The morning after, we slept in for a little while before finally getting up to pack our bags for the road trip ahead of us. We managed to pack enough clothes to last us for about a week or so as well as a few snacks we had gotten for the car ride if we, or more accurately Brim gets hungry. We managed to take most of our luggage in a cab that was large enough to fit it in the third seat next to where me and Sunset sat. All of us managed to fit in the car surprisingly. Well, all except for Brim, but he only existed in our conscious so it could work out for all of us.
Also, being cramped in between luggage wasn’t the worst spot I’ve been in. I mean look at my years in hell.
Isn’t that natural for you since you are a demon?
Not what I was talking about. I was talking about the years I spent with my ex girlfriend. Lucy is the worst of all girlfriends, so much of a stickler for me being a regular demon. Who the hell does she think she is?
Are you still a little hungover from her?
No. I-I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Please keep going with the story.
Okay. We had made it to a rental car place that had a variety of cars to choose from. Ideally, we wanted one that had great gas mileage and wouldn’t cost us too much if we took it for a couple of days. Yeah, that’s the Jew in me trying to save as much money as possible despite this being a trip to not worry about anything at all. Guess it’s something that comes from my family.
Anyways, we had walked in and talked with some guy running the place and took us out to the lot to look at an inventory of cars to choose from. You would think it would be easy to find the one that you like given the few specifications to look for, but it is so much harder than you think.
“Here is what I call the ‘Garden of Keys’. Take a look around and find the one you want and I can look up for you two. I have to go tend to some business in the building.”, our guide with a cowboy hat said walking back into the building.
“Well ...quite the plethora to look for.”, Sunset said looking at the lot next to me.
“Yeah, where do we even start with this?”, I rhetorically asked.
“Maybe start with the vans?”, She asked.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good start.”, I said as we began to walk around the lot.
The walking down the lot was the most disappointing series of events I have ever been through. I say that because it goes a little something like this: You walk down and see a vehicle. You look at the car and get a good vibe for it. You sit inside, the seats feel great, not too stiff or too soft. It still has that nice new car smell despite being used by hundreds of different people. It is the one. You go to look at the price and then ...boom. Too expensive. Or if it is still a good price, bad history of breaking down. And so on and so forth.
It seemed like we were going nowhere. The only cars that were left were sedans and trucks, and sedans are a no go because they have no room and trucks eat up gas mileage like a fat person eats large fries and a quarter McSpanky burger.
Whoa! Not the insult I would expect you to say.
I wasn’t saying it as an insult. It was more a general stereotype. You know, fast food is an easy way to get-
I know the stereotype Rocky. I was being a smart ass.
Okay moving on. We were between a rock and a hard place. The only options we saw were left was a truck, but I strongly disagreed with it.
“Why don’t we just try and convince the guy to lower the price somehow?”, I tried reasoning.
“I doubt that will work. Most of these guys have one goal in mind: get as much money as they can. I really doubt he will feel generous and lower his price. Especially the fact that he fits the look of a sleazy car salesman.”, Sunset explained.
“There’s gotta be something we can do. I really don’t like the idea of a truck.”, I said.
“What other option is there? We won’t have any room if we do a sedan.”, Sunset told me.
We were interrupted by the devilish laugh of Brim off to the side smoking his cigarette. He took one last puff before tossing it to the side.
“What’s so funny?”, I asked Brim.
“You guys are really dumb. How did you guys miss the perfect car for our roadtrip?”, He asked us.
“We looked at all the vans. They are either too expensive or have a problem with it.”, Sunset explained.
“Blind. That’s what you are. How do you not see that beauty over there?”, he said pointing behind us.
I looked over to see a small white car with a few japanese symbols on the side. I didn’t know what it said, but it gave me the sense that it was used for tofu delivery, very very fast tofu delivery.
“Brim, the car is far too small. It won’t fit all of our bags.”, I explained to him.
“Not the drift car bonehead. The one behind it.”, he said pointing further.
I looked past it to see a slightly larger van that looked like it had come back from the 80’s to retire and die a peaceful death. It was a station wagon that looked old, yet new at the same time. It had a puke green finish with a square of wood in the middle of sections of the car. You know you really stumbled on an 80’s national treasure when it has wood embedded in the body of the car for style.
Walking over to the car, I got an unnerving feeling about the car. It looked old enough to be cheap, but also old enough to be one of those faulty cars that broke like crazy back in the day.
“Er, I don’t know about this one. It looks old enough to practically be stuck here. I’m not even sure it will start.”, I urged Brim.
