I brushed off Kyle not giving a reason for why he parked 30 yards away from the hub of the truck stop and silently followed him up to the thing that looked like a suburban shopping mall that had been stranded in the middle of rocky desert and surrounded by semi trucks. The soundtrack of the trucks’ mechanical hum filled the air like crickets on a summer night. I could feel the hot lights of the trucks upon us as we shuffled through the parking lot and couldn’t help but feel like a wildebeest in some nature documentary clopping up to a watering hole with the eyes of hungry lions lingering off in the distance.
A quick scan of the entire property confirmed what Kyle had said about the little America. The heart of the facility was a conglomerate of a building that advertised a diner, a motel, an Internet café, luxury bathrooms/showers, a convenience store and a bar. Serving as the cherry on top were the buzzing yellow lights of an adult book store with a front entrance that was clouded in the cigarette smoke of a few patrons who appeared to be shooting the shit out front. I quickly began to wonder if I would be the only woman in this entire place and if I should ask Kyle if we should just keep going, but stopped myself.
I followed Kyle into the truck stop diner that someone had made the horrible decision to decide to primarily decorate with sea green, plastic and the stinging, sweaty smell a guy gives off when he is really hung over. I also expected some beaten down old single mom to greet us and take us over to one of the tables that appeared to be coated with leftover syrup, but the only thing that greeted us was a sickening fart that erupted from the table closest to us.
“Oh fuck,” Kyle shot out the words before pulling the collar of his shirt up over the lower half of his face. “That’s bad.”