PEOPLE ALWAYS SAID NOMADS WERE DIRTY. Hippies. Homeless. Transient. You got used to it. You weren't ever filthy. Nothing of a Woodstock variety. You were dirty—dry sweat and clamminess; a crunch in your clothing; a greasy knot of hair. Everything had deteriorated. I didn't care about anything.
But California had been salty-sweet, and Nevada left you drained, uncomfortably grimy. Long. Lightless. Somewhere in its trenches, a flat black sea, a distant air strip blinking back at you. Cones blurring by, double-exposure, reflections of tinny glints off Route 50.
Everywhere you go, a notice plastered on glass windows, warning you of water quality in Nevada. Water is hard, I'd been told. Calcium. Magnesium. Las Vegas had it bad. But Nevada was really just... a very big Las Vegas.
Everything dispersed, disorderly. Every rest stop boasting a casino built into it, force-fed gambling in your pocket pitstop. Slots. Haulers could go in, never be seen again.
Life On The Road held a certain air in barren, monotonous states like Nevada. Truckers' States. It wasn't always rinky-dink rest stops, broken vending machines between cramped, creepy restrooms; I'd been to TA's fashioned for Kings.
TravelCenters of America.
Triggered. I still do it. I still see its logo—a blue T and red A—and look for an Exit.
Darkness a dusky purple hue, an iridescent glow from a sky-high T-A. I veered off into a gravelly lot, slowing to avoid a Semi. Fluorescence pooled and puddled across your foggy windshield, closing you in on a sleek TA. An Alamo Casino attached. Sky Diner. Inside, a Subway, a Taco Bell, a Travel Store. Some kind of TV Room. Coin-Operated Showers. Anything you'd ever need, I'd convinced myself. People do live like you.
People do live like... this.
Behind, I parked consciously, far away from a dark portable: Truckers Chapel. I pulled myself up, locked Dirt Nasty. Dead mosquitoes splattering your grungy Civic. Snapshots. I lit a Marlboro. I don't remember being afraid; I remember being very... clear, gazing off at a peaking silhouette, half-consumed by blustery clouds, Elevation 4268. High. Illusions.
Some things you'll never forget. Some things you'll remember vaguely.
Moments. Feelings.
Smoke.
Slowly, you added to an artillery of yourself; stories of people you'd never met, you'd never really known. Facets of yourself forgotten off I-95. Distance does do it.
Suddenly, you didn't need to be anybody. Everything is so vast, so big, so indescribable, so unknown. Nobody. Everybody. Nothing. Everything. Vagueness plagues it, but I know I was alive.
I didn't have to ask. I remember trudging down a dim, dank hallway; I remember poking a few coins into a slot; I remember a click, unlocking, a blur of silvery-porcelain slabs, an echoing drip. Barefoot. I slipped in, locked myself in, and I undressed, hanging my worn clothing on a corner-hook.
Footprints black against a grimy tile floor; a nozzle directing from C to H. Water spouted, pouring down my cheeks in a trickling pulse. Warm. I felt myself thaw. Water beating at my chest, my throat, my chin. Hot.
I wanted to scrub my skin off.
One day you'll be... washing yourself with hand soap in a public bathroom...
How does it go?
Some things you don't appreciate until you don't have 'em.
Some things you lose.
I'd lost so, so much of myself in Southwest America. Midwest America. South. West. Mid. East. North. I'd been directionless. I didn't know where I was going.
Ink bleeds smoothly. It bleeds, and bleeds, and... bleeds... and I remember it in my veins, slick, oily, bluish veins; stain-streaks, sinking down your jutting collarbone as I let my lashes flutter again. Blinking. Black. Everything a downpour, hazy on your headache, slinking to your fingertips, your inner thighs, your calves and ankles, pooling in a drain violently.
Dirty.
Darkness unspooling from pores, reaching up in a greying-gold blur, an icy chill of inevitability. Its claws. Its beady eyes.
...and you'll be thinking, "How did I get here? Where the hell am I?"
Drowsily...
Something choked you, I know. I know.
Backwards, I fumbled, blearily-dark. Let... go. Its hold on you. Its quiet assault—shoulder blades pinned against cold tiles—catching up in your story.
Knock.
Flushed. Gasping.
Knock.
Don't go looking for yourself in America.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Off I-95.
Don't cry.
