Desert Passage (9 page)

The boys had fond memories of driving through the desert with their grandfather. His old truck had a manual transmission that only worked up to third gear, but their grandfather could get it going sixty miles per hour on the country roads. The boys would laugh as their small bodies bounced on the torn, vinyl bench seat when the old truck would hit a pothole or when their grandfather jammed the clutch. Ramón remembered the old truck as he navigated the scooter along the highway and wished his grandpa were still alive.

The interstate highway wasn't far from their grandmother's house. Within less than an hour they were on the busy four-lane highway, traveling toward their destination. Miguel was trying to keep his balance in the back of the small seat. He hadn't let go of the luggage rack since they left the gas station. The fall the day before on the driveway had scared him. He only moved his hand away from the rack to adjust his baseball cap closer to his head when the wind threatened to blow it away.

Ramón quickly learned to operate the hand gears of the scooter. He had been driving since he was twelve years old, and understood the mechanics of various vehicles.

Rodrigo had begun to teach the boys how to drive on one of his company trucks two years before. He wanted them to be independent and he thought that learning to drive a truck would help them become real men. He would take the boys to an empty shopping-center parking lot and let them take turns driving the large truck. Miguel always pushed on the accelerator too hard and could never move his foot fast enough to find the brake. Rodrigo would get mad and yell at him to stop the truck and let Ramón drive.

“Driving in the empty parking lot was an accomplishment,” Ramón thought to himself while driving the Vespa. But he knew this was different. The road wasn't vacant.

Ramón pulled over to the side, took his sunglasses from his T-shirt pocket and put them on. The sun was getting brighter and he was tired of squinting his eyes. They were heading east on the freeway and the morning sun was directly in front of them.

“We should be able to make it to Flagstaff today, pretty cool, huh?” Ramón looked at Miguel who had been gazing at the side of the road into the distance and thinking of their last trip to Flagstaff. They had passed through the town a long time ago on their way to a fishing lodge with their grandfather before he died. Grandpa Esteban loved to go camping and fishing and began to take his grandsons with him when they were barely old enough to walk. He felt that the experience of being in nature was important for young men. They would sit around the campfire and their grandfather would tell stories of when he was a boy, about all the adventures he'd had growing up in the desert.

“That'll be cool,” he answered Ramón as they started to drive off. “Maybe we can camp there.”

Ramón also remembered their last trip with Grandpa Esteban. One night, when they were safe in their sleeping bags by the campfire, their grandfather had told them a story about Enrique, Ramón's father. Grandpa Esteban had chuckled when he told the story. He had told the boys that Enrique had a restless spirit and had always yearned for adventure even as a small boy. When he was twelve, he had taken his father's truck without permission and decided to drive to Sedona to see the famous red rocks of the desert. He snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and rolled the truck down the driveway so that no one would hear him. He drove away undetected but he hadn't planned for the gas that he would need to get there. The truck ran out of gas halfway down the interstate and a sympathetic truck driver stopped to help the stranded boy. The truck driver watched over him until Grandpa Esteban arrived. Grandpa wasn't mad when he picked up his son. On the way home, they talked about life and Enrique's plans for the future. Ramón also remembered his grandfather saying that Enrique eventually traveled to Sedona many times when he got older, that being among the red rocks made him feel happy.

Ramón's eyes felt the pressure of tears. He stopped himself from thinking any more about his dad. He missed him too much.

Miguel had started thinking about lunch. He had eaten a lot of food at breakfast but thoughts of the next meal began to occupy his mind.

Natalie smoothly hummed down the Arizona interstate carrying the boys closer to their destination, each one traveling on his own road.

 
Chapter 18
 

T
he boys had been on the interstate almost two hours when Miguel told Ramón to pull over. Ramón scowled at his cousin's request. He wanted to stay on the road and make good time to Flagstaff but he took his cousin's feelings into consideration and pulled over to the shoulder. Miguel slowly dismounted and walked around the dirt on the side of the highway.

“I needed to stretch my legs, and I gotta go, too,” he said, turning to find a tree or shrub nearby.

Ramón waited by the scooter and checked his watch. It wasn't yet noon. They could still reach Flagstaff if they didn't stop. He wanted to avoid driving at night. He knew that drivers of cars and trucks wouldn't be able to see the scooter. Miguel walked back toward Ramón, stretching his arms up over his head, and yawned big.

