Scenes From the Highway

     I was at a truck stop on the outskirts of Amarillo on the way to Oklahoma, one I’d stopped at many Summers growing up on the way to visit family. In the back near the truckers’ showers was an enclosed area with black walls that acted as an arcade with plenty of machines ranging from Light Gun shooters to Pac-Man to pinball. Across from that was a small room about the size of a coffin with a slot machine placed within. Over the years, the slot machines took over more and more of the arcade until one day, I saw a new sign on the entry that said “21+ ONLY!”

     I was sitting in a booth in a quiet corner of the diner mapping my route to Oklahoma when I overheard a trucker in the booth behind me talking to the waitress.

     “--like a Big American Ocean.”

     “Really now?”

     “Mm-hm. All that sand n’ fields ‘s jus’ like the water, ain’t nothin’ out there ‘cept a few islands, and that out there--” he pointed his fork in the general direction of his rig in the parking lot “--is my boat. I dock every night at a new island ‘n set sail in the mornin’.”

     “Well, that’s a nice way to look at it. You gon’ want a coffee to go?”

     I mulled on those words for a bit. I suppose it’s more romantic to be lost at sea than stuck in the mud.

*****

     Deadwood, South Dakota. It was January and a heavy snow had blanketed the town the night before. The main roads had been salted over, but Lincoln St was still completely frozen and it was a sharp incline uphill to the Mount Moriah Cemetery. 

     My uncle and I were trying to get uphill to visit Wild Bill Hickock’s grave and the car struggled to gain traction. The engine groaned and moaned and the wheels spun but we just stayed right where we were about halfway up the hill. When the car began to slide backwards despite our intentions to go forward, we decided to just turn around and come back much, much later.

     Deadwood’s businesses were primarily clustered along a main road made from red bricks winding through the mountains. The exterior of the saloons were mostly intact from how they looked way back when, if not convincing recreations. The sky above was a stormy white from the dense clusters of clouds hanging over the town like a pool of cigarette smoke. We pulled into a parking enclosure at the entrance of town, fed the parking meter as many quarters as we could find in the car, and wandered up the sidewalk dressed in a few layers of jackets each.

     My uncle excitedly pointed at a building with a base made from old brown wood with a second floor made of brick-and-mortar and said enthusiastically “there it is! Saloon 10! That’s where Wild Bill Hickock was shot!” As we headed for the front door, I realized I didn't even know who the hell Bill Hickock was.

     We funneled through the door into a large wooden room with paintings of Western figures, taxidermied animal heads, and replica firearms lining the walls. A card table had been set up beside the front door to replicate where Bill was shot, and a few male tourists with glasses of draft beer were sitting in that spot happily recreating the deed with finger guns. In a glass enclosure over the front door was an old wooden chair with a gun-belt dangling from it and a bronze sign proclaiming that it was “Wild Bill’s Death Chair.”

     In a room nearby, purple neon slot machines were mounted into the old wooden walls and chimed away for the tourists and local retirees to enjoy. My uncle saddled up at the bar and I sat beside him even though I wasn’t old enough to drink. Where ELSE am I gonna sit?

*****

     Okemah, Oklahoma. I trekked uphill along the highway towards the Highland Cemetery where the Guthrie family plot is. I abandoned my car in a parking space off the main street to walk to the family plot in honor of Woody, with every sharp inhale of the humid July air having me ask myself “why the hell did I think this was a good idea?”

     The highway ran through a corridor of tall trees swaying in the wind, some vibrant and most dead, and bits of litter lined the median that sloped sharply downward into some green, hilly abyss. Past the corridors of trees were open fields of green peppered with houses, trailers, an auto body shop, and eventually the Highland Cemetery encompassed in a chain link fence and ultimately culminating in a gate made from brick, mortar, and iron with a cross sitting atop it.

     As I passed through the endless rows of headstones, I realized I actually had no clue where the Guthrie family plot was and I’d have to go row-by-row-by-row to find them.

     I followed along a black road lined with headstones and trees and glanced at all of the neatly scattered graves; husbands and wives buried together, children who never got to grow up, uncles, grandpas, and grandmas all meeting their end either too soon, too late, or just on time. Some of the headstones had the insignia of a branch of the US Military and small United States flags sticking out proudly among the flowers in their headstone saddles while other lonely graves had only the grass growing on them for the horticulture anyone would ever leave them.

     I walked for what felt like an hour as I felt the high Oklahoma sun glaring down on me as my neck turned the color of boiled lobster and I banked left towards a tree where a concrete bench sat. I stumbled onto the bench, held my head in my hands to catch my breath, and when I looked up, I saw the Guthrie family plot sitting right in front of me.

