Scenic Route

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1

Hey!

Man Hey! Hey!

Yaah!

God!

Damn it!

Sh*t.

What's going on?

I don't know, man.

Think it just died.

Holy sh*t.

Come on.

Oh, my God.

What is it?

It's like angel-hair

pasta in here, brother.

Um...

here. Try it now.

Anything?

Nothing.

Okay.

Oh, this is terrible.

All right.

So...

Um...

Why do we even bother

to pop the hood?

I thought I heard something.

Yeah, well, unless there's

a flashing neon sign

that says, "Here's

your problem,"

what the hell do we know?

F***, that's hot.

Careful.

What you got?

I got no service.

What about you?

I hardly get service

in the city,

let alone the desert.

Yeah, I got nothing, man.

Where the hell are we, anyway?

Uh...

let me see.

Okay.

We, um... We

passed this dot...

about an hour ago.

I think we're in

here someplace.

That's like 60 miles back.

Wow. It's like a hundred

miles to the next dot.

What the hell are you doing driving

us through the middle of nowhere?

We're taking the scenic

route, remember?

Yeah, by scenic, I

was thinking...

I don't know, more trees,

mountains, people,

dots a lot closer together.

By scenic, I meant

rarely seen.

I'm gonna get you a

dictionary when we get back.

Okay.

Holy sh*t, it's hot

out here, man.

It's gotta be,

like, 115 degrees.

I know.

Not even noon!

No wonder the truck died.

Something probably melted.

Have we even seen any cars?

Ow. No,

but, uh, it's a road, right?

I mean, someone'll

be along soon.

Well, we got about

20 jelly beans

and 6 ounces of melted ice.

That should last

us 10 minutes.

Oh, good.

It's pretty.

Yeah. It's beautiful.

Ohh!

Ohh!

What flavor is this?

Bacon and Margarita.

Oh, my God!

I saved those two

just for you.

Tastes like that cake you

made with the onions.

Remember that sh*t?

Yeah, I remember.

I think that brings your total

of veiled references to

things I did with Karen

up to three, so feel

free to stop, please.

You never think about her, man?

Ever?

I probably think about her

about as much as she

thinks about me.

Well, she thinks about

you a lot, dude.

I ran into her last

week, and, uh,

you were all she

can talk about.

She said she was floored to

hear you had a wife and kid.

Yeah, well, it floors

me sometimes, too.

You all right?

Yeah.

Don't overexert yourself.

I can't believe you got

us out of roaming.

Huh?

Never been out of roaming.

That even possible?

Where are you going?

What are you doing?

I'm gonna go up here and

see if I can get a signal.

No! Let's sit, and let's wait

a few minutes, man.

Well, why?

I don't know.

We'll hang, and we'll

wait for a car.

No, you sit and wait.

I'm gonna go up and check.

Ah, sh*t.

You remember last time

we drove cross-country

and we went, like, 200

miles out of the way

because we were so into

whatever we were talking about?

Yeah, and now neither one of

us can remember what it was.

Might have been when, uh...

Might have been when you claimed

that art can reach a point

where its quality became

fact rather than opinion.

That sounds like a

couple hours of my life

I'd like to have back.

Or it might have

been better defense,

'85 Bears or Steel Curtain?

Ah, that's hardly debatable.

Bears. Yeah.

Well, there hasn't been

much of that this time.

What? Pointless conversation?

Any conversation.

How are things

in high finance?

Ah, put it this way...

there's this motivational

poster in my office

with, like, this eagle

soaring out of the

sky and sh*t.

Yeah.

I'll spend some days

just staring at it,

trying to decide

whether or not

I'm more suicidal or

homicidal that day.

Nice!

So quit.

Quit? And do what?

You ever do that thing when

you were in second grade,

where you, like,

drew a picture

of... of what you wanted to be

when you were adult, you know?

Like, I heard that that's the truest

reflection of what you really want.

Like, if you're doing

what you drew back then,

then you're probably

really happy.

Yeah? And what'd you draw?

Me?

I think I drew a fat,

unemployed writer,

so I'm killing it.

Come on.

Nothing.

So Joanne didn't like

your music, huh?

We just have different tastes.

More likely, she has taste.

Well, I liked it.

Karen liked it.

Would you stop that?

What, man? I mean...

Joanne didn't like your music,

and she made you get

rid of your guitars.

I'm just trying to get

up to speed here.

No, she didn't make

me do anything.

It became clear that I wasn't

gonna have a lot of

chances to play,

so I got rid of the stuff.

You know, she's not

a music critic.

She's a receptionist.

She's my wife,

Carter, my wife.

I'm just saying.

I know exactly what

you're saying,

and I'm telling you to stop.

Davey said he saw you

guys at the store,

but you just kind of

walked right on by.

Yeah? Well, tell

him I say hello.

Why don't you tell him?

You live less than, like,

10 miles away from the guy.

Yeah, we're pretty busy.

Well, he thinks that

your wife hates him.

No. No?

She's just not much on

gatherings, that's all.

What about your

parents' house?

There's never less than

a hundred people there.

Ah, we don't visit very often.

Okay.

Uh, so no Davey, no family.

Sounds like the list of

people she does like

is kind of short. I hope

you're on it, buddy.

Seriously, would

you knock it off?

You don't even know her.

You're right, man.

I don't know her.

Every time I come to visit

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