The Lonely Road

The path a man must walk alone

¹

“Dating’s an astonishingly expensive hobby, when you tally it all up.” Diane looked up from her coffee at me, eye roll pending clarification. “That’s an ugly way to look at it” she grumbled.

“It really is though. Look at all the costly, big-ticket items I don’t actually need to live my life. A nice car, a house, fancy clothing. I only need that stuff to impress women. If I were content to live out my life as a bachelor, I could do so on a tiny fraction of my current income.”

She at last rolled her eyes and heaved out a disgusted sigh, resigned to having this conversation again for the umpteenth time. “You’re looking at it wrong. All those things are just milestones in life. Achievements you should have aspired to anyway for reasons other than romance or sex.”

With my ambition to start my own business now up in flames, it was unclear to me why I shouldn’t just give up. Live out the rest of my life in the cheapest studio apartment I could find, getting high and playing video games until my junk food diet and lack of bodily movement stops my heart.

“Nobody’s out there looking for somebody who only grew up because they had to” she explained. “Nobody wants a man who resents needing to improve and uplift himself. You’re supposed to just...already be that guy. You’re supposed to already have that stuff.”

What, just because it would work out nicely for her life to meet a dude that’s handsome and loaded? She nodded in seeming affirmation. “Isn’t that basically just the grown up version of every little girl’s fantasy?” I asked. “The one where they get to be a princess just because a good looking prince who owns his own castle comes along and-”

She pinched the bridge of her nose the way one does in response to an ice cream headache, gesturing with her other hand for me to stop talking. That’s never worked before, I don’t know why she thinks it will today.

“What happened to the abolition of gender roles?” I continued. “Women can be whatever they want, but men still have to be providers? I mean, I’m sure they don’t use that specific word. But they expect suitors to be wealthy and accomplished despite women displacing men in high paid positions at a historically unprecedented rate. That’s a recipe for disappointment.”

She began to make some glib throwaway joke about how I’m the disappointment, but perhaps due to sleep deprivation, it didn’t quite come together. She laughed anyway. “Feminism doesn’t mean you can be a broke ass bum and still get laid. It’s not magic.”

I complained that it’s a raw deal. That for women, things have changed radically for the better. But for men, things have stayed more or less the same, because successful women don’t want to settle for the men they’ve replaced. Diane repeated it back to me in a comical nasally voice and called me a whiner.

“You must like something about me. We dated after all.” She was quick to jump in and remind me that it was only one date. “You’re interesting! I like your mind. Watching you transplant your life here, chasing your dreams, has been an inspiration. You really are charming in your own strange, proprietary way.”

She trailed off, so I filled in the silence. “...But I need more money.” Diane shrugged. “You’re trying to make it sound like women are gold diggers. Like your car and home are what they’re after. What they’re after is a man with a future. Someone that’s proved he can earn. Like the bird from that old meme, who builds a nest so Becky will give him sum fuk.”

I smiled despite myself. As usual Diane found a way to word it so that I couldn’t disagree without feeling wildly unreasonable. I don’t yet know if that means she’s right, or just good at argument. “Tell me what to fix, then.”

She looked caught off guard. “Hey, don’t do that to me. Don’t put me on the spot and ask me to evaluate you like that.” I promised I was made from tougher stuff than that. “Give it to me straight.” I demanded. “Brutal honesty.”

She slowly breathed in, lips pursed, eyeballing me head to toe. As much as possible given that we were both seated, with a table between us. “You need a new wardrobe.” I balked. “What’s wrong with my clothes? Do you know how much these cost?”

She pointed out that I’d asked for brutal honesty. So I relented, and invited her to continue. “I’m sure they cost plenty! But you dress in a way that would impress men, not women. Is it men you’re after?” I shook my head.

“Alright, then you need a new wardrobe. You have more gay friends than any straight guy I know, you have no excuses. Ask one of them to pick out some clothes for you.” I pulled out my phone and made note of it, sending a text to Anthony asking when he was free to go clothes shopping with me. It’ll be nice to hang out one more time before I go. Still no idea how I’ll say goodbye.

