My Trip to Crazy-Town

If you’ve never slept in the backseat of your car, you really should try it, if for nothing else than the novelty of the experience. True, there are many novelties that shouldn’t be tried. Pink hair, Justin Bieber concerts, fish served with the head attached—but don’t let that stop you. I didn’t.

As you try to “sleep” in your makeshift bed, you’ll soon find yourself wishing you could lop off your legs at the knee. There’s no way for the human body to accommodate itself to the back of a Toyota, unless that body is two-years old and 35-inches long. You can try wedging your feet in front of you, between the seat and the door, or try placing them flat on the floor while the rest of your body slumps sideways, as though you’ve been shot while sitting there, minding your own backseat-of-car business. Neither of these approaches will work.

Something weird will happen to your blood pressure. The slight elevation of your hips—or your waist, more accurately—at the bump between the seats will cut off circulation to your brain. Your nose will begin to feel stuffy. Your eyes will bulge. You’ll wonder if you’re losing consciousness. 

Perhaps a little fresh air might help, but you’ll be afraid to crack the window, although you know for a fact that not even Cujo can violate an intact automobile. Not even an axe-wielding killer in the woods can get you, as long as you stay where you are. It’s the fools who get out of the car who run into trouble, and despite the fact that you’re sleeping beside a dumpster in a parking lot to begin with, your mama didn’t raise no fools.

Of course you’ll sleep in your shoes, so that you’re ready to run at the slightest hint of danger. You’ll be frightened as the first few cars pull up beside you. You’ll hold your breath. You’ll try to appear small. Surprisingly, none of the teenagers intent on using the pool at the Hampton Inn will bother to look in the backseat of the “mom car” parked next to them. No one will shriek at the sight of the presumably dead body, curled—or crammed—in the backseat. What’s a girl gotta do to get a little attention these days?

Imagine the embarrassment if you are caught. Will the Hampton Inn night manager call the police? Will they suspect you are homeless, indigent? Your clothes are a little rumpled by this point. Your breath not-so-fresh. Your car looks as though it’s on the verge of being abandoned, but it always looks that way.

Eventually, the teenagers go away. The guys in the pickup with monster-truck tires bigger than your car go away. Everybody’s snug inside their rented rooms, with pillows and blankets. With mattresses. Soon, all you hear are crickets chirping and semis trundling up and down the highway. All you see is empty sky and the insanely bright glow of halogen street lamps.     

This gives you time to think. Time to wonder if this is the best course of action, if perhaps this particular domestic dispute could have been solved in a more reasonable fashion. Perhaps you don’t have to run away from home when your spouse disappears with your child and doesn’t answer your calls or texts for seven straight hours. Perhaps he said good-bye, but you were busy with your spade and your iPod and didn’t hear or even notice his absence for several hours, until you wander inside, hot and tired from gardening, to see if anyone will feed you. Perhaps he’s not abandoning you, but afflicted with poor cell-phone reception. Soon you begin to wonder if you’ve come unhinged. Now there’s a scary thought.

Your phone pings reassuringly, voicemail or e-mail. Somebody loves you. But how to go home without losing face? Fortunately, you are rescued by your own body. You have to pee. It’s a good hour-long drive, so you leave at once. You sneak inside at two a.m., whispering to the dog to be quiet, leaving the light off in the bathroom. You slip beneath the covers, you cuddle up with the eight or ten glorious pillows on your bed.

Your husband touches your shoulder. “Where were you, Honey? Where were you?”

How to explain that you’d been to Crazy-Town. That you nearly set up residency. But you came back.

Your husband looks at you. Tomorrow you will apologize, using the words “ridiculous” and “miscommunication,” punctuated with lots of eyelash fluttering. One of your friends, when you tell her the story later, will comment: “You must be good in bed.” Hmm, you hadn’t thought of that. You will think back on your arsenal, trying to come up with something extra good.

But for now, you close your eyes and go to sleep.