Lovelock, Lorn, Landlocked, Lubbock

I can never remember the name of that town and that’s disturbing. Exit 23? 29? 34? It’s no use. It’s between Exit 43 and Sparks and there’s a landfill that appears to satisfy the region’s needs. This is what I did for $2.25:

  • Executed a Pete Townshend Mega Windmill while holding a half- eaten horse-feedin bag of restaurant-style tortilla chips. The desert had sucked all the liquid out of the chips, and, as you know, there wasn’t much liquid there to start with. Imagine my surprise when their light-as-a-feather dessicated selves left my hand at the top of my arc, rather than at the bottom, and sailed over our heads, over the box truck, over hill and over dale, over gull and over guy, and landed in the middle of the parking lot way far away back there instead of the landfill directly nudging our boots right here. Fantastic, and fantastically wrong. I stared at my offending hand with new respect and awe. Such a mistake from such a normally unassuming thing.
  • Guided two couches to their death, high atop the mounds of chipped and snapped disposable culture. The plan to burn them had failed completely, what with everyone taking off at dusk without confronting the thought of dragging two couches the requisite mile to the Man. Using the bent shade structure poles that EaPaul had never returned from the previous year, we could have lifted the lighter couch and carried one or two out cleopatra-style. Instead, we sat eating the unexpectedly delicious tomato-based soup and fighting for additional crostini, which the desert had sucked all the liquid out of, and, as you know–
  • Played Super Javelin Fly with three quarter inch PVC. Due to its condition, bent into a U that felt about as gentle as a benign smile of the sun, there was a small moment of terror as I saw the 10-footer reach around and start to approach me like a boomerang. That would have been very bad, and would have cemented my emerging complex that I had completely forgotten how to throw things without embarrassing myself.
  • Apologized to Michael and Michael for taking that road so slow. There was a governor on the truck, which fixated my thoughts for the entire drive on my long-gone brother Timmy showing me, from across the roar of the other children strapped in their death trap gokarts, how to reach back and defeat the spring on the briggs and stratton. One- handed and approaching Mach 1, I was sidelined by the carnies for being smart. It occurred to me I was just being observant. No matter. I was sentenced to turn this story over and over and over and over in my mind for 100 miles, periodically feeling the burning despair of Michael and Michael behind me, rarin to go but compelled to entrain.
  • Announced that no one had properly acknowledged that the last night of our camp had been populated by Michael, Michael, Michael, and… me, Not Michael. It had been important only to me that I was the one girlie in the group, and I sought solace with Michael, who was the only straight one in the group. Everyone had hands-on experience building 3D worlds. Only half were pierced, but had enough piercings to give the other half credit for them if they wanted it. No one minded the soy milk. Everyone concurred the Tipsy recording went best with the passing crowd. Each walked around naked. No one got a sunburn. Thus ends the demographic of this target market. I believe we are hot prospects for the following products:
    * ice
    * sleep
  • Dumped a cooler that had contained a innocent mixture of material that had, in a single day without proper refrigerant, turned into a gut-busting skank. This required yelling really loud and unintelligibly. Got a big laugh, especially when I gagged. It planted a seed in my mind that I may be growing weak, delicate, particular, useless. Somebody will have to dump that cooler, or clean that dog’s ear, or pull the staple out from under the thumbnail. If I lose my ability to mop up, like a cop who loses her ability to joke about the dead guy under her feet, what’s gonna happen to me? Us? This recognition of my eventual death didn’t effect the high spirits. It never does.
  • Left considerably lighter, and with a certain confidence with the truck, the gear, the load, the company, the agenda. When I’m on the road and I look into the cab of a truck rental, I try to see if the occupants are starting over, putting it all behind them, permanently nomadic, in a state, anything, anything at all. I tried not to pose, but I certainly felt Done With All That. In this sense I felt like a Truck Rental Imposter, using the vehicle in a way it was never intended, and learning it too well because I was just going to have to leave it, getting used to being that high above the road, and looking quasi-commercial, as opposed to super-residential. But honestly, this was my summer vacation. I did this all on purpose.

Gassing up, I was surprised to see Aimee and Alan’s RV a couple bays over. They had left hours before us but had only arrived here now alongside. As I greeted them, as I had meant to do all week but hadn’t, I peered in the window of the RV where Aimee sat playing a hand of cards. She had a very high straight that made my eyes pop wide.

I never get dealt hands like that.

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