     Buried here was Woody’s sister Clara, killed at about age 15 in a fire rumored to have been started by their mother in a fit of Huntington’s-induced madness, Woody’s father Charley who lived trying to recapture a wealth he’d never touch again and died penniless, Woody’s mother Nora taken by Huntington’s Chorea when no one even knew what was affecting her, and beside them was a grave marker for Woody himself, inscribed with a self-portrait and the phrase “BOUND FOR GLORY.”

     Woody’s marker was covered in coins, guitar picks, bandanas, and scraps of poems fellow admirers wrote, but the headstones for the other family members were devoid of love and attention and all that had been left upon them were leaves that had fallen from the tree standing above. There was something amusing about the traces of love for Woody even though he wasn’t buried here. But then, if he’s not here, why am I?

*****

     Post, Texas, on the way from Dallas to Lubbock and from there I can’t remember. I pulled into a Family Dollar off Main St. to grab a few essentials and noticed a few blocks down was a defunct movie theater made of red bricks with a tall steel sign with descending yellow letters reading “TOWER.” 

     I threw my newly purchased essentials in the car and walked over to admire the marquee that read “THE COFFEE HOUSE.” I slipped through the doors and helped myself in.

     The lobby still looked for the most part how it must’ve back in the 1930s, with red velvet curtains adorning the walls among classic movie posters with portraits of Jesus Christ beside them. A golden banister that’d long since lost its shine was guiding a winding stairwell to the second floor with an inkjet printed sign taped to the wall nearby reading “STAFF ONLY! DO NOT ENTER!” The concession stand had been refashioned into a coffee shop, with the varying devices used for such luxuries placed about where the soda fountain used to be. The menu for the concession stand was still hung up while a four foot chalkboard with the coffee menu was standing in front of the register.

     A few women in modest-yet-trendy clothing ranging from the ages of 18 to 43 stood behind the counter and looked up as I entered the room.

     “Well, howdy! How can I help you?”

     I looked around the lobby and admired the old architecture. “Well, I suppose I’m about to get a coffee, but admittedly I wouldn’t mind getting a good look around the theater if you don’t mind.”

     The cashier smiled. “Not at all! Feel free to look around.”

     “Thank you!” I slid a twenty across the counter and asked her to surprise me and keep the change. She punched a few buttons and the younger woman behind her turned and brought the machines to life as they hissed and moaned.

     I slipped through the open doorways into the auditorium and examined the room. The seats had last been replaced in the 70s and had been well-used, cotton creeping out from the seams in quite a few of them, and a black stage sat in front of the white screen. Atop the stage was a Crèche made from life-size wooden cutouts, the human shapes painted matte black.

     I peaked back into the lobby and looked to the cashier who greeted me. “Excuse me?”

     She looked over at me.

     “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the nativity scene?”

     She came out from behind the counter and stood beside me to look in and point at the stage. “Well, when the movie theater closed, the nearby church started renting it out to put on plays and sermons. That’s leftover from last month’s play.”

     “Huh! And is the concession stand still in use as a traditional concession stand, or is it just all coffee now?”

     She gave a light chuckle. “It’s mostly coffee, but if there’s a show, the popcorn maker still works.”

     “Do you ever screen movies nowadays?”

     “Well, not too often, to be quite honest with ya. The main reason the theater closed when it did was because the movie companies stopped putting them out on film and would only rent out digital versions, and at the time, we just couldn’t afford a new projector.”

     “Damn. Did you work here when it was a theater?”

     “Yessir! First and only job I had ever since I was a little girl.”

     I thought about those words for a moment before looking up and noticing the lens of the old 35mm projector peeking out from the projection room.

     “Hey, and you can say no, but do you mind if I check out the projection room upstairs?” 

     She thought about it for a moment. “Well, I’ll tell ya what. For liability reasons, we don’t let people up there, but since it’s slow, I can go up there with you and give you a tour.”

     “That’d be nice! Thank you!”

     She led me up the winding stairwell with steep steps and led me through an old white wooden door into a large room with sky-blue walls. Against the wall facing the auditorium was a smaller room that was host to a 35mm projector with a platter reel and shelving along the walls with small reels the size of my fist. I picked up one to examine it and the label said “THE LEGO MOVIE - TRAILER 2 - 35mm- 2min43sec.”

     Beside the projection booth was a glassless window about ten feet by six feet and sitting before it was a ten-by-six grid of wooden theater seats from the 30s with cushioning in far worse condition than the seats below. 

