Westward Ho

When the time came to leave home for law school, I was in a hurry. I had just gotten back from a summer in France, spent a few days running errands around Indianapolis, I packed all my clothes into garbage bags and stuffed them in my car, said goodbye to my parents, turned the key in the ignition, and nothing happened. I was supposed to drive 3,000 miles west to California in three days, and now my old Honda Accord, on which I was placing an incredible amount of trust, had decided it did not want to go through with the road trip. I called AAA, and a guy came over and jumped my car.

“You’re all set,” he said, dusting off his hands.

“So is it safe to drive it a far distance?” I asked.

“Yeah. It should be okay. How far do you need to go?”

“Uhm. To California.”

At first, he thought I was kidding, so he laughed. My car was filthy after sitting in the driveway for months, and washing it had not made my list of last minute errands. All that was visible of the interior was a mound of black garbage bags filled to capacity. Upon first sight, he probably thought my trash service had been cut off and I was on my way to the dump. When I finally convinced him that I was seriously planning on driving to California that afternoon, he scratched his head, and said, “I probably wouldn’t drive it that far right off the bat. Maybe test it out around town for a day or two, and if it seems okay, you can go ahead and take off.”

“I can’t. Law school starts in three days.”

He gave me that puzzled look that skilled blue collar workers – like mechanics, barbers, or any sort of repairman – often give to people like me. A look that says, ‘Why are the highly educated so stupid?’

So I ignored the advice of the AAA guy, and my dad’s suggestion that I junk my piece of shit car and buy an airplane ticket, and as the sun was setting, several hours behind schedule, I left home in Indiana and headed West.

Though I suppose heading West was once a noble American tradition, now a days, for a 23 year old to want to leave a state like Indiana and move to California seems like a ridiculous cliché. But while I didn’t ride a pioneer wagon through the Oregon Trail, I at least didn’t move there to try and become an actor, a rock star, a screenwriter, or any sort of showbiz ambition that usually leads to no more than waiting tables for a few years before eventually returning home with your tail between your legs and going into a career in sales.

Moving to California to attend law school retains a shred of originality. At least that’s what the State Trooper who pulled me over in Wyoming seemed to think. It was around two in the morning, and there was nobody on the highway except for the occasional semi-truck whom I would fly by at about 20 miles over the speed limit in a generous 75mph speed zone. So while I was surprised enough to see another car on the road, I was shocked when it turned on a set of flashing lights.

“Indiana huh?” He asked rhetorically as he shined a flashlight in my eyes. “What are you doing in Wyoming with all them garbage bags?”

I got nervous and overly polite as all guilty people do when confronted by cops. With a slight stutter, I told him I was on my way to California. I should have said Nevada, because as soon as he heard California, he suspected I was up to no good. He was shining the flashlight all over the car, looking desperately for drugs.

“And what exactly are you planning to do in California with all them garbage bags?”

“I’m going to law school.”

“Law school?”

“Yeah. I would like to be a prosecutor one day.”

Actually, I would probably rather be a State Trooper in Wyoming than a prosecutor, but the only possible bond I could think to accomplish with him was a shared passion for the enforcement of law. He softened up and gave an approving nod to my willingness to spend three years in school in order to help people like him put criminals in prison.

“What? They ain’t got no law schools in Indiana? Just slow it down. California ain’t going nowhere.”

For a second there, I thought my lie had worked, but then he handed me a $200 speeding ticket. Then again, maybe I did mitigate the damage because he guaranteed me that, as fast as I was going, he would normally have confiscated my license. Had I been on my way to California to try and make it in showbiz, I might have spent that night in jail.

Though as compared to where I slept that night, jail would not have been much worse. I pulled off in the next exit, which it being Wyoming, was some 50 miles down the highway. I stopped at a seedy motel where the only room available was the honeymoon suite. The thought of a couple honeymooning in these parts of Wyoming seemed beyond sad. I assume they called it the honeymoon suite because calling it the trucker brothel suite would raise suspicions. The room was for the most part a standard cheap motel room, except for a heart shaped hot tub in the middle of it. Along with the romantic name, the tub also allowed for the room to be priced at $20 higher than all the others.

Though I was exhausted, I wanted to get my money’s worth, so I filled up the hot tub, and turned on the jets. And so I sat naked and alone in a heart-shaped hot tub in the honeymoon suite in a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. It was perhaps the most absurd moment of my life. One of those times when you stop and think, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’

And it occurred to me that it was an omen. The car engine that wouldn’t start, the state trooper that pulled me over, the motel room where I sat that would drive the happiest newlywed couple into an instant depression. Were these all signs that I should not be going to law school?