“And? Technically, I’m about a couple hundred years old and I’m still kicking. This car can still kick it. Sunset, you have to give this one a chance at least.”, Brim said defending the car.
“Actually, I got to side with Rocky on this one. I’ve never even heard of this brand before. ‘Speedwagon King’. Sounds like a really bad blender.”, Sunset said rubbing the hood for dust.
“Hey! You don’t disrespect Speedwagon King. This old dog has a legacy. Just take a look under the hood.”, He said lifting up the hood.
The inside was as you would expect; a slightly underused engine with dust and cobwebs around it. It smelled of oil and old arcade consoles that broke if you even breathed on them. Honestly, if Brim was using this as a point to support his car then it was a very bad example.
“Okay, so maybe the engine isn’t the top of the line, but come on! Doesn’t this just scream road trip?”, He asked.
“Oh wait I think I recognize this car. It was from that really outdated comedy movie where a family goes on a roadtrip to some crappy amusement park.”, Sunset said to Brim.
“You shut your face! ‘Road Trip Vacation’ is forever going to be a classic! You can’t change my mind on that!”, he said pointing at Sunset.
“The car is butt ugly.”, I tried to reason.
“Your face is butt ugly! Okay, if for any reason to consider the car for the trip, at least look at this one.”, he said pulling out the price tag.
He definitely had a convincing argument with the rate per day. My only issue know was the mileage and what problems were with it.
“Uh Huh. I knew you would change your mind once you saw the price. Come on. It isn’t a true road trip without the car that was literally part of the best 80s road trip movie of all time.”, Brim inquired.
I looked over to Sunset to get her opinion on it.
“I mean, it’s the best option we have found so far. It has the most room and has cheap rates. It has a weird charm to it now that I spent a little time with it.”, she explained.
I looked back at the old car. Looking at it, I felt a little bit of pity just leaving it there. If no one was going to rent it, it was gonna end up just dying there and pretty much existing for nothing. It was a station wagon built for trips, we were on a trip. I would be stupid if I didn’t choose it.
You mean the word retarded. If you see this car and you need one for a road trip, you better find one otherwise you are not on a real road trip. Bite me!
After much reluctancy, I caved in.
“Alright Brim. You win this one. We’ll take this time machine of a car you found.”, I told him.
“Sweet! Let's skip all the bullshit and take off boy and girl!”, he said climbing on the roof of the car.
We went inside the renter building and filled all the paperwork we needed. The guy running the place was a bit surprised to see us taking such an old machine, but at the same time he could care less since he was getting our money. Classic move from renter car dealers wearing white cowboy hats.
We loaded up the bags in the back of the station wagon and was surprised to find that we still had plenty of room in the second to last row of seats. It was almost the size of a hearse, but minus the area for a coffin.
Oh ha ha ha. Coffin joke because I used to deal with the dead. I’m literally crying in tears with how hard I’m laughing.
I wasn’t saying it as a joke. It probably could’ve fit a coffin back there.
Yeah, fuck you. Keep going. I’m gonna take a minute and smoke a cig.
Moving on. We signed off on our papers and finally got our hands on the good old 80’s style key for the car. Out of the two of us, we agreed to let Sunset drive since she had more experience driving. Plus, she knew the route to get to my parents house on the way to Canterlot from looking at maps during dinner the night before.
We finally entered the car with me and Sunset in the front with Brim taking up all of the back seat as well as some snacks. Right before we were about to pull off from the lot, Sunset stopped and pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?”, I asked her.
“I want to document this very trip on day one with a selfie of all of us.”, she explained.
“Ugh, the selfie. The one decent thing that came out of your generation. So unbelievably disappointing. We could’ve found the cure for cancer or the cure for AIDS, but no instead we found the cure to make our social media pages less depressing than they already are.”, Brim said rising up from laying on the backseat.
“Oh come on. It’s just one selfie.”, Sunset said to Brim.
“And that's the phrase the exact same person said before it turned into an epidemic. But since I’m a nice demon, I’ll do it to make your page a lot less sad than it already is.”, he said.
“Tell us how you really feel Brim!”, I said to him.
“Social media is just sad in general. Even the ones with the most followers. Like nobody cares what you are eating or if you have a funny thought. Just live your life like a normal person", Brim said.
We took our selfie with Brim giving a disappointed expression and giving the camera the finger as we took the shot. Not what I would call a shining memory of the trip but it was noteworthy of Brim.
