The John Wick Road Trip Is Decadent and Depraved
I got there early. I always get there early if I can. I hate standing in lines and this one has already wrapped around itself. I have come here to participate in something, though I’m not entirely sure what that something is. The information about it online was scant, and now that I’m here, I’m sensing a waste of time. Still, the boss is out for the day and work is slow. I make my way to the end of the line.
There’s a semi-trailer at the center of it all, shiny and purple with Keanu Reeves’ face, billboard-size, on the side of it. Keanu has become something of a folk hero these days, elevated by an eager Internet to demigod status through stories of his positivity and general good-dude kindness. Someone remarks how great it would be, how fucking cool, if Keanu Reeves were actually here. Keanu Reeves is not here. That much is clear from the sparse surroundings and the kiddie-carnival atmosphere. Still, the thought has the power to disappoint, if only a little.
What is here, what I came to be a part of, is what they’re calling the John Wick Road Trip. The John Wick movies, for those few who haven’t encountered them, are splashy action ballets full of tightly-choreographed violence, set in a world governed by strict rules and gold coins that the characters slide meaningfully across tables to one another. I loved the first one. The sequels are, well, sequels with all the shortcomings of sequels, but I like them anyway.
What I could read about the Road Trip on Facebook was vague, and now that I see it, perhaps intentionally so. It’s a marketing thing, and I know I’m being sold to. There was the promise of “free swag” and a chance to see props and a car that was used in the movie. I’m prepared to be disappointed, but I resolve to stay. The air is cool and the line isn’t that long. Half an hour. Forty-five minutes tops.
There’s an older man in a ratty t-shirt with a gas can in his hand. He uses it to top off the generator that makes a friendly, white-noise rumble at the front of the trailer. It’s hard to tell what his role in all this is. He doesn’t seem to fit with the clutch of bored twenty-somethings that meander near the trailer in matching polos. I decide that he’s the truck driver, not a part of this thing but one step removed from it. It’s comforting to know his role, to know that he’s here to keep everything running. Out of all of us, he’s the only one who seems to be doing anything useful.
Ahead of me in line are two guys, chatting loudly. One of them has puppets on his hands. I assume it’s for some skit they’re doing for Instagram or YouTube, some millennial thing that makes more sense to them than it does me. I have my sunglasses on and it’s easy to ignore them. I don’t need the sunglasses. The sky is cloudy. It’s been raining for three days — heavy, climate-change storms that seem more and more frequent lately — but it’s dry today. If it rains, I’ll leave, I tell myself.