Nearly midnight and Clyde’s is Tuesday-night dead except for old Mister Binton, who’s slumped at the counter as always with his eyes halfshut and a cup of sugaredclotted decaf wheezing steam up into his face, and there’s a gaggle of quiet teenagers in the corner booth weeping through some secretive crisis. Joe’s in back scrubbing down the grill, Marla’s swiveling on her stool behind the cash register, waiting for anything to happen, glancing at the sputtering light panel above her head….

Lights spill in through the window: a truck of some kind easing itself off the road and into Clyde’s parkinglot, creeping up slowly beside Mister Binton’s rustpocked Horizon. Sits idling there for some time, headlights shoving their idiot stare into the diner and unnerving the kids in the corner—“Jesus, that your dad?” one of them gasps—but finally the engine chugs down to a phlegmy silence and the lights fade into pale orange embers and a man drips out of the cab…just a little fellow, Marla sees: skinny and limp with weariness, ballcapped head wagging like a halfdeflated balloon atop a narrow neck, shirt flapping from coathanger shoulders. The very spirit of a long day on the road shouldering clumsily through the door and over to the counter and sagging onto a stool as if he were a sack of wet wheat.

Marla waddles over, squinting at him. Handsome guy: a little too thin but what beautiful green eyes, and black black hair cut really short, a strong nose and strong lips and strong, wiry forearms covered in black, Italiany fuzz….No one she’s ever seen before—definitely an out-of-towner. “What can I getcha, hon?” she asks.

He smiles so prettily, so many gleaming milemarker teeth, an interstatewide smile that glows with life in his otherwise lifeless, roadworn face. “Uhhh. How much is the coffee?” Slight somewhere-else accent.

“Forty cent, first cup. Refills’re free.”

“Oh, thank god. That’s all I want then.”

“Sure thing.”

She pours him a cup, sets it in front of him. He bobs his head low over it, nose practically dimpling the oilbeaded black skin of the mug, and inhales slowly and deeply. “Oh, hell yeah,” he whispers, and hauls the fuming cup up to his lips. One gulp. All gone. He winces at the heat—holy shit, this guy just chugged a straight cup of nearly-scalding black coffee!—and carefully returns the empty cup to its saucer, nods at it, says, “Refill, please?”

“Damn,” Marla drawls, impressed. “Someone’s got a real jones for some caffeine tonight.”

“Heh. Yeah. Been a loooooooong day.”

“You been drivin’ all day—I can tell.” From here she can just discern the out-of-state license plate dangling under the truck’s grill. Yellow and red. What was that—Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada…?

“That obvious, huh?” Another cup of coffee gone. Impressive. She pours the empty cup full again.

“Ohyeah. We get truckers here all the time, comin offa the interstate. Some of ‘em been sittin so long they can’t hardly stand up n’ all they ever want is coffee.”

“I’m just passin’ through.”

“Ohyeah? Where you headed?”

“North.”

“How far north?”

“Well…Maine, eventually. Tonight, I’d just be okay if I got to Morgantown.”

“Morgantown’s still a ways up the interstate. Maybe an hour? Honestly, hon, you don’t look like you’re gonna make it.”

“Christ. Probably not. All I really want’s a place to sleep right now.”

“You passed the Nine Pines Motel if you come here offa the interstate.”

“Yeah. I, uhhh, saw that.” He doesn’t sound too enthused about the prospect, and Marla can’t blame him: the Nine Pines is a Grade A overpriced roach motel that even the few local whores avoid for fear of picking up something itchy from the scabby linens.

“Well. I think there’s another motel’r something off at the next exit up, too….”

“Really?” The man’s eyes are feverish with exhaustion, so bright they’re nearly steaming like all the coffee he’s gulped even though the rest of him is slack and grayish and dry, caked with roaddust. “You know how much it is a night? I’m a little strapped for cash right now.”

Marla shrugs. “Got me. Nine Pines is, like, thirty a night though, I think.”

“Shit. Even that’s a little steep.”

“Only thing else I know is there’s a rest-stop offa the interstate right before the PA border you could pull over at.”