"Alright boys. Away we go on our road trip!", Sunset said shifting the car into drive.
As we were beginning to pull off the lot, an 18 wheeler appeared from out of nowhere nearly clipping the front of our Speedwagon. He gave us a pissed off honk of his horn as he drove off. Sunset managed to hit the brakes so hard that Brim had fallen out of his seat and onto the floor.
“Ah! What the hell?”, I said to the sudden appearance of the truck.
“I’m so sorry guys. I swear that guy came out of nowhere.”, Sunset said.
“Argh! Whoever that guy was, he is a total dick. Made me fall directly on my neck.”, Brim said getting up from the floor.
We managed to collect ourselves from that near spill, and continued on with our trip. We managed to find the highway to get us on our way to Fillydelphia. Like my mother had said before, it was about a day and a half drive from Manehatten, but what was infuriating was the way to get there in that allotted time. You see, the extremely strange part about Manehatten is that you are in the city in one moment and then in the middle of nowhere highway the next moment. I feel that you could blink for one second and then open your eyes and think that you had blacked out and ended somewhere like Las Pegasus. In short, the highway is long, and completely boring. Your only site or point of interest to keep you entertained was the occasional billboard.
We had traveled for about seven hours on the uninterrupted road to West Bonkers. We would try to talk occasionally, but we were often left with the noise of the radio that surprisingly still worked in our old machine of a car. Outside of that, nothing really to keep us entertained out on the road for so long.
“Ugh, are we at least halfway there yet?”, Brim complained from the back.
“We’re gonna know we’re near if we see a sign for the hotel we’re staying at. Some big giant glowing one, I think it will be easy to spot.”, Sunset explained.
“I’m about to throw myself out of the car out of boredom. At least it will be something else other than sitting here doing nothing.”, Brim said.
“Weren’t you the one who wanted to go on this road trip the most? You even said that you were hoping it would be like the Highway to Hell.”, I reminded him.
“Yeah, but at least the pain and despair kept me going on it. I feel legit bored as hell that this is worse than hell.. no, worse than the DMV. Oh my Lucy that place is the fucking worst.”, he said from the back.
“Well, that’s a normal road trip for us.”, Sunset said.
“Jesus, it’s almost as bad as my years with my ex. So many nights of silence between us.”, Brim said sitting up to light a cigarette.
“You actually dated someone in Hell?”, Sunset asked.
“Yes, regrettably I did. And regrettably it was with the one you fear the most, AKA the Devil herself, or as you hear me say constantly, Lucy. Rocky has met her and could agree, although he stood up to her convincing me that maybe he wasn’t as much of a pussy I thought he was.”, Brim explained.
I rolled my eyes at his little insult.
“Was it always bad? Between you and Lucy, I mean.”, Sunset asked.
“Actually, it was nice for a time. Sex was absolutely killer, even some of the foreplay before that.”, Brim said.
“I wasn’t talking about that.”, Sunset reiterated.
“Well, outside of that, it was about as nice as you could expect from a CEO of Hell. Constantly stressed out, constant bitching about me being lazy in collecting souls, normal shit like that.”, Brim explained.
“That sounds horrible. I’m glad you got out of that relationship with your head high.”, Sunset said.
“Oh, it wasn’t the kind of end you’re thinking of Sunset.”, I jumped in.
“What do you mean?”, she asked me.
“Well come on. Brim is a demon. Do you honestly think he did the right thing and broke up with her the correct way?”, I asked.
“Ha Haaa! Maybe the squirt actually knows me well enough now. But to answer your question Sunset, I ended up in multiple affairs until one particular night I got caught giving a fellow coworker the best ride of her life.”, Brim explained.
“That situation must’ve been really awkward.”, I responded to Brim.
“Heh, especially since it was the first time I covered two demons in my-”, Brim tried to say before being interrupted.
“Okay! I think I get the context of that situation. My goodness you really have no boundaries.”, Sunset exclaimed.
“You’ve known me for several months and you still haven’t gotten that yet?”, he asked her.
She looked over at me to try and defend her point.
“What can I say? I have been with him for so long to realize he can’t change his demon ways. Hell, he can’t even get off of cigarettes.”, I said shrugging.
She rolled her eyes with a small annoyed smile. The kind of smile that is if you were proven wrong, but you accept it.
“What about you?”, Brim asked Sunset.
“What about me?”, She asked him.
“Have you had any bad exes?”, he reiterated.
“Oh, you don’t need to know. It was a small thing.”, She said looking back at the road.