“Next up, chew with your mouth closed. For one thing, you have bad teeth. For another, what are you? Six years old, raised in a barn, or both?” Had to give her that one, it’s a bad habit. My teeth really are noticeably crooked too.

Much to the consternation of my parents, having paid big bucks to the orthodontist, my teeth just kinda settled back the way they were after the braces came off. I’ve not been to the dentist since, though I can’t put my finger on why. I added that note under the first and prodded her for more. She looked hesitant. “Come on” I urged. “You promised.”

Diane shifted uncomfortably in her seat. I asked if my car was the problem. “No, for fuck’s sake, your car is fine. You always find some way to bring that up, have you noticed? You’re so convinced it’s all about possessions.” I reminded her clothing counts as possessions.

“Yeah but nobody you take out to dinner is gonna ask to see the price tags on your clothes. It’s more about general aesthetic presentation and convincing her you’re competent. You have your shit together. You can groom yourself properly, you can tie a tie, basic adulting.”

Man I hate that word. “Adulting, huh. That’s actually the main reason I asked you to meet me today.” Her expression shifted from irritated to concerned. “Is it something to do with the startup?” I nodded, and searched for the words I wanted. Not finding anything suitable in a hurry, I just blurted it out.

“I’m giving up. The numbers don’t work out. I’m not in the red yet, but there’s no point waiting for the inevitable. By calling it quits early I can avoid going into debt.” She seemed even more aghast than I was. She’d always wanted to see me succeed, being the motherly type.

“What about your savings? You had more than ten grand squirreled away from the crypto boom a few years ago, last I knew.” What little the government let me keep, after taxes. “I didn’t want to blow all of it on keeping the dream alive for another couple months, because I knew I’d need some left to move back home if things didn’t work out.”

She frowned. Here comes the judgement. Here comes the disappointment. May as well get used to it coming from her, before I’ve got to face my parents. “Some people would say that was planning for failure” she remarked.

“Yeah? Well, it’s easy to play armchair quarterback when you don’t have any skin in the game.” It came out a touch harsher than I intended. She did look a little bit wounded, but I’d not crossed any line so terrible that I should bother apologizing.

“So...that’s it? You move here, you get your own business off the ground...with my help, I might add...then what? You give up on your dreams and run home, tail between your legs?” My turn to wince. She made it sound like I wanted it to turn out this way.

“...Yeah, I guess that’s about the size of it. I tried, okay? I really gave it everything I had. But not everybody can be a winner. Now that it’s finally come crashing down around my ears, I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired, Diane. I just...I want to go home.”

A white sedan startled me, zooming past at what must’ve been fifteen to twenty miles over the speed limit. I cursed him briefly, but then wondered if perhaps I was the real idiot for not doing the same. At three in the morning, the densely forested highway was so empty that I’d stopped bothering to keep an eye out for other cars in the rear view mirror.

Even a minute later, my heartbeat hadn’t slowed much. I popped another caffeine pill, the most likely reason for it. My eyes felt dry and helplessly wide. The weight which normally pulls your lids down when you’re tired was instead pinning mine firmly open. It was a struggle even to blink.

My brain felt fried, and my head felt tightly compressed. I could sense every individual hair poking out of my scalp as the gently recirculated interior air moved through it. I briefly smelled a skunk, traces of the odor carried into the car through the ventilation system.

I heard and felt a low vibration. My right tire, straying just slightly onto the rough strip lining the edge of the road to startle sleepy drivers to wakefulness...before they make an “unplanned off-road detour”.

I shook my head as if to clear it, and sharpen my vision. That’s never worked before. I’m not sure why I thought it would this time. Slow learner I guess. The solid pair of parallel yellow lines dividing the east and west going lanes seemed to fade into nothingness only fifty feet or so ahead of me.

Fog. Thick, nasty, soupy fog which assaulted my windshield as my car plowed through one bank of it after another. I could tell how wet it was by the intermittent increases in interior humidity which followed.

