"Michael…Michael…"
Mike felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to discover almost complete darkness all around him. He blinked a couple of times and rubbed his eyes with his hands to adjust to the darkness. Afterwards, Peter came into focus.
"What's going on, Shotgun? Are we home yet?"
The Monkees had travelled five hours away from their home in Malibu to compete in a band competition. The prize money was too good to pass up, even if it was going to cost much time and money to travel. They had no luck with the competition and had not even placed.
Mike had driven to the competition, and was combating a nagging frustration about traveling all that way for nothing as well as exhaustion. Micky had offered to drive home since not one Monkee wanted to feel the guitarist's wrath on the way home. Mike had curled up in the back of the Monkeemobile and dozed off in an instant. Now, he had no idea how long he had been sleeping or why it was so pitch black outside.
"Well…" Peter struggled to find the words, "ya see…boy this is tough."
"We ran out of gas and we are in the desert miles away from civilization," Davy blurted out. "See that wasn't so difficult."
"I was trying to soften the blow," Peter said and then added in a lower voice, "for all our sakes."
Mike's right eye began to twitch. He noticed tension start simmering below the surface of his body. Through teeth clenched he said as calmly as he could muster, "How did that happen?"
The noticeably absent drummer, until now, peeked over from behind the driver's seat. "You see I stopped at a gas station miles back while we were at a quarter tank to be proactive," Micky began with a cracking and obviously nervous voice. "I went into the bathroom was about to pay and then pump the gas. This guy started telling me about a shortcut to back home that could have us there in half the time. I was paying so close attention to the directions that…"
"He completely forgot to get the gas," Davy finished for him.
Micky sank lower in the car seat, bracing himself for the eruption of Mount St. Nesmith. Mike could stay calm, cool, and collected in almost any situation. He needed that level-headed temperament to facilitate ideas to get them out of scrapes. However, the guys all knew that Mike had no patience for senseless mistakes. Mike did have a temper that rarely made appearances, but when it did everyone better run for cover.
"We didn't realize it until it was too late," Peter attempted to soothe his bandmate.
It was then that the simmering tension turned to a boil, causing the Texan's temperature to rise with redness covering his face and neck. "Why didn't any of you realize that you stopped to get gas and didn't actually pump any? Or maybe that the gas light came on? Or maybe, I don't know, that this shortcut has taken us away from EVERYTHING!"
The other guys all jumped in their seats. They had been preparing themselves for Mike's response. They had not actually woken him up for fifteen minutes while they argued the best way to approach him. All that preparation didn't make Mike's outburst any less jarring.
No one answered and the disgruntled guitarist roared again, "Somebody better start explaining!"
"Well…you see…I um…" Peter stammered. "I got caught up talking to this guy who was trying to sell me the Golden Gate Bridge for twenty bucks. I didn't have enough money so he ran away. Or maybe that had something to do with the cop car that pulled up…"
"I was keeping an eye on our instruments and making sure no one bothered you, Mate," Davy said triumphantly.
"Then how did you miss Micky not pumping the gas?" Mike gritted his teeth.
"Could have been the blonde a few pumps over that I had to pry him away from so we could leave," Micky snitched on the Brit.
"Perfect!" Mike exclaimed. "I can never leave you three in charge of anything. I feel like I always have to be around to make sure things are okay." Mike was seething with emotional upset. "You can't let an idea pass you by no matter how dumb it is. You are so gullible that a crook can see you coming from states over. And your libido can't chill out for even five seconds," Mike pointed towards each his bandmates accusingly.
Peter sniffled. Micky was again out of sight behind the driver's seat. Davy whose temper could be a match for Mike's finally spoke up after the shock had worn off. "Look, Mike. Yes, we are at fault for this, but so are you. You were so bothered by this trip that you didn't trouble yourself with making sure things were going alright. You insulting us is not going to magically make gas appear in the car," Davy spat.
"Oh you're so cocky now aren't you, Shrimp? Care to take this outside of the car? I can make it so that your looks are no longer an issue for us," Mike threatened.
Davy began to roll up his sleeves, prepared to go toe to toe with someone a whole foot taller than him. Peter spoke up in that moment, always the voice of reason, "Listen guys, I know emotions and tension are high. But us fighting with each other is not going to solve our problem of getting home. It's already ten o'clock. We need to figure this out with clear heads and working together."
"Pete's right," Micky chimed in popping up fully from the driver's seat, "We need a plan…I have a plan."
"Is it a good one?" Mike asked skeptically.
"I have a plan," Micky repeated less certain.
The guys wandered across the dark, desert road armed with a flashlight they kept in the trunk. There was cool wind blowing around them. As the time crept on it was apparent that soon the temperature would be continuing to drop. Funny thing about deserts, during the day temperatures were startling high however when the darkness arrived the temperature could drop to near freezing.
They had been walking for about forty-five minutes already and had not seen anything remotely helpful.
"If we die, Micky, I'm going to spend the rest of our afterlife reminding you that this was all your fault," Mike said starting to de-escalate from the walk.
"That's cool, I wouldn't mind having company while being a ghost," the drummer joked.
If at all possible the darkness seemed to be enveloping the surroundings more and more as time went on. It was difficult to even see the bright, red band shirt of the person in front of you.
"I hope there are no wild animals out here, like coyotes," Peter whispered as if trying not to let the potential animals hear him.
"Don't worry, Peter," Mike answered and added smugly, "if any coyotes find us we will feed them Davy."
The Brit took that opportunity to stick out his foot and trip the wool hat wearing man. Mike fell to the ground as Davy yelled, "Timber!" Davy then took off running ahead of the others without the flashlight.
Mike stood up and brushed off his clothes. "I guess I did deserve that. Davy, don't get too far ahead! We don't want to lose you out here, even if you're a pain in the ass," Mike called out. "We need to find a solution to this soon. I'm starting to feel dazed and I don't think we will be able to see much longer, it keeps getting dimmer and dimmer out here."
"Hey, fellas!" came a shout back from a little ways ahead. "Hurry up! I think I see something."