    I pointed at them and asked the woman “what’s the story with those seats?”

     “That’s the segregated section where the blacks would have to sit.”

     I stood and stared for a long, long while at the ugly piece of history that stood before me. 

     I went back downstairs with the woman, thanked the crew for the tour, and worked my way out of the theater with a to-go coffee in hand as I walked a few blocks back to my car and got back on the highway to wherever it was I was heading.

*****

     Somewhere on the far skirts of Albuquerque, my hometown. I’d been priced out of Los Angeles and Albuquerque was in the midst of another housing crisis, so I could only stay the night here before getting back on the highway to find somewhere I could drop anchor and stay afloat for a few more years. I had chosen to spend the night at a campground for $20 rather than upwards of $50 for a motel. It was cheaper and, debatably, safer. 

     I followed a dirt path lined with Juniper trees up to a small wooden cabin with no windows.  The white wooden door had been left propped open leaving only a screen door to separate me from the interior, meaning I had arrived during business hours. 

     I shimmied out of the car filled with all of my Earthly belongings and approached the screen door, knocking on the frame and calling out through the mesh.

     “Hello?”

     A voice spoke up from the back of the cabin. “Hi there! How can I help you?”

     “Hi! I was looking to see if you had any tent sites available for one night?”

     “Plenty, but it’s cash only.”

     I held up a twenty dollar bill and slid it under the screen door. She got up from her desk, approached the door, and picked up the bill. “Just sit tight for one moment and let me get your paperwork ready.”

     She went back to her desk and began to type on a Windows computer from the mid-2000s. “So where you coming in from?”

     “Oh, California.”

     “Oh! What part?”

     “East LA.”

     “I’m from California, too. Got here from San Bernardino.”

     “Nice! What brought you out here?”

     “My daughter moved out here for college and decided to stay after she graduated. The hubby and I decided to retire soon after, so we sold our house in 2007 for about four times what we bought it for and moved out here.”

     “Ah. JUST in time.”

     She laughed. “I know, right? Where are YOU heading?”

     I shrugged. “Dunno yet.”

     She came back holding a small envelope and a parking placard and slid them under the door. “All right, you’re good to go. Just pick any lot without a car or a tent. Checkout time is 10am, quiet time is 9pm, and you get one shower token that’s good for five minutes.”

     “All righty then. Thank you kindly!”

     I got back in my car, picked a small gravel lot enclosed with wooden logs, pitched the tent, and went back into the city to see what I’d missed.

     Even though I’d only been gone for five months, the city had already begun to change without me. My favorite record shop had changed owners, my favorite Mexican restaurant had gone under, and the staff at a sandwich shop I frequented had gone through a major turnover and no one recognized me anymore. It was strange being a phantom haunting my own home.

     I grabbed a roast beef sandwich, drove out to the Atrisco Reservoir in the desert where I used to go driving late at night with a bandmate, and sat parked among the cacti eating my dinner while I watched the city lights flicker in the distance as everyone went about their business without me. With a machine as big and fine-tuned as that one, one little cog going off the rails won’t cause too much trouble.

     I drove back to the campsite close to midnight, crawled into my sleeping bag, and fell asleep with only the thin layer of the tent’s canvas and my sleeping bag separating me from the gravel.

     The next morning, I was awoken by a combination of the sharp pains in my back and a radio blasting “Sweet Caroline.” I rose tenderly to my feet to pull my jeans on and peeked through my tent flap to see in the RV lot nearby was a suburban family of four all dressed nicely at a folding table eating pancakes cooked on a portable propane stove while listening to a Bluetooth speaker mounted over the door of a luxurious trailer with Colorado plates. The mother led the kids in song. 

     “SWEEEEEEET, CAROLINE!”

     “BUM, BUM, BUUUUM!”

     I groaned, grabbed my token, showered in a small wooden cabin nearby with porcelain stalls affixed with showerheads, and noticed thick black rain clouds beginning to roll into the mountains overhead as I folded up my tent and crammed it into the trunk of my ship. I chuckled to myself and thought “shit, now they’re trying to flood me out.” 

     I raised my sail and let the wind carry me off into the sandy American ocean towards the sunshine beckoning me from the East as the rain began to patter behind me and wash away the world I knew. All that thunder, all that rain, and maybe this time there’ll be a rainbow when it all blows over, but if there is, I won’t be here to see it and I hadn’t seen it yet.

     Maybe it’s more romantic to be lost at sea than stuck in the mud.