“Can I drive?” Miguel boldly asked.

Ramón looked at Miguel with a look of wonder. “Are you kidding, man?” He could see that Miguel really wanted to drive and so he continued, “Have you driven a motorcycle before?”

“Nat's not a motorcycle. I can drive.”

Ramón didn't want to fight with his cousin, so he slowly explained the hand gears to Miguel and instructed him to stay to the far, far right of the lane. Placing his hands on the handles of the scooter he demonstrated to Miguel, “She turns real easy, like a bike, you know? You have to keep her steady.”

“I know. I'm not stupid. Let me drive,” Miguel said eagerly.

Ramón nervously moved aside and Miguel swung his leg over the front of the seat. Ramón then took his place on the back of the scooter.

“Start off slow or she will lurch forward,” Ramón cautioned again.

“Yeah, yeah, here we go!” Miguel took control of the scooter and headed back onto the road. Ramón held on to the luggage rack and looked ahead and in back of them for passing trucks. The smaller cars seemed to be more cautious than the larger ones, they always steered away from the scooter, but the larger cars and trucks drove closer and faster. Ramón then heard the sound of a very large truck heading up quickly from behind. It was an eighteen-wheeler driving fast on their side of the road and he was not moving to the left of the lane to pass them at a safe distance.

“Miguel, move over, he's coming up quick!” Ramón shouted, wishing that he had never allowed his cousin to drive.

“What? Where? What do I do?” Miguel shouted back, turning the wrong hand gear and increasing the speed of the scooter.

“Slow down and move over, off the road!” Ramón screamed.

Miguel steered the scooter too quickly to the right and he lost control. Both boys, the two backpacks, the sleeping bag, and Natalie went flying in separate directions onto the dirt as the eighteen-wheeler roared past.

Miguel, too stunned to speak, sat motionless on the ground. Ramón stood up and felt a dull pain in his left arm. He felt his elbow and the muscle around his tricep for injuries. Nothing was broken, but he was in pain.

“You okay?” he asked Miguel.

“Yeah, that maniac almost hit us. Didn't he see us on the road?” Miguel said, trying to deflect the blame onto the other driver.

“We have to watch out for ourselves. No one is going to protect us. This scooter is too small. We shouldn't even be on this highway!” Ramón lamented, still touching his left arm.

Miguel saw that his cousin was hurt and he lowered his head. He felt bad for crashing the scooter.

“Is the scooter okay? Is it broken?”

Ramón walked over to Natalie. She was lying on her side and still running despite the bad fall. He grabbed the handles and straightened her up. “Yeah, she looks okay.”

The pain in his left arm increased as he lifted the scooter.

“I don't know if I can drive right now, my arm hurts pretty bad,” he admitted.

Miguel was scared to navigate the scooter again. He knew that another bad fall could wreck the scooter and that if a truck did hit them they could end up dead.

“I'll try. I'll be extra careful,” he promised quickly, gathering the backpacks. He retied the sleeping bag with rope and motioned for his cousin to climb aboard, “Come on, we have to get to Flagstaff today, right?”

Ramón nodded and sat behind Miguel. They weren't going to give up now. Ramón held onto the luggage rack with his right arm and thought to himself, “It's not easy being independent, you have to be able to pick yourself up when you fall down.”

 
Chapter 19
 

T
he afternoon sun felt hot on their bare arms and faces. Miguel focused his eyes on the road and kept his speed lower so he could control the scooter. Ramón sat in the back quietly looking out at the desert on both sides of the highway.

“When you see the next truck stop, we should stop to eat and take a break,” Ramón suggested from behind.

Miguel had been feeling hungry for hours and was glad to hear his cousin suggest a lunch break. He thought happily about the food packed in the backpacks and thought he would eat a chocolate bar first when they stopped. In the distance, he saw signs that indicated that there was a gas station and diner up ahead. He slowed down and took the exit indicated by the road sign. The exit road curved away from the highway and led up to the gas station first.

“Do we need gas?” Miguel asked, entering the station slowly.

“We'll get gas after we eat,” Ramón replied.

Miguel turned the scooter around and parked in front of the small restaurant.

“Are we going to eat inside? I thought we were going to eat what we brought.” Miguel said.

Ramón was first to get off of the scooter. “We should go inside and order a Coke and check the map. Then we can eat our own food.”