Freeway

As we came over the hill, I could see the lights of the city below us. The highway had threatened to go on forever into the night but now I could see we were almost there. Driving through the desert and into the mountains, it almost seemed as if we were on another planet. We would go through stretches of almost complete blackness for hours, punctuated by a few lights in the distance that were the only indication of life in this dark, foreboding vista. Entering civilization again after what seemed like an eternity made me nervous. At least in the darkness, there was a sense of unreality, a feeling that the driver and I were the only two people in some barren, uninhabited wasteland.

Approaching the outskirts of the city, we passed a car dealership. Seeing the cars lined up along the road like that, with prices written in large pink numbers, I began to wish I was back in the desert. I remembered some poem I had to read back in school about aliens coming to earth and seeing cars driving along the highway. After watching for a while, the aliens wanted to know if the fleshy pink things inside were the car-beings brains or the contents of their stomach. I always thought it was the latter.

We stopped at a gas station. I got out to stretch my legs and to buy the obligatory beef jerky and scotch mints that road trip etiquette seemed to dictate we keep in the car at all times. Stepping into the harsh fluorescent glare, I felt as though I had landed on some hostile island where the natives only defense against interlopers like myself was the blazing unnatural light I was now passing through. Light like this could only be interpreted as hostile, a deterrent to keep outsiders like me from invading the inner sanctum within.

Just outside the door, I passed a group of sullen locals drinking beer. One of them was wearing a uniform and followed me inside. Inside the store I was faced with what seemed to be millions of products screaming at me to buy and consume. Every time I entered a store like this, I wanted to try falling face first into one of the chocolate bar or energy drink displays just to see what would happen. I found the jerky but I started to panic before I could get to the scotch mints so I grabbed a six pack of beer instead. I was going to try to make small talk at the counter but the face of the clerk reminded me of a movie I had seen where all the inhabitants of some small shithole town were aliens or zombies or something. Anyway I just nodded with what I hoped was a friendly look when I got to the counter. "Howsitgoin." came out of the clerks mouth, and I thought of asking if that was a question or some kind of strange statement of fact. I nodded again, this time in acknowledgment. "That'll be nine fiddy." he said. I passed him a ten dollar bill. He gave me two quarters. "Thanks." I said, and walked out of the fluorescent light into the neon lights outside, into the relative safety of the car I had been living in for what seemed like weeks.

I watched the driver as he walked in to pay for the gas. I saw him say something to the clerk. The clerk threw back his head and laughed. Then the driver began to laugh. I found myself simultaneously wondering what they were talking about, and wishing we could escape back into the anonymity of the open road at night. I started thinking about how safe you could be on the road in America at night. No one could possibly find you in a night this size. You could be anywhere, you could be anyone. It didn't matter.

I was sitting in the car, fiddling with the radio when the driver came out. "The guy in there says we got about three hours before we hit the city center." I nodded. He started the car and we left the strange fluorescent oasis of product and petroleum to return to the strange otherworldly dimension of the anonymous late night highway. I tried to tune the radio in to one of the local stations, but I could only get static. We pulled out of the gas station and headed back towards the freeway.

The freeway accepted us like a mother, welcoming her sons home from the war. We melded with the road like a chemical reaction. It took two miles until I realized we were in a car, I felt so at home. It was strange when I started thinking about it. I would stare out the window, watching mile after endless mile melt away. It could be day or night, it didn't matter. I was escaping from it.

I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I knew I was leaving it far behind. Hell, I didn't even know where I was half of the time. How could anyone else? I'm pretty sure there was a job I had left behind, possibly a family, I couldn't remember. A few days ago I had called home. They asked a bunch of questions I couldn't answer, so I hung up. I told myself I would call back later. I lied. I was free here. Wherever here was; I didn't care. I turned my attention back to the car window. Stare out a car window long enough and everything seems to meld into one never-ending pastiche of scenery. You enter a city, and it seems like some wondrous occasion, like you've entered an oasis. After an hour or so though, you start to realize that you're passing people and their homes. People live here, you tell yourself. Once you realize that, it loses some of its magic for some reason.