09-13-04 - 9:30 p.m.
berries and i have long had a habit of impulsively jumping in the car at night and going for a ride. 5 miles, 50 miles, it doesn't matter, as long as there's a slurpee or beer at the end of the road. we did this very thing several nights ago, here in nevada, heading east toward utah on highway 50, imfamously known as 'the loneliest road in america'. we've never questioned why this road had a name involving 'lonely'. nevada is big and sparsely populated, but between vast expanses of desert are shithole towns with gas stations, most of which offer modern amenities, including bad cappucino dispensers and slot machines. it never occurred to us that every shithole town on 'the loneliest road in america' pulls in the sidewalks and closes down at nine at night. go figure.
110 miles east of home, we ran out of gas in a town called austin. let me tell you; 'shithole' is a kind description of a ghost town with two bars, a gas station and a rock shop advertising rare nevada turquoise. at eleven o'clock at night, even the sheriff was tucked away in bed. we learned this by knocking on the locked station door. in dessy and mary's saloon, berries and i were greeted with laughter when we explained our situation. auto club? forget it; they have to come from reno, 200 miles away. our only alternative, it seemed, was checking into a motel; the lincoln; a shithole version of the norman bates variety. food? more laughter; the cafe closed at nine. mary, the drunken proprieter, took pity on my pregnant daughter and offered to make her a pizza. we ate it, greedily, sitting at the bar where berries distracted herself with a lifetime movie on the grainy television and i made friends with beer and tequila shots. we closed down the saloon, berries and i, and in the process we learned about mary's affection for her jc penney card and her ruddy, drunken irish husband dessy, who belligerently insisted for hours that mosquitos carry AIDS. when we left, the cook from the cafe followed us out to the sidewalk and discreetly offered his crack pipe. we declined his company, giggling with horror, and ran for the safety of our ugly room at the lincoln. the tv had one watchable channel. we slept in our clothes and woke at dawn, emerging in daylight from austin's ugliest room to the world's ugliest town. i had a hangover; berries raced back down the loneliest road in america west toward safety, past one abandoned whorehouse and the infamous 'shoe tree'; a giant cottonwood strung with multitudes of abandoned shoes.
at home, spencer had just returned from his graveyard shift at the welding plant. when we explained our absence and excitedly described our adventure, he shrugged with indifference.
i thought you guys went out for breakfast, he said.