They drove out of Las Vegas in the rental car, ready to explore.
Three days on the strip had gotten to both of them, and they were looking for a bit of breathing room. Too many lights, too many people. Neither of them were “Vegas” people, but it seemed like a cheap vacation spot away from the hurried Chicago hustle.
Overstimulus comes in different trappings, however; screaming city blocks have nothing on screaming one-arm bandits played by old blue hairs plopping down Uncle Sam’s dime on the prospect of winning a retirement fund.
They had spent the previous night watching an ex–Navy chief in a scooter shooting craps, betting 6–8 in honor of his old aircraft carrier and absorbing drinks in sync with each losing bet. The crowd howled when he was busted and then tried, to no effect, to bet his scooter. He drove off, strains of laughter and some sympathetic eyes flowing behind him.
Yes, three days was more than enough.
They decided on no particular destination and just drove, letting the morning sun clear the cobwebs and smoke haze, enjoying the exchange of slot machine bells and dealer calls for desert wind.
They drove a blue convertible because he had decided on it. The Mustang with the black ragtop was not him on a regular day, but he was not playing normal life. He wanted to be cool, to be the guy who would buy American muscle and push it around every street corner. She went along with him, not fighting his childish urge to be hip for a day. She was good that way, he thought. She let him dream.
Grabbing the keys from the rental clerk, he had half skipped up the stairs and into the parking garage, looking for space 51. She followed meekly behind, watching him. He had opened the door for her, chivalrous out of character. He got in, tucked the Starbucks in the cup holder, fired up all the horses, and revved the engine like Vin Diesel. Yes, so different than the Volvo sedan he commuted in back home. Today, he would be fast and furious.
Cruising south down the strip, he was disappointed at the lack of a crowd to watch him drive. The zombie walk of a Vegas morning was all that greeted them. At each stoplight he would gas the engine a little bit more than needed, and she would roll her eyes and laugh.
The dream was skewered by the yellow Lamborghini that passed them going the other way. He was sure that was not a rental. He didn’t rev the engine anymore.
They got off the main highway and drove west out into the desert. The two-lane meandered into the distance, so different from the concrete jungle they saw every day back home. The valley was circled by mountains, and from this vantage point they could still see Vegas some thirty miles away. It seemed so small, a speck on the horizon, where tens of thousands of people were doing things that people do when no one is watching.
The desert wind blew across the road, throwing dust on the windshield and cutting the shine on the hood. The couple could not think of another place on earth where the wind blew heat.
“I need to stop,” Laura said.
“All right,” Jack said, looking out the windshield at the rock and dust and sky. “You want to go right here?”
“No, just the next place you see.”
They drove on for a couple more minutes and came to a small gas station outside the city of Goodwell, population 127. It was a small single-pump station with a tiny convenience store attached. Jack pulled alongside the shack and parked the car next to a dusty black pickup, the only vehicle in the place. Laura jumped out of the car and darted for the bathroom door on the side of the building. It’s a good thing she doesn’t complain about much, he thought.
Jack walked into the store and headed to the vintage cooler in the back. The placed smelled like a combination of stale smoke and cat urine. The heat was somewhat lessened by a small oscillating fan screwed to the paneling over the door. How could someone pull a 9-to-5 here? Nothing like dreaming big.
He searched for caffeine energy drinks, but settled on four waters off the near-empty rack, and walked up the aisle toward the counter, his sandals sliding with the sand on the concrete floor. He picked up a bag of chips that appeared to have been made in the ’70s. They didn’t look too healthy, but there was nothing else to choose from.
Behind the counter sat a man with greasy black hair sticking out from under an old trucker cap. He was flipping through a magazine, a stream of smoke clouding his face from the overflowing ashtray next to him.
He was punk scrawny and wore an old blue mechanics shirt with the name Colten stitched on the front pocket. He did not look up as Jack placed his supplies on the counter and reached for his wallet.
Taking a slow drag off a nonfiltered cigarette, the man blew smoke across the counter, and it hung in the air thick like a London fog. “You getting gas?”
“No, just this.”
“That’ll be five bucks then.”