The sort of weather which makes you glad to be inside something warm, dry and relatively watertight. A short rain earlier gave my car a free and thorough washing, but since then the sky seemed to be clearing up. Visibility would be fine if not for this damned fog.

The closest thing to an accident I’ve ever been in happened in fog like this. A heron flew unexpectedly out of the fog, right into my windshield. I didn’t bother to swerve as I figured that would accomplish nothing except to kill me too.

I did pull over to see if the heron survived, however. It lay contorted in a growing pool of blood, some thirty or so feet behind my stopped car. The surprising thing was the neck. Bird necks look so short while they’re alive because most of it’s retracted, hidden amongst their feathers.

Once they’re dead it’s a different story. Their neck goes limp and stretches out so you can see all of it, like a wet noodle. So impossibly long! I’d have preferred to learn about that some other way. There was nothing to be done, death was instantaneous. Some lucky bear or wolf scored a free breakfast that day.

The memory made me suddenly paranoid. I peered at the rear view mirror, expecting another speeder to be bearing down on me from the rear. Of course, nothing. That white sedan was the only other soul I’d seen on this tediously long, wet stretch of highway in the past hour.

I hope he had a better reason than mine to be out here, stuck behind the wheel in the early morning hours. On my way from Michigan back to Colorado following the failure of that damned startup I put everything I had into.

Running back home to Mommy and Daddy with my tail tucked between my legs. An unbearable humiliation after the years of optimistic excitement and back breaking labor that were ultimately wasted. Only when you try to escape the rat race by starting your own business do you discover why more people don’t attempt it.

It’s an excellent way to destroy your finances and waste multiple years of your life. I read somewhere that I ought to shoot for the Moon, because even if I missed I’d at least be among the stars. It never made much sense to me.

If I missed the Moon, I’d just drift helplessly through the endless black void of space until I ran out of oxygen. Not entirely unlike the seemingly endless drive home. Google Maps said nineteen hours, but that assumes no stops.

I could sleep in my car if I had to. I did it before in a Wal-Mart parking lot, on the way from Colorado to Michigan. Before I met Diane. Before everything blew up up in my face. Not my proudest moment, but at least I wasn’t hassled by cops. There were dozens of camper vans and trailers parked in the far reaches of the lot as well. Their semi-permanent place of residence, most likely.

I remember waking up to the sound of a couple fighting. The kind of knock down, drag out, ugly fight you only see on either Jerry Springer or C.O.P.S., depending how violent it becomes. A woman in a pink tank top and flip flops, so obese I could only barely discern she was pregnant, stumbled backwards out of a well worn RV.

“That’s what I fuckin’ told you, but you said not to do it!” she bellowed, pointing to an unseen man obscured by the darkness just inside the RV’s door. Incomprehensible male shouting followed. Then there was this elderly woman, stumbling back to her RV with a coffee, a donut and a plastic bag of toiletries. Stuff I’ll bet she bought from the same Wal Mart, every morning.

I soberly reflected on the grim realities of such an existence. Mostly how, if not for unusually patient and supportive parents, I would probably wind up living in a place like that. The back seats of my car fold down nearly flat. I only didn’t sleep back there because I didn’t have any bedding at the time.

I’ve seen plenty of shit on television and social media about how trendy and eco conscious it is to live in a modified van, or tiny home. Basically just a nicer looking trailer. The cynical side of me suspects it’s a propaganda effort, intended by the Rupert Murdochs of the world to make poverty seem more appealing.

As if living in a fancy trailer, or in a vehicle, is a step up in life rather than a step down. Or like the articles you see every so often about how we ought to start eating insects as a more sustainable source of protein. I’ll start eating ‘em when I see rich people doing it, not before.

Misery loves company, right? Yet I found little solace in the notion of a future America paved over with one gigantic parking lot, filled from one horizon to the other by RVs, camper vans and trailers. The working and renting class, suckling desperately like so many skinny piglets at the withered teat of the ownership class, visiting whichever Wal Mart is nearest for their daily gruel.

