From a Road Trip

"Don't break down," she said, "this is the devil's playground." This from a woman cleaning the rest area near Needles, CA. It was some years ago--that road trip out west that inspired the poem from Monday. It was 111 degrees, cars overheated and cast on the side of the highway like road kill. An old man had just died at the rest area because of the heat. The lady pointed at a missing poster on the billboard in the rest area and said she'd seen that girl come through a few weeks prior and she was with a guy and looked happy so she didn't call her in. We told her we were headed to San Francisco and she said "oh it's on there, man." Said the last time she was there she kept bleach with her at all times to ward off drug sniffing dogs. That was the trick. "And remember don't break down out here and if you do don't go walking for help cuz people get picked up and never come back." As if the heat and days on the road and tenting it every night hadn't left us weary enough. As we made our way through the desert to the coast the only life seemed to be on the road itself--the towns themselves ghost-like, thirsty for bodies. It was the eeriest place I've ever been in the states. I suppose being so on edge and watchful makes a person more attached, more a part of the surroundings. I suppose that hyper awareness has a way of sticking to the surroundings and so maybe that eeriness is born of the lingering stares of everyone who passes. Myself included.