equally epic road trip, down to Grand Canyon and up to the Redwood Forest. About 12 hours in, we totaled the car.
Up to this point, we had everything planned out perfectly. Or at least, Bob did. While the two of us looked alike, we didn’t think alike.
In college, I would frantically dig through my desk, desperately trying to find my checkbook so I could pay some bill a day before it was due. I’d give up, go distract myself with some social interactions and return to the room to find my desk neatly organized and my checkbook on top of my laptop. Bob. It was always Bob.
For this epic road trip, Bob compiled the maps, and Bob constructed the itinerary. And Bob came up with the budget and the penny-pinching plan to smuggle 60 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the school cafeteria over the course of three days.
All I had to do was convince my sister to let us take her car. It was my Great-Aunt Ila’s 1991 Toyota Camry. Lovingly called “Chugs,” the old piece of s— could barely hit 60 mph going up a hill. But Chugs had a cassette player and a sunroof, and surprisingly, my sister said we could take it.
Because we were driving a car from 1991 in 2008, Bob and I had been using an adapter to connect Bob’s iPod to the stereo. But somewhere south of Colorado Springs, the cord on the adapter got tangled around the shifter. When Bob looked down to fix it, the road curved and the car kept going straight.
Bob and I climbed out of the sandwich-plastered windows into the cold, Colorado night and called the police. They called a tow truck, and we waited in silence. We didn’t make any plans. We didn’t share our feelings. We just waited.
And then Frank showed up.
Frank was just some random old man who had stopped nearby in a brand new Ford F-150. He told us he was a photojournalist from Nebraska, and he was on his way to an event in Apache Junction, Arizona—just outside of Phoenix, about 14 hours away. He could take us there if we helped drive.
It was 2 a.m., and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. I was tired and cold and hungry. So, I grabbed two PBJs from the wreckage, and we got in the truck with Frank. Bob drove until the sun came up. We stopped at a diner for breakfast. When the bill came, Frank had no money. No cash. No credit. No check.
Bob and I shrugged it off and covered Frank. Back outside, Bob got in the truck and went to sleep while Frank had me grab his luggage from the back. Inside his only suitcase, all he had was a stash of empty cigarette boxes filled with tiny “books” that he made me read. I unfolded one piece of paper and forced out a compliment about Frank’s cowboy stories, which were all signed, “By Sandy Gravel.”
I climbed back into the the cab of Frank’s truck and drove off with him, thinking, Frank’s probably not who he says he is.
Parts of Frank’s story just didn’t add up. In 2008, you’re probably not a real photojournalist if you’re using a point-and-shoot, 3.2-megapixel digital camera. But that’s the camera Frank carried with him everywhere, and he insisted on snapping shots of Bob and I at every rest stop.
Supposedly, in a past life, Frank had worked in a facility for juveniles needing psychological help in Arizona. It had been about 15 or 16 years, but he still remembered this girl who could light him up. Now, she was 22, and she was going to be at this conference in Apache Junction. Frank couldn’t wait to see if there was a spark between them.
While he told me this strange and disturbing tale, he likened himself to Running Bear, one of the star-crossed lovers in a song by Johnny Preston. Frank saw this young woman as his Little White Dove, and like the song, he was willing to jump into the raging river for their love, even if it destroyed him.
Bob slept through all of this. That left me in the front seat with Frank for nearly 10 hours, listening his stories and to the the same eight tracks of instrumental music over and over again. Every time the CD started over, Frank was sure to mention that the guitarist was his friend from Nashville, and the music gave him peace—every time, for 10 hours.
Despite some odd moments, I felt fairly confident that we’d get to our destination, shower off some bad voodoo and move on with our adventure. But then Frank asked me to pull off of Interstate 40 to stop for gas—when we already had plenty. For the rest of the trip, he said we’d be taking back roads through the Fort Apache Reservation.
After making this announcement, Frank went inside to go to the bathroom, and Bob woke up. I filled him in as fast as I could. I asked him what was in the back seat. He looked around but didn’t find anything. Until he reached under the seat and pulled out a hatchet.
It turns out—fear can make you work up an appetite. So, we went to the back of the truck to eat some of our salvaged sandwiches. When we opened the tailgate to covered truck bed, Bob and I smelled what we can only describe as death.
For some reason, we still got back in the truck with Frank. I drove mapless into a dead zone and hoped to make it out the other side.
About 10 minutes later, Frank began crying and yelling about how he’d neglected his wife—the first one—and his children. She was his Little White Dove, but he threw everything away because he hated Mormons and didn’t understand how she could believe that s—.
Frank unraveled right as I began driving down into the Salt River Canyon on the narrowest road I’ve ever seen. I thought, This is it.This is where Frank grabs the wheel and swerves into the river. He becomes Running Bear, and we all die.
In my best “Bob is crashing a car calm voice,” I said, ”Hey Frank, it's okay. It's alright. We’re fine. It’s no big deal.” And I just kept repeating that until we finally reached a rest stop at the bottom of the canyon. I parked, pulled my grip from the steering wheel and got out of the truck.
When Bob and I came out of the bathroom, Frank was waiting for us in the parking lot. He grabbed our shoulders and said, “Before we go, let me pray.” He muttered something, then he looked at me and said, “Bob, I want you to have this. It was given to me by Geronimo’s great-grandson.” He handed me a beautiful turquoise bracelet. Next, he looked at Bob and said, “Steve, I want you to have this ring. I found it somewhere. It’s probably not very valuable.”
Finally, Frank took off his last piece of jewelry, a turquoise ring. He looked at it for awhile before saying, “And you, you’re going back to the river.” He chucked it toward the water, which was about 70 yards away. The ring bounced in the grass on the edge of the parking lot.
We all got back in the truck, and Bob drove the last hour to Apache Junction. Frank dropped us off in the parking lot of a Golden Corral, waved goodbye, and we never saw Frank or his hatchet ever again.
Bob and I ended up not doing a single thing we wanted to do on this epic road trip.But we’d survived 14 hours with Frank together. From then on, we knew we could handle whatever life threw at us as long as I had Bob’s back and he had mine.
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Ode is a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. It’s produced by Siouxland Public Media.
The next show is 7 p.m. Friday, April 6 at The Marquee, 1225 Fourth St. The theme is “Just Keep Going,” inspired by this year’s One Book One Siouxland selection, “Hidden Figures.”
Tickets are $10 in advance; $15 day of show.