I banished the thought. Just a fever dream, born of sleep deprivation. I’m not yet beaten, and will never allow myself to fall that far! Diane was right. Planning for failure often precipitates it. The comfier you make your safety net, the more likely you are to make use of it, if only because you get in the habit of viewing it as an acceptable option.

That’s more or less how I wound up out here. Cruising down a barren highway shrouded in thick, wet fog, on my way to move back in with my parents. Perhaps devising a better plan B might’ve been wise. Hindsight is 20/20, except at three thirty in the morning, when your eyes are bloodshot and starting to swell.

I checked the rear view mirror again. This car has massive pillars to either side of the windshield which just exactly block your view of whatever’s coming at you from the opposite direction in a turn. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the engineers brought that to the attention of their managers.

They must’ve weighed the cost of recall or redesign against the probable cost of lawsuits over the lifespan of that particular model, deciding the latter was more affordable. The kind of ruthless calculation which does not hesitate to assign a specific dollar figure to human lives.

Listen to me. Is it the caffeine? Even weed doesn’t make me this paranoid. All sorts of dark, alien ideas swarm about inside of my skull as I struggle to smoothly follow the curvature of the highway. The white lines are the hardest to see in these conditions, mostly because of how reflective the asphalt becomes when wet.

Though I’d been trying not to wallow in self pity since closing up shop, that proved more easily said than done. There’s this little voice in my head that ridicules me whenever I feel sorry for myself. It sounds suspiciously similar to my Dad. Helpful, most of the time. Tonight it can’t stop me from agonizing over what’s happened though. Mostly because of consequences so plentiful that they didn’t occur to me all at once, but in a staggered fashion.

Every time I realized another way in which my failure to launch would make the coming years brutally miserable, it was like a wound in the process of healing was torn open again. Over and over, the pain of each new realization never diminishing.

Dating. There’s no way I’ll be able to get dates now! A man in his thirties, living with his parents? Forget about it. Never mind the high cost of housing, or stagnating wages. Never mind that more men in my age range are living with their parents than ever before in this country’s history.

When you’re searching for the best you can get, excuses won’t sway you. Even as you curse the unreachably high standards of employers, who want five years of experience and a college diploma for a job stacking boxes in a warehouse, you’re nevertheless exactly as ruthless when screening members of the opposite sex.

Like we’re all little tyrants of the small kingdoms that are our lives, resenting anybody who rules over us, even though we’re every bit as uncompromising. At least I have a nice car. That’s something, surely?

A nice car, a good job and lots of savings. A house too, until I sold it. Oh, and you’ve got to be over six feet. If you’re not, none of those other things count for shit. It’s funny how many boxes you can tick, but still not make the grade.

I stay in decent shape by running, and have the good fortune to be a naturally tall, broad shouldered man. Though I don’t often appreciate it while driving as the top of my head just barely brushes the ceiling. But I’m broke now. Part of me scorned the materialism of anybody who would turn me away because of that.

But in their shoes, would I want to date somebody in poor financial shape? Doubtful. Not because of classism, or the desire to benefit from somebody else’s wealth, but because nobody wants to date someone with no future. Someone they have to pay for whenever they eat out, whose idea of a good date is whatever’s free.

There’s got to be some formula they use, where each factor is weighted differently, starting with height. Height, minus weight, multiplied by the sticker price of your car, divided by the model year, plus the square footage of your house, multiplied by the area code it’s in, minus the number of mortgage payments remaining, that sort of thing.

It’s hard to stay mad about that stuff for long without feeling like a hypocrite. After all, how many attractive single mothers have I swiped left on? How many fat women and transexuals have I summarily rejected without reading word one of their profiles? The greatest truth of humanity is that we’re all as bad as each other.

Some in different ways than the rest. Some hide it more effectively, but we can hardly protest our individual worth being brutally judged on an open market by employers or prospective lovers when in private, we discriminate just as ruthlessly.

