Shut up Kevin Smith. I’m going to bed.

We turned left into a little gas station outside of Brookneal, Virginia.

There stood a blonde. She had a black t-shirt with neon letters on it. NASCAR letters. She was leaning on the hood of a black El Camino. It was a sweet ride. Not a sweet driver.

I watched as I pumped the gas. It was $3.38 a gallon. Six miles later down the road it would be $3.55. By the time we got to Raleigh, it was $3.77. Go figure. As I watched another car pulled up. A Camaro. One of the ugly new ones. Out popped this jovial black dude. He had hair like the late 1990s Rick Fox. I chuckled at that reference in my head.

He hugged the NASCAR chick. She hugged back and they started gabbing. Loudly. It broke the silence of this little convenience store at this five-way intersection in the middle of nowhere. I loved being in the middle of nowhere. It was nice there. Not just this place in Brookneal, Virginia, but any nowheresville that there is out there.

I’ve been to just about every nook and cranny of Alabama. The best places were the Maury’s, not the Tuscaloosas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The blondes were much better in the land of the Rolling Tide, but the porches and broken down cars were cooler in Maury. And that motivates me more than the blondes. There’s always a blonde around the next corner. But not a porch. Well, there probably are, but you know what I mean.

I looked at the sky. It was cloudy. A little bit cooler today than it had been recently. The bugs were out and about. Fluttering around all of the light sources. And surprisingly, there were plenty here. I wondered for a moment where each of these roads went. One crossed a railroad track towards a farm. Another went up a hill and around a corner before disappearing. There was the road we just came from, which led to the hills of Virginia and eventually the mountains and hallows. Of course there was the road going towards our destination – Durham. A final road just went beside that road, before curving.

I knew that all of them led somewhere interesting. And I got sad that I couldn’t drive them all. At once. Right now.

My girlfriend watched me pump the gas. She handed me trash from the car. A Diet Dr. Pepper can. An empty Styrofoam cup that we took from a pizza place called Lamamas in Nashville, North Carolina the day before. I loved that I had now been to Nashville, North Carolina. A town that proudly proclaimed itself as the “Original Nashville.” Fuck yeah. Own it, Nashville, NC. And fuck you Nashville, Tennessee.

I started to wonder what it was like in the Texas Hill Country when she asked me a question. “I don’t want to use the bathroom here, OK?” Of course it was OK. I didn’t care if she didn’t use it here. I loved stopping at other places. Even though it ended up being just a Sheetz about 30 miles later. In another small town that got confusing in the dark when you don’t know which road to take.

But it was still better than Lynchburg. What a fucking dump that place was. And any place where I can get snickered at for wearing a Charles Bukowski shirt is interesting. But still a dump. The only restaurant that appeared open in the historical downtown was a chain Mexican joint. The food was normal, run-of-the-mill Mexican food. Nothing horrible, nothing special. Made me long for Arizona food, however.

I watched a woman there just texting the entire time. She didn’t eat. Didn’t drink. Didn’t talk to anyone. She just stat in a booth and texted. I hope it was her and James LeGros discussing how to have a three-way in this god-forsaken town of Lynchburg, Virginia. I kept hoping James LeGros would walk in.

He didn’t.

And neither did Jerry Falwell. Hell, I don’t even know if Jerry Falwell is still alive. I guess I could Google it before typing another word, but someone once told me to never research while writing. Just write it, make it up and then correct it when you’re done. While I’ll never do that completely, because I like having an idea of what’s write while writing, I didn’t look this one up because really, I just didn’t care.

Now, the song Die, Die, Die My Darling by the Misfits is echoing in my brain.

My back hurts. And I want to go to sleep. Hell, I got my words now the cat is sneezing.

Shut up Kevin Smith. I’m going to bed.