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.

the bag broke

I’m sitting at my dank, dirty, depressing, disturbing cubicle at work. White Flag’s “Glass Tambourine” is playing in my ears, drowning out the worthlessness I feel at still being employed here after almost two years.

My original plan was to go a year, and they blow the joint and head west and south. New Orleans of course. Maybe even take a friend with me. Life detoured those plans a little, but I like to think that I’m just being responsible, not scared. Or lazy. Or just unmotivated. Well, the last one is certainly a flaw I possess. I don’t think the other ones still fit me. They have at times, but now I’m no longer scared of things.

Right before the song ends, he walks in. You can’t miss his shuffling way of stomping. It makes me think that an elephant that had a stroke is wearing those modern tennis shoes that seem more like moccasins is coming towards me.

He’s huffing and puffing as usual as well. Both arms full of fast food purchases. It appears today it’s all McDonald’s fare. “I can hear you getting fatter,” is my only response inside my head.

Grimace, as I’ve taken to calling him, is angry today, however. He shuffles past me arms full of wrapped up chemical goodness and deadly as Sarin Gas foodstuff.

He tosses some of his holdings onto the desk. Placing two drinks down gingerly. He picks one up and takes a long swig from the straw. It’s obviously some kind of shake as he has to struggle to get some liquid goodness to enter his mouth. He slurps and then burps, wiping his chin and mouth with his sleeve on his three sizes too small Bob Mould 2008 concert tour shirt.

His eyes look down towards his desk. A lone cheeseburger sits on his keyboard. He picks it up, standing up in the process and slings it at his cubicle wall.

“Damn it!” he yells. “My fucking bag broke. I can’t believe my fucking bag broke!”

All of us look at each other in unison. One of us is going to laugh, I know it. Mitchell knows it. Joshua knows it. Hell, even troll knows it.

I look away and put my hoodie on. I’m the one who breaks. A cackle comes out of my mouth and it feels oh so good. Not as good as the first sip of a beer after doing some roofing work or the smell of a woman’s body for the first time, but damn it did feel good.

“I had to pick everything up and carry in here without a bag! That’s just so wrong!” he continued.

The troll waddled over to his desk. Looking down at him with her soul-less eyes.

“But at least they gave you two shakes,” she said to him.

“I know! I only paid for one too!” that seemed to perk up the giant beast.

He grabbed one of his cheesburgers and ate half of it in one bite.

“Damn it! I ordered no pickles!” he said right before spitting the half chewed remnants of that half a burger into his hands. He pulled out the pickle piece and threw the rest back in his mouth.

Once again, all of us looked at each other. Then the floor. This was getting old.

“Hey Mitchell, want to go grab a drink?” I said.

“Can’t bro. Have to finish this front. Then get to work on my project.”

“Same project you’ve been talking about for two years?” I asked rather pompously.

“Yep,” Mitchell replied. “Just like that book you’ve been writing.”

“Touche.”

“Touche, indeed,” the troll said.

Joshua let out a wicked witch-esque laugh and put his ear buds back on. Certainly listening to some Dane Cook, I guessed.

Meanwhile the boss kept tapping out the beats to whatever awful 1980s R & B song he was listening to on Youtube. It never ceased to amaze me how off beat someone could be. It reminded me of a kid learning how to dance for the first time with his grandmother or his father teaching him.

“One, two, three, ugh.”

“One, two, three… Crunch. Shit!”

“One, two, ugh.”

“One, two, three, four!!!!”

Meanwhile, I started to feel back for Grimace. Not because he was such a disgusting human being. But more the fact that he probably hadn’t had sex. Ever. Unless he paid for it. Of course, I used to feel sorry for myself. But I was 18 years old.

“Back to work,” I thought to myself.

“Chomp, chomp, chomp.”

“Tap, tap, tap, tap.”

“Buuuuuuuuuuuuurp!”

Another day in paradise. I put on the Descendants “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” and wish I hadn’t.