It was a hastily planned voyage, my 2004 summer road trip with Andrew, and that was evident our first morning on the California coast. It was 7 a.m., and we’d slept like the dead in my earwax yellow Volkswagen bug. The day before, the two of us had driven over a dozen hours, straight from Flagstaff to Palo Alto. None of the state beaches had vacancies and we couldn’t afford a motel, so we parked somewhere innocent and quiet-the parking lot of a Baptist Church, next to the graveyard-and laid back the seats.
We awoke to aching backs, sticky skin and the morning mist. We didn’t know where to go next or if our friends could put us up. Andrew and I couldn’t even find a restroom. While I vowed to hold it in, he strolled across the parking lot, found a fence and relieved himself under the gray Palo Alto sky, his back to the dewy granite gravestones, his chest heaving with laughter. It’s one of the few times I can remember being giggly, and I envied his audacity.
I haven’t spoken to Andrew in over six weeks. He stayed in Arizona for college and I flew 2000 miles east. But I still consider him my best friend. What does that mean, though, when our friendship today is based mostly upon shared experiences and memories?
Either way, that moment two summers ago, however trivial and perverse, has stuck with me. The summer before, our first after graduating from high school, Andrew came out to me. I was one of the first people he told. After graduation, there had been a falling out among my high school friends, and I was probably one of the few straight people he could trust.
It was a brisk summer evening, and as we walked up Route 66 in Flag past a lonely local diner, he told me. He was dying to take a road trip to San Francisco, his promised land. Walking under the yellow streetlamps, I felt inextricably bound to Andrew.
Most of the journey blew by. It had its ups and downs: driving down Castro Street with a rainbow flag on the dashboard; Andrew having his picture taken with a burly biker and a dominatrix friend outside of a gay bar; grabbing the last burger at 1 a.m. in the Tolleson, Ariz., In-N-Out three hours from home. It was freedom for the two of us, miles away from home and everything associated with it.
Every time I call Andrew, and actually get ahold of him, he reiterates how much the trip meant to him. He lives back in Flag with his band, playing the drums and doing drugs. The last time I hung out with him, Andrew worked at a bowling alley. He would take his breaks in the dusty back room, where the pins were sorted and the bowling balls collected, and smoke up.
In a sense, it’s a sign of the different directions our lives have taken. He knows it too, and when I’m in town, he talks about escape, about graduating from the state school where most of our old friends went. He talks of China, of surviving by teaching English and of doing something with himself.
Sometimes I wonder, though, what Andrew will do and what part I’ll play. Maybe one day 30 years from now, I’ll be wandering through Golden Gate Park, thinking of him, and Andrew will be there. He might be a burnout or an aging rocker, or maybe he’ll be visiting from China. Or maybe we’ll have met there every morning for years. I wonder if the memories will still bind us together, and if I’ll still consider him the best friend I’ve ever had.
