AMERICANWAY
JULY 15 2007
S H A H I N T A K E S O F F
128
ILLUSTRATIONBYAMANDADUFFY
Marriage—
theUltımate
RoadTrip
ByJimShahin
And sowe spent the
summer of our newly-
wed year arguing over
theseason tocome. That
is, whenweweren’t argu-
ing about banking errors.
Finally, we decided to
settle the debate by taking
adelayedhoneymoon to the
East Coast.
ROAD TRIPS CAN
either
cure or kill a relationship.
Any relationship. Boyfriend-
girlfriend. Husband-wife. Parent-
child. Hitchhiking stranger with long
knife hidden in backpack–kindly driver who
picks him up.
I’ve been on all sorts of road trips. Family
road trips from Philly to Niagara Falls; from
Flint,Michigan, toFlorida; andoncetoCalifor-
nia.Wildcollege road tripswithpals.Across-
country road trip with a college girlfriend
from L.A. to Maine. Road trips throughout
Texas, Louisiana, the Southwest, the Pacific
Northwest, and one particularly memorable
road tripwith Samwhen hewas about nine.
It was a civil rights trip through the South,
starting inMemphis and stopping inJackson,
Mississippi; Montgomery, Birmingham, and
Selma, Alabama; and ending in Atlanta, dur-
ingwhichwe learneda lot about the country,
ourselves, and fried catfish.
None of my road trips, however, was as
transformative as that one with Jessica in
NewEngland.
We had flown into Boston, where we sat
in the sun of fabled Fenway Park, quaffed a
truly great ballpark beer, and watched the
Red Sox defeat Toronto to clinch the Ameri-
can League East, the first step on the road
to their equally fabled loss to theMets in the
1986 World Series. From Boston, we drove
north in a rented car along theMaine coast,
eating lobster rolls, walking on the rocky
shore, and staying at a cottage house, where
WINDINGAROUND
abend innorthernMaine
in lateSeptember,we’rehitfull inthefacewith
a vista of yet anothermountainside exploding
withyet another dazzling splat of color.
“What do you think?” I ask Jessica.
“It is unbelievable,” she says.
“Better thanTexas?”
I glance over at her in the car’s passenger
seat. Her expression is somewhere between
a religious experience and a Gomer Pyle im-
pression.
Whenwe left for this trip, wewere barely
speaking. We had been fighting for weeks
about a banking error that resulted in our
having a lot less money thanwe thought we
had, and likemost newlyweds, wedidn’t have
much to beginwith. Jessica hadmade amis-
take, and shewasmad atme for not blaming
the bank.
“But itwasn’t the bank’s fault,” I said.
“That’s not the point,” she retorted. “You
didn’t supportme.”
“Why should I support you if you are
wrong?”
“You didn’t know I was wrong when you
started not supportingme.”
And there, ladies andgentlemen, iswhat I
like to call our template argument: I’m right
on the facts; shewins the argument.
And sowearehere, inNewEngland, in fall.
Settling adifferent argument.
As it happens, it’s about New England in
the fall.
Shortly after weweremarried that April,
I had said something about autumn and be-
moaned the lack of it inTexas.
Jessica grew up in the Lone Star State
and insisted, as only a Texan can, that Texas
does, too, get autumn— and as good as can
be found anywhere.Well, missy, I responded,
I grew up in Philly and spent my teenage
years inMichigan and lived a spell inMaine,
and I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but
autumn in Texas is the black-and-white part
in the
Wizard of Oz
, as opposed to the Tech-
nicolor part.
Jessica saw a ghost — felt
a presence, actually— in the shower, which
kindled in me a concern for her sanity and
a particularly loony sort of jealousy, which
made me even more concerned for my own
sanity. “Whowas this ghost, presence, what-
ever?Did you know him?” I asked.
Before the trip was over, we would stay
at an almost comically menacing B&B in
Vermont (the gargantuan ex-Boston Combat
Zone medical worker-cum-B&B proprietor
was, let’s just say, a bit pushy and a bit in-
appropriate); play in the sun, the rain, and
the snow— all in a single day— in the New
Hampshiremountains; get chased by cops in
Philly for knocking on the door of my child-
hood home and asking to see it; and eat at
a tiny Jamaican restaurant in Washington,
D.C., where a cheerful waitress told us not to
worryabout lacking themoney topay fordin-
ner but to justmail a check sometime.
But at this moment, a question hung in
the air.
“Better thanTexas?”
“You were right,” she says. “Better than
Texas.”
Yes! Right on the facts
and
the reality.
And so a new templatewas born.
That’s the great thing about road trips.
Younever knowwhere theyaregoing to take
you.