“Really? I still gotta go through Morgantown, though….I’ve gotta see someone there.”

“Well….Hell, it’s all the same to me and Joe—you can pull your truck ‘round the side of the buildin here and crash there if you like. Police won’t bother you or nothin.”

“That might work. All I want’s a place to sleep. More coffee, too, please?”

The teenagers leave after a while, one of boy’s paying while the girl hunches in the doorway, her face a filthy rag of tears and despondent snot, and Mister Binton finally drinks his coffee and Marla pours him a refill, and in the back Joe’s closing down the grill and growling on his cellphone to his exwife. The traveller turns chatty as the caffeine bleeds into his veins and cools the addled heat in his moviestar eyes. Marla leans by him and listens, always fascinated by travellers’ tales and more than a little attracted to his sharp face and that smooth, coffeestained grin. He’s a general contractor, originally from Tuscon, Arizona, on his way to Maine to join a buddy at work on a very lucrative project—“some hoitytoity government thing, y’know”—and he’s making his way slowly up through the east, staying with friends along the way, living off of McDonalds fries and bags of potato chips so he can afford the gas, detouring West a little to pick up another “friend” in Morgantown on the way to Maine—an unbearable snot whom he really can’t stand, but, hey, the man does good work and he’s willing to chip in for travel expenses, so….He’ll make enough cash on this Maine venture to buy another truck—“a big ol’ gorgeous F-350 extended cab”—and drive back home to the desert because he won’t fly—“I’ve had more than enough flying to last me another thousand years”—and, besides, he’s how old and hasn’t seen more than a handful of this great country? He really wants to take a long ride around the Great Lakes, spend a night watching Niagara Falls by moonlight, maybe stop at the Mall of America once he hits the Midwest and of course he wants to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and Mount Rushmore and—

Lord, is he a talker. Marla’s always loved a man who could talk. Her first crush growing up had been Bob Ross, the painter guy on WNPB, because even though he had hair like a nigger he spoke soooooo beautifully, every word a soft silver ribbon of detailed calm that wrapped lightly about her heart and threaded her head with silky dreams of lavenderlit forest meadows and joyous clouds and trees. Marla’s first husband had been a real talker: he’d been skillful enough with words to talk her into marriage even when she knew, knew, he was a worthless pile of shit. Her second had been too damned quiet, but she’d needed a break from mouthfuls of fake but shiny words….Now this man, this contractor from the Great Southwest—a sunbleached land she’d often dreamed of visiting—is lulling her with his fidgety, sleep-deprived, coffee-fueled stories and before she even knows it she’s asked him if he wants to just spend the night at her place.

“Nothin funny, now,” she says sternly. “But you can crash on my couch if you want. It’ll at least be warmer than sleepin in your truck….”

“That’s…really generous of you,” he says. Very, very humble. “I can’t really pay you anything—”

“I ask you to? I wanted money, hell, I’d’a asked first thing.”

He grins. “All I need’s a place to sleep.”

“Well, it ain’t nothin. I can put you up on my couch. Be nice to have a little company in the house, even just for the night.”

“I’ll be up and gone early.”

“That’s fine. I don’t gotta be back here ‘til four anyways, so….”

Clyde’s closes at 1. Mister Binton leaves a handful of change beside his empty cup and stumbles as if already unconscious out to his car. Joe shuts off all the lights and leaves without even saying goodnight, jaw clamped tight and angry—his fucking ex again, of course….Marla locks the door behind her and outside it’s a frigid night, nearly starless, the vast black holes between the stars swabbing up the last of the day’s heat and the traveller’s not dressed for this kind of weather: he shivers and snorts great clouds of steam. “Just follow me back to my place,” she instructs. “It ain’t but maybe a mile or two up the road. Just follow me, okay?”

On the way home with his headlights filling her car with a great white UFO light, she tortures herself with the expected fears and, maybe, a little fantasy, too: Prince Charming bludgeoning her to death in the depth of night with a tireiron, waking up next to him covered in blood or her own nightie…but, christ—he’s just a lonely, roadweary dude with barely enough cash to get him to Morgantown and when hasn’t she been a sucker for green, green Hollywood eyes and a dark complexion and there just aren’t enough decent people anymore willing to give up their couch to a poor working man in need of a place to sleep. That’s all he needs: a place to sleep.