I suppose I could lie. Tell her I’m some kind of bigshot. Put off revealing where I go home to after each date in the hopes she’ll find me so charming that she won’t care, when at last my disappointing secret is discovered. But then I’d be a hypocrite for complaining if, a dozen dates in, she pulls the ‘ol Pickle Surprise on me.

Had I been better rested and not so lost in thought, I might’ve noticed the abrupt curve in the road rushing towards me. Now I understand why driving while exhausted is punished nearly as harshly as driving drunk. It really is treacherously similar.

I swerved, hoping perhaps I could drift around it or something. Not in this absolute boat of an automobile. I slammed on the brakes, but that only made it worse. Now fully hydroplaning, I crashed through the steel guard rail at the edge of the road.

What followed was a terrifying blur, punctuated by painful blows to my head, limbs and ribcage as the car tumbled around me. I must’ve passed out when it impacted a tree thick enough to stop it, at last arresting its violent somersault down the densely forested hill.

When I next awoke, it was drizzling lightly. As I slowly regained my senses, I worried some of the rain might be leaking into the car because of a wet sensation on my face. But when I touched it and examined my fingers, I found it was blood.

I glanced at the clock. Four in the morning. The first of many surprises. Was I really only out for a few minutes? I felt as if waking up from a ten year coma. Every joint in my body ached as though I’d never used it.

The car at least looked to be mostly upright, at only a slight angle. Propped up on one side by the tree which stopped it. Because I wasn’t thinking clearly, the first thing I did was give it some gas. I guess hoping I might somehow climb the embankment, back onto the highway.

The engine was still running, and the wheels spun mightily...but to no avail. Even when I floored it, the car didn’t budge by even an inch. I’d really wedged it tightly between the tree and the earthen incline.

Glancing out the side window gave me reason to second guess the wisdom of trying to dislodge my ride. The steep embankment continued down far enough that fog concealed the point where it levels off. I let off the gas, sighed, and removed the key. Next I popped open the glove compartment. A small avalanche of Taco Bell hot sauce packets fell out.

Why I keep saving them, I don’t know. Maybe hot sauce packets will be the new currency after the bombs drop? Behind them I found some napkins, which I used to wipe my face. When I folded down the visor and examined myself in the mirror, I discovered all the napkins really accomplished was to smear the blood around.

The wound was mercifully less serious than feared. Just a small gash about a centimeter long at my hairline. No idea what I got cut on, the interior of this thing doesn’t have any sharp edges that I know of. Next I felt around my body for broken bones, sprains or bruises.

Nothing broken, but I felt plenty of sore spots I knew would be a dark shade of purple the next morning. Physically I felt fine, but I recalled reading somewhere that adrenaline conceals pain and the extent of your injuries from you after an accident.

So I took my sweet time making sure every part of me was still where I remembered before searching for my phone. I’d left it in one of the armrest cupholders, the contents of which had spilled everywhere when the car flipped over on its way down the embankment.

By turning off the dome light, I eventually spotted the subtle green glow of the phone’s power indicator LED shining out from beneath the front passenger seat. I strained myself fishing it out from its hiding place.

No service. Of course. Why did I think there would be? Leave it to me to crash this thing on one of the rare stretches of highway with no cell coverage. Not even 2G was showing up. Foolish as it was under those circumstances, I took a moment to mourn my car.

So much for having a nice car. Now I’ll be broke, living with my parents, and riding public transit. Truly the hallmarks of a panty drenching heart throb. The sort of trivial shit you fuss over when you’re still in shock and don’t yet realize it.

Eventually the gravity of the situation set in. No cell reception meant no Onstar. Which meant nobody knew where I was, and I couldn’t summon either a tow truck or any sort of rescue crew. I’m ashamed to admit I’d already ruled out calling an ambulance on account of the cost.

I recalled telling Mom and Dad the trip should take no more than three days. I could therefore expect them to realize something has gone wrong by day four, perhaps even the end of day three. Mom’s a championship level worrywart.

