Seven Days on the Road
A week measured in miles, from Ohio to Los Angeles and back again. What began as a plan to witness a friend’s wedding unraveled into a collision of hope, memory, and doubt. This is not a story of triumph, but of seven days on the road and what broke along the way.
Intro
He was thirty miles outside of Dayton when the idea struck. Fired, funds tight, staring down a wedding he could not afford to miss. The airlines priced him out, the future pressed in, but the car sat waiting in the driveway. If there was one thing he still had, it was the will to drive.
This is the story of seven days on the road. Seven days from ignition to collapse.
“You’ve got to get the train back on the track, kid.” — Clint Eastwood to Charlie Sheen (Paraphrasing quote)
Tuesday, third week of September. The wound of termination still open, throbbing. My mind raced faster than any speed limit. Someone who once shared my history, now one of my dearest friends, was getting married. I could not miss it.
I searched flights: Priceline, Spirit, Delta. The numbers mocked my new reality. Unemployed, cautious, I could not justify the cost. Driving offered what the airlines could not: control, flexibility, and a chance to shape the trip on my terms. So I chose the road.
I hurled clothes into a bag, hangers clattering like loose bones. Ignition. Asphalt stretching west. Ohio shrinking in the mirror.
By late Thursday I reached Camarillo. The air felt merciful. I walked into the Psycho Bunny store certain my linen set awaited, subtle enough to whisper, sharp enough to command. When the associate brought out my order, reality snapped. I had only purchased shirts. No pants. I had placed the order thinking it was a set, but it was not.
For a moment panic rose, absurd and urgent, because the look I had imagined was incomplete. A dear friend of mine, close to me though only loosely tied to the bride, had come along for the pickup and dinner. I explained my mistake, the way my plan had slipped through the cracks, and she steadied me with laughter. Together we scoured the racks until another option surfaced. Not perfect, but workable.
She checked out, I checked out, and what began as a calamity softened into companionship. We went to dinner, reminisced, and let the day close in warmth.
Afterward, I drove to the church where I’d be staying. Walking back through those familiar doors felt strange and steady at once. My childhood sanctuary had become my shelter again, not by plan but by grace. I hadn’t booked a hotel — the future was too uncertain for that. My Pastor opened the doors of the church instead. It was generosity, but it also meant I wasn’t really setting my own pace. The Pastor welcomed me in, and we caught up on life until the night wound down. Beneath that roof, I let sleep take me.
Friday morning broke with eagerness. No strict itinerary, just a current carrying me forward. The first stop was the nail salon, where Helen, my technician for nearly two decades, welcomed me back. She worked on my pedicure and waxing with the same practiced care she always had. Another technician shaped my nails. The whole ritual was familiar and soothing, like muscle memory stitched into comfort. When I walked out, I felt restored.
I had spoken with my friend Billy earlier; we aimed for sushi around two. By mid-afternoon he asked to push it, and I reshuffled. A haircut came first in Culver City, then I steered toward Koreatown. Our meal shifted too: not sushi, but steaming bowls of udon and Japanese curry. Tradition held. We ate until we were heavy and happy, but this time we skipped the cigar lounge. Fatigue won.
The hunt for pants slipped a day further down the line, as did a dinner reservation at Perch. Instead, I returned to sanctuary. By grace or coincidence, the church was holding a Pastor and Wife’s Appreciation Service that evening. I sat in the pews, grateful to be folded into their celebration.
The night closed on something smaller, quieter. Across the street sat Tacos Gavilan, its neon glow cutting through the dark. Pastor lingered, saying goodnight to his wife as she prepared to head home, while I walked over to place our order. I picked up a burrito for myself and a quesadilla for him. Back at the church, we ate together, the simple meal grounding us after a long day. We laughed, we ate, and then let sleep take us again.
Saturday arrived. The shirt and shoes were ready, but the pants were still elusive. I searched online, chased leads, even asked ChatGPT to help style the outfit. H&M promised an option. By ten in the morning I was at the Century City mall, hope tucked in my chest. In the racks, nothing. The clerk searched too.
I pivoted again. I found a pair of dressy sweats with enough structure to pass, and linen trousers in a shade different from the ones I had wanted. Not perfect, but workable. With all the pieces finally in hand, I returned to the church. I grabbed a burrito, showered, let Taken 2 flicker across the screen, and dressed. In the end I chose the sweats. They matched my crème-colored Savage x Fenty Pumas almost too well to ignore.
