You pull off the interstate just as the sun disappears behind the distant mountains. Sure enough, this is cattle guard country. One stretches across the off ramp at the bottom of the little hill, where you turn under the interstate to enter the strange city. Crossing over the iron bars feels like entering a military installation, or a new country.
The first thing you see of this strange city is a fenced junkyard with dozens, maybe hundreds, of 90's cars, mostly American; Fords and Mercurys and Pontiacs, all pushed up rear-fenders-to-the-fence in neat rows like some giant kid is waiting to play "vroom, vroom" with them. Where are all the drivers?
Half a neon sign lights up the darkening sky. It's a truck wash/cafe/gas station. You pull onto the gravel driveway. The crunch/crackle/creaking of the gravel under your slow-turning tires gives you the feel of off-roading, like you're driving to some remote campsite rather than a truck wash/cafe/gas station.
The truck wash next to the cafe is empty and looks unused. It is just three giant pieces of corrugated aluminum, two walls and a flat roof, that looks like giant playing cards balanced on each other. The cafe has a large picture window that runs the length of the front of the building. You can see all the counter stools as you crunch/crackle up to one of the crash poles jutting up like crooked teeth in front of the cafe. No one is inside.
You park. All is silent except a gentle, persistent howl of wind and the metallic clicking and popping from under the hood of your car. Metal expanding (or contracting or whatever it does when you park your car after running it hard across the desert for ten hours) always sounded like panting to you.
Your car is panting. The wind is saying "Wooooooooo, what have youuuuuuuu done now? Wooooooooo, youuuuuuu've stopped. Are youuuuuuuu sure youuuuuuuu want to stop here?"
End, Part 2
Tags: viral videos, funny videos, weird video, odd, strange, possum, borocho, Texas, I-10, faith in your machine, vacant desert, relay stations, ribbon of asphalt, sun-bleached A frames, story, writing and poetry, Jolie Blond, James Jarvis
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