They pull up in front of her trailer and Marla stands by watching him carefully, carefully, carefully—so drowsy despite all the coffee he can barely hold his emerald eyes open—pull his truck up next to hers, hoping he can’t see the sudden stupid doubts and nervousness in her own very wideopen eyes. He fairly staggers from the truck’s cab like a jellyboned drunker (hubby number one, for instance), already mumbling appologies and endless thankyous, but “C’mon, hon, it’s allright—lemme get you to that couch ‘fore you fall right over,” she says and actually lets him lean against her warm, pillowy side as they walk to the door.

Inside, Marla’s a little ashamed to have a guest over since she hasn’t cleaned up in some time, but the traveller’s rapidly running out of consciousness and what do the piles of TV Guide and People and the midden of unironed laundry on the recliner matter to him? He tumbles down onto the couch and sighs.

“Here’s some blankets,” she says, fetching a couple of old threadbare throws from a hall closet, “and there’s pillows kinda behind the couch, you see them there?—and glasses’re in the cupboard over the dishwasher so if you get thirsty, just help yourself to anything in the fridge, and…uh, bathroom’s right there, down the hall. You can leave anytime you like tomorrow—door’s open, so….Well. Make yourself at home.”

“Can do,” he says. He carefully unlaces his workboots—surprisingly clean, spitshined, like only a military man would wear—and tucks their toes under the couch, then spends a strangely long time in the bathroom. Marla really, really hopes he isn’t shooting up in there (though for some reason she can just tell that he’s not even much of a drinker, much less a smack cowboy), but after a few minutes he comes out wiping toothpaste from his mouth with his forearm, a little travel kit in his hand.

They spend a few moments in idle, pointless chitchat while he curls up on the sofa and wraps a blanket tightly about himself…but even good natured conversation can’t hold him awake any longer, and he’s snoring lightly before Marla even shuts off the lamp. She sits for a moment observing him sleep, sighing again and again and again, then finally clumps off heavily to her own bed all the way down the hall where she can’t hear the faintest whisper or snort.

She sits for a while staring at her bedroom door, snidely pondering whether she should prop a chair up under its knob just in case, or if she should check on him every now and again to be sure he’s still breathing or to be sure he isn’t hauling all her tickytacky possessions out and piling them in the bed of his truck….Whatever. Right now Marla’s tired as hell, too, and almost comically melancholy, indifferent to her present, bitter about her past, and expecting nothing more of her future than maybe a few awkward moments tomorrow talking to that handsome contractor before he hops into his huge gray truck and drives off into anonymity again.

She changes into her nighty, lies down, and falls asleep almost instantly.

Deep in the night, she wakes briefly to a shudder of damp heat blooming through her belly, slow and muddy like a wet dream, but the dreams start after she sinks back into sleep again.

She dreams of a vague pink sky, dusty smears of tan cloud, and strange taste in the air like hot tin. Beneath that sky, a sculpted desert: huge, gnarled fingers of red stone poking up from flat red hardpan—and running through it a perfectly straight road of shiny black glass. Beneath the soles of her feet, the glass is feverhot and so smooth. She starts walking, one direction no better than the other, the obsidian stripe thinning to a brittle needle stuck into the wavery heat of the vanishing point before her and after her.

But not endless. The glass road soon becomes a plain old stretch of gritty blacktop with a double yellow stripe down the middle. She walks past clumps of trailers, emptywindowed houses, lonely gas stations, a collection of old cars all rusting together in a strange clump by the side of the road. She grows tired in the middle of the deepest sleep she’s ever known and lies down to rest as the sunless light cools out of the sky.

When she later wakes she stands up and there were she lay in the roadside dust and the dried, prickly grass, a dessicated skeleton is halfburied in the windstirred dirt. She knows she slept comfortably couched within the big barrel of its ribcage, and she looks at the skull tilted crazily beside a sunbleached forearm of wood or bone. Huge and flat and angular, a triple jaw lined with black glass teeth, too many openings, little pieces of shiny metal welded to the bone here and there. She looks around and on the horizon there stands the jagged black ruins of a city, not much different from the skeleton at her feet.