“You take a debit?” Jack asked, putting his card on the counter.
“You getting gas?” The man lifted his eyes and pinned Jack with a dull stare.
“Uh, no . . . just this. Like I said.”
Jack stared back, trying to cover his shock.
“Your name’s on your card.”
“Oh.”
“Spook easily, don’t you?”
Jack put the card back in his wallet and pulled out a five-dollar bill. Colten took the money, opened the till, dropped it in, and slammed the drawer, all while staring Jack in the eye. He took another toke. His hands were rough-hewn out of burnt leather, tipped with dirty fingernails. The hands of a mechanic, Jack thought, or a thug.
He had seen guys like this when he and his wife would waste away a Sunday afternoon watching a COPS marathon on cable. Laughing at trailer trash, an American pastime.
“You sure that’s all you need?”
“What?”
“Are you sure . . . that’s all you need?”
“Yes.”
Silence filled the room as Jack waited, wondering if the man was going to bag his things. The smell of fresh nicotine combining with the stale, musty air of the shop was suffocating, overpowering. He felt uncomfortable, worried, as if he had walked up on a rattlesnake.
“Is there anything else down this road?”
“I thought you had all you needed.”
“Well, is there?”
“What are you looking for, Jack?”
“N-n-nothing, just w-wondered if . . .” Jack trailed off. He hated it when he stammered. Not since grade school had it been a real problem, when the school bully called his number on random days for his annual beating. He felt eight years old again.
“Wondered what? You want to see poor folk and misery? Is that fun for you?”
“No, it’s not.” Jack quickly became aware of himself—his overpriced, casual chic attire, the nouveau bohemian getting smacked with impoverishment.
The front door opened and Laura stepped up to his side, surveying what he was buying. Colten’s face brightened as he looked at the new arrival.
“Howdy, miss. Beautiful day, ain’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied with a smile.
Colten bagged up the goods, then pushed them across the counter, where Jack had to catch them before they went spilling on the floor. He stared back at the man, sensing the swarthiness flowing off of him.
“You folks out exploring?” Colten said, ignoring the answers Jack had provided.
“Yes,” Laura started, “we just want to get away from the strip for a day. You know, see some of the country and all.”
“Good a place as any to see it. We got a little bit of everything out here.” Colten lifted off his hat and smoothed back his black hair. Jack expected to see Colten’s palm covered in grease and sweat. The way the clerk smiled at Laura left him uneasy, nervous. The awkward silence of a stalled conversation filled the room, and Jack grabbed Laura’s elbow and began ushering her to the door.
“That ain’t your car out there, is it, Jack?”
Jack froze for a minute, and then turned back. “No, it’s a rental.”
“Thought so. You just like pretending for a bit, huh? Good place to do it. This country lets you be John Wayne for a day if you got the money. Is that what you’re doing, Jack? Being John Wayne?” Colten’s black eyes looked Jack up and down as if examining his soul through his skin. He squinted as he took another drag of his smoke, exhaling it into the empty shop.
“What do you know of it?” Jack lashed back.
A look of horror flashed across Laura’s face.
“I know a bit. See it every once in a while.” Colten waved his hand, shooing the smoke from the ashtray away from his face. “You two be careful now, the desert can be strange at times. Wouldn’t want any trouble to come to you good city folk.”
The silence returned, Jack and Colten locking eyes like two roosters in a pecking contest.
“We’ll be fine. Thanks.”
Outside the store, Jack pushed Laura to the car, and both got in. He was sweating and his heart was racing. His mind was trying to convince him that he was keeping himself from jumping the counter and punching the stranger, but deep down inside he knew it was fear.
Intimidation.
He hated that. He hated being intimidated. He hated it worse that he had allowed himself to be.
“What was that all about?” Laura asked, visibly upset at her husband’s behavior.
“Just some local redneck trying to be tough.”
“I thought he was just being polite.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure you’re not the one with the problem?”
Jack stared back at her, ready to unleash the anger that he was too scared to let loose on Colten, but he checked himself. Why ruin the trip. Laura looked at him but didn’t push it. He started the car and they headed west in silence along the two-lane road toward the mountains.