“Oh come on! A girl like you has to have some good ex stories. Plus, you could reassure Rocky here that he has nothing to fear if he gets the thought of you leaving him.”, Brim said puffing a cigarette.
“What makes you think I would think that?”, I asked him turning back.
“Oh be quiet señor pussy! I know for a fact you’re curious about her evil exes as well.”, Brim said to me.
"Well, I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious. ", I said.
Sunset gave me a small chuckle and turned to me.
"Do you really want to know?", she asked me.
"I guess. It's kind of a topic that I wanted to talk about but I was too embarrassed to say. ", I said.
"Well, If you two insist. Okay, it was back in my old hometown of Canterlot. There was this one boy that I had a bit of an on off thing with him.", Sunset explained.
"On off? What you two came back to your senses and realized who was wrong?", Brim asked.
"No it's a bit more complicated than that. However, one time we tried. We actually tried to make things work, but he disagreed with my decision to leave for Manehatten. He wanted me to stay and tour with his band that were in his words ,'Gonna make it of we hold on'. Let's just say in the last years I saw him I saw who he really was.", Sunset explained.
"Sounds like a tool. What was his name?", Brim asked.
"Flash Sen-", she tried to say before being interrupted by Brim.
"And I heard enough. Anyone with the name Flash automatically gets the major douchebag sticker in my story. Probably the type of douche who drives a sports car with a retarded looking sticker on the hood.", Brim said throwing his cigarette out the window.
"You don't know that. I'm sure he was-", I said before noticing how Sunset was snickering to the comment he made.
"Its funny he says that, because he did.", She explained.
"And once again I can read douchebags from a mile away.", he said.
I rolled my eyes at Brim in a joking way.
"Hey wait a sec. Is that?", Brim said sitting up from his seat.
I looked ahead to the road to see what Brim had noticed. Off in the distance, there was a singular 18 wheeler driving off in front of us.
"Holy shit it is!", Brim exclaimed.
"What are you going on about?", I asked him.
"That's that douchebag who nearly hit us when we were pulling out of the lot. He's going to the same place we are.", Brim explained.
"Okay. What does that have to do with us and why you are so excited?", Sunset asked.
"I got a plan to make this trip go by a lot more enjoyable. ", He said rolling down the window on his right.
"Brim what the hell are you doing?", I asked him.
"Don't worry about it. Just drive closer to him.", he said.
"Brim I don't like where this is going. ", Sunset told him.
"Ah it'll be fine. After all the guy deserves a little harmless payback for nearly destroying the Speedwagon. ", he reassured while snapping his finger to pull out a gun.
"Whoa whoa! What the fuck? We are not gonna kill him.", I said seeing the gun.
"Calm down Rocky! It's a paintball gun. It ain't gonna do anything to him. I mean it will make his truck a mess, but it's not going to kill him.", He explained to me.
"I don't think we should do that.", Sunset advised him.
"Come on, what's a little rule breaking gonna do. Now get me closer so I can pop a cap in this truck's ass.", He said, aiming his head out the window.
With much hesitation in both of us, Sunset and I agreed to let him go through with this plan. After all, it was getting a bit boring and we could use a little entertainment from Brim, especially since he had been cooped up in the back of the car for a while. As steady as she could, Sunset drove as close to the side of the truck as she could.
"Okay, keep it steady! I got like three balls in here and I didn't bring extra.", Brim said from out the window.
"Can't you just magic some more here if you run out?", I asked him.
"You know I didn't think of that so instead I'll just say no.", Brim said looking back at me for a second.
We drove up and immediately, Brim was getting hyped up.
"This is what you get for disrespecting the Griswold family vehicle motherfucker!", he said before unloading his three shots on the side of the truck drivers door.
Quickly as she could, Sunset sped up to try and get as far away as she could with the truck driver. Brim was celebrating his three hits with glee.
"Hell yeah motherfucker! Nobody disrespects the Speedwagon. ", Brim said tossing the gun out the window.
"Okay, so it was a little fun. Still it felt a bit wrong. ", Sunset said.
"Oh don't get so mushy for this douche. Damn near crashed into this morning. Least we could do is-", Brim said before being interrupted by a gunshot that crashed through the luggage and almost hit Brim.
"Holy shit!", I screamed out to the gunshot.
We all collectively screamed as we began swerving out of the way. We soon realized what was happening. We shot him with a paintball gun, now he was shooting us with a real gun.
"Oh my god I knew it was a bad idea!", Sunset said frantically steering away.