But then what? With no indication of what point along the 1,330 mile route I’d gone missing, how would they know where to focus a search and rescue effort? Wait, no. I texted them back at the gas station, didn’t I? Before heading up into the mountains.

That should narrow the scope of the search from the first five hundred miles of highway to somewhere in the ballpark of a hundred. That’s something, isn’t it? Some small scrap of hope to cling to.

I tried the radio, only to find that it wouldn’t receive any channels. I really fucked myself this time, wrecking up here in the fucking mountains. I sat there for a time, fiddling with the radio while waiting for the rain to subside before thinking better of it.

Probably not a good idea to run down the battery, I figured. Might need it to recharge my phone later. I’d packed all of my belongings into the car before setting off for Colorado, so I didn’t lack for clothing, and there’s a rucksack full of camping gear wedged back there someplace.

It could be worse. Not much worse, but I’m still breathing. Somebody once said that any landing you can walk away from is a good one, but I’m pretty sure he was talking about airplanes. The rain seemed to have mostly petered out, so after fishing my bag out of the back seat, I cracked open the door.

The air smelled wet. It’s hard to pin down, but you can smell it. The scent of rain drenched pine needles and mud...the invigorating musk of the deep woods. I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it, my uncountable bruises aching with even small movements of my body.

First, I tried to climb back up to the highway. Maybe I can wave somebody down? If not right away, then as the sun comes up. But the grade increased the further up the slope I went until I was clawing uselessly at a sheer rock face, the busted railing at the edge of the highway just barely visible another ten feet above me.

Down, then. A difficult decision, even though it was the only way left to go. No less daunting, but for different reasons. I stumbled more than once on my way down the muddy hill, steadying myself against outstretched branches.

At one point I leaned against the still wet trunk of a douglas fir for perhaps three minutes before continuing my descent. The last thing I need out here is to sprain my ankle or some shit. May as well track down a bear and feed myself directly to it, in that case.

It feels stupid to leave the comfort and safety of my car, but I don’t see what other choice I have. Nobody knows where I am. The longer I stick around in one spot, the hungrier I’ll get. My best chance must surely be to set off in search of a fire lookout tower or something.

I made my way carefully amid the trees, brushing branches out of the way here and there, then shaking the residual pine needles off my jacket. The fog was thicker down here than it was on the highway, obscuring everything further than a hundred feet or so in all directions.

Fog pools at low points, like a fluid. As I watched I could see it flowing down the hill in slow motion, collecting at the bottom. It visibly swirled around my hand as I waved it in front of me, and my body left a wake through it as I walked.

Only after a few minutes of walking did it occur to me how easy it would be to get disoriented. Panic set in when I realized I couldn’t say for sure which direction my car was in. I’d not walked in a perfectly straight line, and the app on my phone I use to find my car in parking lots relies on cell tower triangulation.

Useful for precisely fuck all out here, just like me. No point in doubling back then, I’d only get more lost. Instead I pressed on, noticing as I went that I’d so far seen no beer cans, food wrappers or other typical traces of human activity.

I’ve never been hiking this far out, but the trail I usually visit is infested with tweaker encampments. Can’t go more than a mile without running into a tangled nest of stolen bicycle parts, transparent plastic bags full of empty cans, blood stained mattresses and $99 Wal Mart tents covered in tarps.

Where do they even get those clear trash bags? I’ve never seen them on store shelves. Some of their dwellings get pretty elaborate, too. In state parks they manage to go months or even years without being forcibly relocated, so the deeper into the woods you go, the more advanced the shelters. On one occasion I stumbled across a full blown yurt fashioned from tarps and branches, Swiss Family Robinson style. Desperation really is the mother of invention.

Yet even as my own desperation mounted, no brilliant plan dawned on me. Without a signal I couldn’t get any sense of my location, nor call for help. The best I could figure was to keep walking until I saw some bars on my phone, however long that might take.

