Exhausted by Salt Lake City from the roar of scenery scraping by and the heat, unrelenting despite the Moab ranger's promise that it would be cooler west of the mountains. So I stopped and ate at some diner just off I-15.
I stayed there a long time pecking away on this machine, sucking down refills of Cherry Coke and not eating the fries. Then I went for gas and called Tom to ask him to leave a key for me in case I decided to drive through the night to Portland.
And then I was gone north for east and Salt Lake and the desert it leaves.
A coworker told me not to drive I-80 that way. Said it was awful. Boring. Nothing changes for a hundred miles and it's flat, flat, flat. I've never been there so I had to go. But she was right about all that and it was very cool. Cool for its eeriness out of heat so smothering you're afraid to stop the car. That somehow if you stop moving a fiery hand will squash you flat into the salt.
The lake itself reeks. At first I thought it smelled like sex, then it reminded me of the bays from my hometown at low tide.
Once amidst the salt, beyond the lake, driving was grueling. Every element involved in the scene conspired to put me to sleep.
I'd been alone with myself for seven days. Both windows had been rolled low going on a fourth day. I had the towels wrapped around me, and a bandana tied tightly around my head to keep the little unconquerable hairs from whipping my cheeks and eyes. I'd listened to everything I wanted to listen to countless times. I could recite the soundtrack of this trip in dialogue with you -- I could construct meaningful conversation from fragments of lyrics. And at this point, I could hardly hear it over the wind of 95 mph.
For some reason I wanted to listen to Leonard Cohen. This is not my music but I have shared venues with its owner and that mood is as much mine. I brought it on the trip to see what it would be like to lay that mood over such a potent context, but I never felt like listening to it until I couldn't hear anything anymore.
What I did is I put in the CD, cranked the volume, and set track number six to repeat. On this disc that song is Famous Blue Raincoat, one of his better-known songs. Reason why, I guess, is its mystery, its pain.
Well I rode on like that, no more myself than I could ever be after such length in solitude, wearing those towels and that thing tied around my head, one foot on the dash and just screaming out the words. Not singing them, just yelling, haltingly like each word had a period after it. I wish I'd thought to take a picture.
I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.
I used to start crying when the song reached this stanza. This is the only song I ever recall being able to incite tears.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good, so I never tried.
But out there, I felt nothing, just the vibration leaving my throat.
Went on like that until West Wendover when I stopped again for ice and to use the bathroom.
At the Nevada border here, casinos galore and the end of the heat impossible to imagine, I realized I probably wasn't going to make it to Portland. But I didn't know where I'd make it to either. So I just kept going, waiting to see. And waiting was a long time on I-80.
This is northern Nevada desert far and naked. Hilly, sure, and sometimes a ranch house discernable across the scrub brush. I think the Interstate is the only paved road around because more than once a streak of dust wedged into the earth and I'd realize a car out there somewhere was the cause of it -- a car moving at incredible speeds on an unpaved road, coming toward us, the civilized, like something out of The Road Warrior. You'd see the dust cut into the Interstate and a car pop up onto the pavement, seeming not to brake or slow at all, but just tearing ass down the line. But not as fast I was going, not as fast, so I'd get caught in a dusty rooster tail -- dust that had accumulated on the car blowing off -- until I could get past.
And I passed them all, what few vehicles there were, through Elko, Carlin, Battle Mountain. Mostly it was just the big trucks. I don't know where the cars were. I know there were bunches of travelers at the gas stations in West Wendover but they seemed spent by the desert and reluctant to go on.
At Winnemucca I stopped for gas fully intending to head north for Oregon, but while waiting for the tank to fill, dizziness caught me by surprise, inspiring stay at a hotel and a call to Tom letting him know I wouldn't be in any time soon.
And that hotel would be the Nevada Hotel for $29. Worst room of the trip -- and the last room in the place, the woman reported. There was a bed that would leave my neck aching and an ant trail bleeding through the bathroom. The TV didn't even work.
I showered and went out on the boulevard looking for food. It was late, say 10pm or so, and much in this small town was already closed for the night. This far west the light sticks around noticeably longer, and the twilight was nice to drive by.
A few places were open though, among them Jerry's restaurant. Jerry must've taken over the place when Sambo's went under because this building was very clearly a member of that chain and Jerry, the pragmatist, hadn't changed a thing. The place was just like the Sambo's we used to go to when I was kid only the mugs and stuffed animals weren't prominently displayed for sale.
Saturday night, some of the locals were out on dates at Jerry's. This is the kind of place where, when someone like me walks in, people stop eating to see what's traveling. Mine was the mug on display and the men looked my way, the women stared long after.
Jerry's served breakfast through the night so I ordered an omelet with green chilies, hash browns, and a chocolate milkshake. I read while I waited -- Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. Somewhere he describes a man as appearing rangy and I laughed, looking around, at how apt a description it was for most of the folks in Jerry's.
The man and woman over there with their kids. Dad a sinew in his flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, baring old tattoos. The woman with him pulling on stringy-haired kids, who live too low to the ground to keep themselves clean, was herself a string and heavily tattooed. Tatooed not like the urban dwellers, tattooed like she was unaware of them, like it was not a choice. These two were definitely rangy.
And in the booth beyond them, another couple, also rangy. The woman her blond hair a spun Aqua Net masterpiece atop a pole-like body -- cotton candy, she was -- and the man with her was just in from some place that had whipped his hair up good and greasy.
I giggled in my seat, eating my omelet and shake with my thumb pressing the book open. Loved the omelet; finished even the reserve shake in the metal container. Love all the different ways people can be.
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