"Shut up. Just try and outrun this guy like you do the cops in your video games. ", Sunset said ducking behind a bag.
"That is because I'm not actually being shot at you fucking idiot!", Sunset screamed out.
"Guys! We need to focus on the psycho behind the wheel of the 18 wheeler that's chasing us. We can argue when we get to the hotel.', I said trying to get them to focus as the driver shot another series of shots at the car.
Another shot hit the rear view mirror and the radio. Brim was ducked underneath a bag like a soldier in war. Sunset, with a really wide look of fear on her face, was swerving for her life behind the wheel. I on the other hand was sweating like crazy hoping to god that none of us except Brim and his dumbass self would get shot.
"Rocky! I need you to get back here. I got a plan to get him off our tail.", Brim commanded me.
Without hesitation, I threw myself back there as another shot flew by.
"Okay, I need you to find the heaviest thing in the car so we can toss it out at the truck." Brim explained.
"That's gonna be damn near impossible when we are packed to the brim back here. Can't you just use your magic and make him go away?", I exclaimed to him.
"Oh. Must've slipped my mind.", He said coming to the realization.
"You what?! You mean to tell me you forgot that you could cast spells to get us out of this mess?!", I scolded him.
"Guys, I really don't want to die because you two were busy arguing about his magic. ", Sunset screamed out at us.
"Right. One moment Bacon!", Brim said before appearing out the window again to throw a fireball or something.
Upon impact, the ball that Brim threw had enough power to swerve the truck off the road and flip onto the side. It made a load crash as it came to a halt as we drove off. Before I thought the situation was over, the truck exploded into flames as we made it far away into the distance.
"Were you able to get him off okay?", Sunset asked us.
Not wanting to admit that Brim probably killed someone, we went along with the idea that he was fine.
"Yeah yeah he's fine!", I said frantically.
"Super duper, he is out giving us two thumbs up.", Brim added on.
We finally made it to the hotel not long after, but we were still in shock for quite awhile. Even after we were able to calm down and get out of the car finally, we were still devastated by the amount of bullet holds that guy had left in our car. I groaned constantly at the site of them.
"Oh this is just fucking great.", I said in frustration.
"Look I know it looks bad, but I can fix-", Brim tried to say before being cut off by Sunset.
"No more shenanigans Brim! You could have gotten us killed.", Sunset scolded him.
"I know I know. But let's not worry about this. It's only the first day of the road trip.", Brim tried to say looking at the bright side.
"No, do you not see our car? Its fucked. This trip is over.", I told him.
"Hang on and hear me out. I can get some demons in Hell to try and come by and fix this overnight. I may be fired from Hell, but I still know plenty of connections to help us out. It won't cost us a thing.", Brim said.
"Come on Brim! Stop it with these ideas. The last one wasn't so bright of you.", I told him.
"It's true. I swear I can get this fixed. You just gotta trust me on this. We'll be back on the road in no time. Just do it. For me?", he asked with puppy like eyes.
I looked back at the car to see the holes and the small damage done to it. It didn't look necessarily hard to fix, but it was gonna be a nightmare to try and get a mechanic all the way out here to try and fix it.
"Good Grief! Alright, I'll let you do what you have to do. Me and Sunset are gonna spend the night while you somehow manage to fix this.", I told him.
"Great! You won't regret it!", he said perking up before disappearing from my sight.
I gave a small sigh before sitting down on the curb with Sunset.
"You okay?", She asked me.
"Yeah I'm fine. It's just that I thought that I could avoid the craziness you know? Being away from work and stress and stuff. It was all the things I wanted to get away from. Now, I feel that I was better off with them because of what happened today. ", I explained.
Sunset put her hand around my shoulder to comfort me.
"Hey, it's going to be okay. Like Brim said, it's the first day. And I'll definitely make sure that he won't pull anything like that again. You just gotta deal with it. Come on, let's go to the hotel and relax a little while Brim fixes it. We can finally have a moment to ourselves without Brim making witty comments. ", Sunset said standing up from the curb and holding out her hand.
I trusted her with those words as I took her hand to go and grab our few things we needed for the night before heading into the hotel. The rest of the night we had away from Brim, who we would occasionally check on outside the window to see him working while smoking. He seemed to be trying, but from what we were seeing, not much for those few hours. But that was day one in a nutshell: Craziness followed by a moment of silence from the craziness. If that makes sense. Probably does. Probably not. But whatever you take away from this, know that the madness was only beginning.