This wedding was not stiff tradition. It was dress-to-impress, come-as-you-are. Celebration, not ceremony. My look felt right for the spirit of it. On the way, I stopped to check in with another close friend. She eyed the outfit, caught the Tom Ford scent in the air, and gave her blessing.
I was ready, not only clothed, but prepared to stand as witness to the union of two people I cherished.
I reached the venue thirty minutes early. With her, punctuality was a given. Four o’clock meant four o’clock. With him, you could wonder if time would bend. That tension hummed even before the music started.
At the entrance I embraced her mother, then slipped inside. No sides marked for bride or groom. Just open seating, the freedom to belong wherever you landed. I scanned for familiar faces, found few, and introduced myself to strangers who soon became companions.
Music blasted, bass shaking the air. The energy was set before a word was spoken. Then came the groom, his entrance nothing less than star-studded. Boisterous, confident, extroverted in a way I could never fake. Not clownish, not strained, just wholly himself.
And then the bride. The grandest entrance of the night. She came down the aisle in white, red hearts stitched across her dress, pride radiating from every step. She carried herself with a certainty I had known long before, but seeing it here, in this moment, it landed differently. Once she had been part of my story; now she walked past me into a new covenant, and I felt no bitterness, only pride.
The minister spoke his blessing, and we waited for vows. The groom, in perfect form, broke the air with his declaration: “I motherfucking do!” Laughter ripped through the room, shock, delight, joy all tangled together. For anyone who knew him, it was expected and still somehow surprising, especially under the weight of the ceremony.
The bride answered in kind, her vows braided with rap-lyric cadence, grace fused with grit. She was luminous, unapologetic, and every line struck like poetry made flesh. As I listened, I felt echoes of the past braided with the joy of the present. What we once were, what we now are, all folded into my smile as I clapped and cheered.
Together they turned the tradition of a wedding into something truer: a celebration of their union, lived in their own voice.
When the vows gave way to music and celebration, the air shifted. Laughter swelled, glasses lifted, bass rolled through the floorboards. In the middle of it all, she appeared.
Dark-skinned, radiant, her beauty did not demand attention but refused to be missed. A bright green crochet dress traced her frame, catching the light in deliberate patterns. Her long hair lay smooth down her back. Her face was elegant, stunning, and it broke something open in me.
She crossed the room, presence subtle yet undeniable, and stood before me. “Have we met before?” she asked.
I stumbled through the answer, sure we had not. But her question carried a charge, as though she was not asking about memory, but about recognition of a different kind. The moment passed, but it stayed with me, like a note still ringing after the song has moved on. A seed had been planted, quiet and unseen, but alive all the same.
I began to imagine. A life with her. A version of myself like the groom, confident and whole. For a moment the dream was sweet. Like Sheen in his documentary, I wasn’t sure where the persona ended and the person began — only that both were fraying.
Then reality pressed in. I was unemployed, money stretched, future uncertain. I had driven instead of flown, stayed at my childhood church instead of a hotel. Every circumstance reminded me that stability was out of reach.
The dream and the reality clashed inside me, and the impact shattered me. Memories surfaced of another time, when my own choices had ended what we were and left space for another man to step in. The scene felt too familiar. Hope and regret braided together with self-doubt.
Fear rose, killing the dream as quickly as it had sparked. Darkness came over me like a blitz, a football player crushing the quarterback mid-throw. I had planned to linger in Los Angeles, to savor home and friends. But from the start I’d been living out of borrowed space, without the freedom to set my own rhythm. That loss of control gnawed at me until it magnified everything else. By the time the weight of unemployment and self-criticism pressed down, it felt like running was the only choice left.
Panic rose in me until it shook my bones. Nearly in tears, I searched for the bride and groom to say goodbye. I did not find him, but I found her and her mother. I kept my face calm, my voice steady, and simply said I was heading back to Ohio. No explanation. No hint of the storm tearing through me.
At the car, the mask fell. I sat down and broke, tears rushing out before the engine even turned. Then I started it anyway. Highway ahead, taillights streaming, I fled.
I drove 2,200 miles east, carrying the weight with me, hurting, shattering, uneasy, scared. The same road that had carried me west with hope now bore me home in retreat.
Seven days. That was the measure of it all. One week from ignition to collapse. Tuesday to Tuesday. A circle closed, but not yet healed.
Fade out. The engine hums. The road stretches on. No answers, only miles. The church lights dimmed in my rearview, a shelter I carried but could not keep.
Author’s note:
The title and framing nod to the Netflix documentary aka CHARLIE SHEEN. That film explores the tension between persona and person — the mask we wear, and the fracture when it slips. This essay carries that same thread in my own life: not Sheen’s story, but mine.