Road Trip part 5….Still Lost
We were back on the road again and somehow ended up on the Kennedy Expressway, where you have to stop and pay a toll. The toll booth went from about 6 lanes, merging into a 3-lane free-for-all. We travelled South on the Kennedy Expressway, and ended up hitting another, the Dan Ryan Expressway. We pumped in some more change and were on our way, not knowing where the hell we were going. We got off the Dan Ryan Expressway, and somehow ended up driving North again. We never really knew where we were, but we were never a block or so away from Halstead Street. We ended up driving past Comiskey Park, which struck me as odd, because from what little I knew of Chicago, I knew that Wrigley Field and Comiskey were about equidistant from downtown. I knew we were seriously lost. We took another turn and ended up back on the Expressway, and we were down to very little change left, so getting on the Expressway again was not the ideal situation. Before the day was over, we wound up on one of the two Expressways a couple more times, each time having to scrounge for change to pay the toll.
We happened to pass by a local YMCA, and stopped there to ask for directions. By now, it was late afternoon, and we had blown the better part of the day trying to find the Tempo or the hotel. As we walked into the YMCA, several workers looked at us like we were from a different planet. We informed one worker that we were lost and couldn’t locate our friends. “What are you doing in this neighborhood?” they asked, confirming our fears that we were in a rough part of town. After several minutes of discussion, the worker said, “Well guys, you’re going to have to stay here for the night. We’ve got some cots and blankets. We can’t let you go back out there tonight.” Eagle, Bart and I looked at each other and Bart said, “Well, we have to go find our friends”. “Sorry guys, we can’t let you leave.” I thought to myself, “This is the YMCA, not some youth detention center.” These YMCA guys were genuinely afraid for our safety in this neighborhood. After several more minutes of discussion, we agreed with the YMCA worker that we’d return for the night if we couldn’t locate our hotel or our friends.
With that, we were back on the road – and back on the Expressway! After a few minutes of driving, a car pulled up next to us, attempting to get our attention. We all stared into the other car, as the passenger pointed frantically down at the front of the rental. I could see her mouth the words, “Your…..tire…..is…..flat!” I exploded and began punching the dashboard repeatedly, yelling, “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! What the fuck else could go wrong today, a Goddam flat tire, that’s just fucking GREAT!!!” There we were, in the middle of rush hour, driving in more traffic than we had ever seen, with a flat tire. Eagle pulled the car over to the side of the road, and we got out to survey the damage. The front driver-side tire was trashed. We stood around, almost stunned. I don’t think any of us had ever changed a tire in our lives up to that point, so we stared at each other with a “What the hell do we do now?” look on our faces.
After about 10 minutes of digging in the trunk and pulling out the spare tire and jack, a tow truck pulled over in front of our car. “I’ll change that tire for fifty bucks.” The guy looked shady, and made us all feel a bit uneasy. Fifty bucks might as well have been $1000 bucks for us – I think I only brought $50 for the whole trip, and had only really spent about $8 total up to that point on a Coke, Desert Storm cards and a McMuffin meal. I owed Eagle about $10 for gas. After discussing with Bart and Eagle for a minute or so, we each put up some cash and decided to let the shady tow truck driver change our tire. I remember him saying, “You guys really shouldn’t be out here, it’s dangerous.” That calmed me down a bit, as again, here was someone who seemed genuinely concerned for our safety and our situation. It probably would’ve taken us an hour to change the tire ourselves, and it was starting to get dark. Twenty minutes later, the spare tire was on, the tow truck driver was paid, and we were on our way. I had initially blamed the flat tire on the piece-of-shit rental car it was attached to. It never occurred to me at the time, but 18 years later, thinking back on that flat tire, I’m pretty sure it was my dumb ass that caused it by slamming into that median the previous night!
It was now dark, and we were starting to get desperate. We had gotten off the Expressway and driven around aimlessly for another half hour, when we spotted the sign. Super 8! We instantly regained all the energy we had lost over the course of our frustrating day. We pulled into the parking lot, expecting to see the Tempo outside. When we didn’t see Todd’s car, we were concerned that they were still out there somewhere, lost, as we had been all day. We went to the front desk and Eagle gave the clerk the reservation information. We were instantly deflated with the next sentence out of the clerk’s mouth – “I’m sorry, we don’t have a reservation in our system for you.”
Stay tuned for Part 6…….Found