Robbie Time

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my 1992 Subaru Legacy watching as the hills run by and turn into a flat kind of field with rolling mounds and patches of brown dirt trying to fight it’s way up to the surface above the grass. Adam is in the driver’s seat watching as the road turns and twists and straightens. Sitting in the back is our friend Julian. He doesn’t say much. He’s sitting inside of an urn. I guess I should go back and explain why our friend Julian is sitting in an urn. Well, Julian’s dead. He died just after graduating college in the spring. It was a hot day. Graduation I mean. He had worked for four years trying to get this degree that, in the end, I guess means absolutely nothing, but nonetheless he worked for it and he got it. Shortly thereafter he was driving to work and got rear ended by an 18-wheeler causing his car to spin out of control and go over a cliff. Moments later the car burst into flame and Julian died. Don’t get me wrong when I tell you this with a straight face. Believe me when I say it was the last piece of news I ever wanted to receive. But I guess these things happen. Right, so then why is Adam driving my car and why is Julian sitting in an urn in the back? Well, that’s simple. He wanted to be cremated and he never told anyone where he wanted his ashes to be “dumped.” So, Adam and I, well, we were pretty good friends of Julian while he was alive and we thought that he would want to be put to final rest out on the west coast. Why we thought this I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because Julian never went there. He always wanted to but never got the chance. All his favorite writers had traveled to the west coast at least once and then wrote about it in some great novel that Julian had read at least ten times. He always talked about going out there with Adam and I. So as a final gift to Julian we both thought it would be proper if we took him out to the great Pacific Ocean. I got the news of Julian’s death the same day that it happened. I don’t know what came over me but I refused to believe it. It just seemed like a sick and cruel joke that someone was playing. It was a few days later that I made the trip down to Massachusetts in order to attend his funeral. I went and said my piece to his body and hugged his mother. Said I was sorry and he deserved better. It was there that I saw Adam. I hadn’t seen him in about four months as he had left Plymouth State University after the fall semester in order to go to another school in the southern part of the country. We got to talking and catching up on news and each other’s lives. I got to drinking and thinking and came up with the most brilliant idea. “Adam,” I said standing and perhaps shouting; I can’t quite remember. “We should take Julian out to California! It’s what he would’ve wanted.” “Oh yeah,” Adam said with a curious smile on his face that I had almost forgotten about. “Why do you think he would’ve wanted that?” “Well, I don’t know. Isn’t that where he always wanted to go? I mean, some of his favorite writers went out there and he always talked about their trips as though they were his own. Let’s give him the trip he always wanted and deserved.” The night ended shortly after that conversation, and I don’t really remember going to bed. In fact all I do remember is that Adam, with a smile on his face and a glimmer in his eye, agreed to take Julian out to California as soon as he was ready to go and provided his mother would allow us to. The next morning I awoke with a slight headache but a feeling of happiness. Why I felt happy to this day, I don’t really know. All I knew is that I needed a car and I had to find out when I could take Julian. Or rather, the remains of Julian.