Stories, Thoughts and Snippets
A 1st Date 1 A 1st Date 2 A 1st Date 3 A 1st Date 4
"ungmmmhh. Hello?" I had clearly woken the voice on the other end of the line. I did not feel particularly bad about it, this was a selfish call.
"Christy. Are you awake?"
"I am now. Why are calling me so late, Joe, what's going on?"
"I need you to keep me awake for awhile, there's a rest stop in forty miles, I need you to keep me awake until then."
"It's fucking four in the morning, Joe, why the hell are you driving this late."
"It's only three where I am."
"That must be wonderful."
"I'm dying here, I've been on the road since 6 this morning."
"Where are you going?"
"Back to California, I have to see Eric about something."
"Joe, why don't you pull off to the shoulder, put on your flashers and get a little sleep, just a few hours, and then drive somewhere you can get some real sleep."
"I just want to get to the next rest stop. It'll only take a half an hour or so, you're doing fine right now, I've already gone a mile or two since we've been talking."
"Fucking Christ, Joe. I have to work tomorrow, I'm going back to sleep, don't be an idiot, pull off of the damn road and get some sleep."
"Christy, do me this favor. This one favor for old times sake, please, I'll fall asleep."
"Joe, old times were a long time ago now, I don't owe you anything, just stop the car and sleep."
"Christy..."
"Goodbye Joe." She hung up on me.
"Fuck."
I figured I was still at least twenty-five minutes out, so I rolled down all the windows and let the cold air blast me in the face, then I dug out the angriest, fastest music I had with me and put it on as loud as my car stereo would play it. I did not expect any real trouble in staying awake until the rest stop, but I was disappointed that Christy wouldn't try to keep me awake. She had stopped loving me a long time ago, or at least she had said that she had stopped loving me a long time ago, I always believed that deep down she still cared for me, even if she could not bear to look at me. I was now forced to reevaluate that belief.
I had always made long trips in this fashion, I would drive until I had to stop, and then wake up and keep going as soon as possible. I tried to get it over with in one long painful shot. I had always despised road trips, even buses put me on edge, as far as I was concerned the only decent ways to travel were by air, train, or boat. Unfortunately none of these are particularly efficient when one is relocating ones entire life, including ones worldly possessions. Every time I crossed the country by way of the highway I was reminded of how little I liked most of it. The endless flat stretches of Middle America seemed picturesque only for about as long as I liked looking at a painting. The Rocky Mountains, and the Badlands that lay behind them seemed too severe to be beautiful. It appeared to me as though nothing should be able to survive in such a place, and for the most part that nearly held true. The one advantage of driving long into the night was that I would pass by much of this territory without having to observe it, but I could feel it in the air, once the humidity of the East, which I held no love for, faded I began to feel the dry bake of the place, even in the night air.
I would have sang at the top of my lungs if I had known the words, but I did not, instead I drove fast, and took long, hard, breaths. I trusted my radar detector, and looked as hard as I could for any lights that might indicate a speed trap. Paranoia was good, it kept me awake, my finances were no longer such that I could shrug off even a seventy-dollar ticket, but even with this incentive I could feel sleep pull at me whenever I lowered my head, or closed my eyes against the dust.
I shared the road mostly with long haul truckers that drove through the night to avoid the traffic of the day, there were a few others like me, those who drove on for any reason they might like. Were this a more populous area there would have been the night crowd as well, drunken or sober, those finally coming home from a nights entertainment, or maybe only just heading somewhere else, sometimes driving nowhere as its own entertainment. They were usually easy to recognize, blowing past even when I drove ten over the speed limit, not always of course, some managed to remain inconspicuous, but they did not concern me, they might as well have been anyone else.
I saw a blue sign pass me on the right, and I could not focus to read the letters before it was gone. This did not concern me; such signs always indicated rest stops. I took the next exit and found myself the only car in a parking lot separated from the interstate by a thin patch of scrubby pine trees. The one lonely little building stood with two vending machines attached to it by way of a cage. I parked at the far end as it contained fewer of the humming yellowish lights that illuminated the lot. I got out of my car to stretch; I urinated next to a bush in front of my car, which was infinitely preferable to the public restrooms at the average rest stop. Clearing the water bottles and CD's from my passenger seat I prepared to sleep, thinking about all the stories I had heard of rest stops as magnets for thugs, and havens for decidedly unappetizing homosexual activity. I never could reconcile that rumor with the widely accepted stereotype of homosexuals as generally possessing a high level of sophistication and taste. In all the nights that I had spent at rest stops I had never encountered anything the least bit interesting.