She walks on and finds herself sweating and uneasy and oh so goddamned tired on the narrow porch of some old man’s hovel in a sweaty, wilted forest. The old man sits shirtless atop a styrofoam cooler, watching her blankly while he sips from a beerbottle, his narrow torso burnt red as the naked clay of the road out front, a halfdeflated pot belly sagging over his belt. Very little room in there, she thinks. Any port in a storm, though…So tired. She just wants to cozy up someplace warm and dark and rich in sugars and necessary proteins, lit up with someone else’s dreams of distant lightning.

Dreams of playing Barbies with her older sister, older sister saying, “Nuh-uh! Ken ain’t gay! You be Ken, then.”

Dreams of a huge place with dark lavender skies and no roads and river valleys full of mileswide rivers, in which fish the size of riverboats sing.

Dreams of the miscarriage she had when she was still with her first husband, only in the dream the baby doesn’t die, but sleeps deep in her womb, big and shapeless and full of dreams itself, thousands of little red roots like squishy wires sunk deep into her belly and her blood.

Dreams (or does her baby dream?) of a road that never ends…but the universe is circular, so someday that road will have to loop back on itself and, many many many miles from now, on the other side of a hundred million more sleeps, maybe she’ll wake up home again.

****

Marla finally wakes much later, after dark, damp and sore and ravenously hungry and thirsty. Before she even takes stock of herself she’s gulped most of a 2-liter of Coke and eaten four bowls of cereal…and then she notices the shriveled sacks of empty hide dangling beneath her upper arms, the loose pleats swinging beneath her nightie. What the hell? She stumbles groggily to the bathroom. Stares at herself naked for some time. The pale skin. The bruised eyes. The sagging body. She weighs herself: sixty pounds lighter than she was when…she last checked. How long ago was that? Yesterday morning?

What time is it? The clock flashes 9:14 am.

Marla drifts numb into the living room and sits on the couch. The blankets she gave the stranger are still where she left them.

Joe comes knocking sometime later, knocking and growling, demanding that she open the fucking door if she’s still alive and she does….Joe’s hounddog mug falls even longer than usual when he sees her. Catches her as she almost falls down. “Dear god,” he says. “Dear god. What the hell’s happened to you?”

“Oh. I been sick,” she mumbles into his armpit. “I think.”

“Who….What about that pickup that was out front all day and yesterday? Who the hell was that? That guy from the diner the other night? He do something to you? What the hell’s wrong with you, Marla?”

But Marla can’t answer anything, can’t recall anything but a vague suggestion of sleepy greenness—can’t even find it in herself to be scared or perplexed or even a little…weird. She just sighs and shrugs, starts to slide down the doorframe. Joe takes her by the arm, spindly fingers sinking deep into slack, crepepaper skin, helps her stand.

“Christ, Marla, I ain’t heard from you for two days—I didn’t know if maybe you’d fallen down and died or something—I mean, I saw your car, so I stopped, and…”

She appologizes but, like she said, she’s been sick. She promises to be in tomorrow. Joe looks at her a long, quiet time, watches her glancing around in confusion, as if looking for something she misplaced and forgot about until just then.

“You want me take you to the hospital?” he asks quietly. “I think you need to go to the hospital.”

“No, no,” she slurs. “I’m okay. I just been…sick. I had the flu or somethin. I’m feelin okay now.”

“Well…shit….Don’t even worry about comin in tonight. Okay? I’ll just call Rachel. You…you just…rest. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Joe vanishes at some point, sometime later, and Marla finds herself lying on her bed again, thinking about a past husband whose face she can scarcely remember now, a drowsy man, and the cold ashes of a million forgotten dreams: flickery visions of red deserts, black caverns full of strange, deep echoes, roadsigns and reststops and miles upon miles upon miles of road beneath many different skies, some blue, some green as pondwater, some orange and filled with metallic motion…and she cries for no reason in her unmade bed, feeling much like an unmade bed herself.