At last I emerged from the woods onto another highway. Nothing to either side of it but dense, foggy woods. A back road? I guess all the roads this far out are back roads, after a fashion. Looked pretty new, no potholes or other blemishes to be seen anywhere on the smooth black asphalt.

Fog banks crept languidly along the road as I followed it in one direction. No real reason, I still hadn’t the faintest idea where I was. For all I knew there was a cabin or convenience store or something a mile in the other direction, and I was only getting further away from it with every step.

I had to choose though, which took me much longer than it should’ve, even though fifty fifty is better odds than you’ll get in most areas of life. If only I could get a god damned signal. I checked my phone again. Same result. No service, and somehow the clock still read four in the morning.

For that matter, the battery level hasn’t gone down any. How does that work? Maybe when there’s no signal, it consumes less power trying to connect or something. I became self conscious about walking down the middle of the road, and moved to the right side in case a car should come roaring unexpectedly out of the fog.

I should be so lucky. Even if somebody hit me, at least they’d know where I was. They’d call an ambulance, and within a few hours I’d be in a nice warm bed, being spoon fed hospital food by a nurse. I must be pretty far gone to fantasize about hospital food.

Nurses don’t even wear white gowns and caps with the red cross on ‘em like they do in cartoons. Or porn. Or cartoon porn. They dress like wrinkly blue ninjas. Like the cafeteria lunch lady’s hair net, but over their entire body. It’s the most profoundly unsexy garment possible, which is probably the point of it. What do my tax dollars even pay for?

After some time spent walking along the side of the road, I began to wish for mile markers just so I could count them. Then I’d have some sense of how far I’ve gone. Counting the trees didn’t work, they’re all jumbled up and look more or less the same. The street lamps weren’t numbered. There should be mile markers, shouldn’t there? I always assumed that was standard everywhere in the country.

My leg brushed the guard rail now and again. It only came up to my knee. I could easily have thrown a leg over it and walked on the other side. Not sure why I didn’t, except for the small extra effort it would require from an already exhausted body.

Every inch of the road looks identical. I ought to have come upon some sign of wear and tear by now, but I couldn’t spot any. Did a road crew just lay this down recently? I’d begun contemplating turning back when, at last, I noticed something different in the distance.

A faint speck of light, which grew brighter and more distinct as I drew near. The fog scattered the light such that all I could make out was the general shape of the building until I was nearly on top of it. A gas station!

Not just a gas station, there was a modest garage adjacent to it bearing a sign over the entry which read “Oil changes, 75 cents” in fancy old fashioned typeface. I couldn’t place the architecture, eventually realizing it was because I’ve only ever seen buildings like this in advanced stages of decay, or black and white photographs.

I scolded myself for coming so close to turning back. I might’ve missed this place entirely! That’s the blasted indecision that drove my business into the ground, and why focusing on one project for that long in the first place was such a personally important accomplishment.

All for nothing though, look where it got me. Poking around a gas station in the armpit of nowhere at four in the morning. Should probably say five by now, if my phone wasn’t fucked. I assumed the time would automatically update whenever I next got a signal, not yet realizing.

The pumps caught my attention. Streamlined, art deco looking machines with a big white seashell shaped sign atop each, illuminated from within. The body of each pump prominently featured a four digit mechanical readout that worked like the one on a slot machine.

The numbers on display were one of nine painted onto each cylindrical drum, which rotated as needed to depict any of the others. I pulled the nozzle out by a suspiciously immaculate handle and experimentally squeezed the lever.

I could hear the motor running, but nothing came out. Even so, the cylindrical drums spun wildly. It would’ve been cause for worry had there been any gas to pay for, or anybody to give the money to.

A shiny, colorful poster adorned the wall next to the front door, opposite a series of tall windows that filled most of the front facing wall of the establishment. The poster depicted a blond boy and his hat wearing father, both of them smoking cigarettes. “Gee pop, they’re all passing you!” the boy cries.

Beneath it, several paragraphs extolling the higher octane and superior fuel economy of tetraethyl gasoline. “Next time stop at the Ethyl pump!” the ad concluded, in large stylish font along the bottom. I glanced back, and sure enough the pumps all bore a sticker I failed to notice before, proudly advertising the lead content of the gasoline sold here.

I smiled, despite everything. That shit can’t be legal, surely? It’d make sense if this place were dilapidated and overgrown, but everything looks as if it was built this morning. The shelves are all fully stocked too, as if it’s opening day and nobody bought anything.

The brands were all unfamiliar. Alemite, Mobilgas, and Kendall, “the 2,000 mile oil” according to the label. All the others also featured labels depicting handsome, grinning men with blindingly white teeth and perfectly styled hair. One of them wore a cowboy hat.

The style was bizarrely dated. Who carries these brands anymore? I would only expect to see this stuff on the shelf of a collector’s home, or on the antiques roadshow. Expiration dates, when I thought to check, were nowhere to be found.

I picked one up and opened it. Unexpectedly light. When I tried to pour it out, I discovered it was empty. As were all the rest when I picked them up, one by one, finding none that weighed what it should if it were full.

The cash register had the same sort of rotary numerical readout as the pumps. No surprise, by this point, when I opened the tray only to find it empty. I glanced around for security cameras before realizing the foolishness of it. Whoever built this place was trying to recreate an era in which video cameras didn’t exist.

Sure enough there weren’t any, at least none that I could readily identify after scrutinizing every square foot of the ceiling. What’s this all for? Reality show? Historical reenactments? Maybe a club for some wealthy classic car collectors or something.

None of those fully explained what I saw as I continued to explore. However I tried to make them, the puzzle pieces just wouldn’t fit. Who built this, and why? Will the owner pull up outside when the sun rises in a few hours? How will I explain my intrusion to him?

Then again it’s not like the front door was locked. I’ve not yet done anything illegal, to my knowledge. I could just say that I thought it was open twenty four hours, and assumed the clerk was on a smoke break.

Speaking of which, the smokes stocked here are no more familiar to me than the brands of motor oil. “Toppers”? “Debs”? “Avalon”? “Marvels”? Where’s the Marlboro? Where’s the Kools? The only chewing tobacco they stock is “Red Man”, bearing a colorful but astonishingly politically incorrect image of a Native American chieftain, complete with a war bonnet.

Another poster pinned up on the wall behind the register depicted a happy, attractive couple in a speeding automobile. “Follow our lead!” they proclaimed. Then more writing about the importance of using tetraethyl gasoline next to the company’s logo.

There was a telephone behind the desk. As quaint and dated as everything else I’d so far found in this place. Though it was plugged into the wall and presumably receiving power, when I held the receiver up to my ear, I heard no dial tone.

I gave up on all of it for the time being, and set out down the road. After the brief respite from the cold, wet darkness while I was inside the gas station, returning outside was deeply unpleasant. I forced myself to press on though, visions of finally going to sleep in a nice, warm hotel room having something of a rejuvenating effect.

The trees were visible only by contrast, against the darker backdrop of the sky. Moonlight reflected off the shallow puddles dotting the asphalt here and there. My body ached, but I kept stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other.

The air was just cold enough to be uncomfortable. A subtle chill which nipped at the tips of my ears and nose. I tucked my hands into my pockets. This is where I always worried I would wind up, as a child. Not this road in particular, but this feeling.

I have dim memories of riding in the backseat of Dad’s station wagon at night. On some weekends he’d take me to work with him to have some company, and to supervise me while I did my homework. Then after the sun went down, we’d get McDonalds on the way home.

I’d peer out the window at the empty sidewalks. The alleys, the parking structures and street lamps. All of it so cold, so hard and uncompromising. Back then, mind still insulated by the comfortable ignorance of childhood, the worst fate I could imagine was to be trapped out there.

Alone in the cold darkness with no shelter, crawling along in desperation, palms bloodied by the rough concrete and asphalt. Nowhere soft to lay my head. Nowhere warm and dry to take refuge from the night.