The loneliest Road?

The Loneliest Road?

Like a noticeable run in the ass-end of our nation’s crotchless panties, US Route 50 tears its way from Maryland to California. In my admittedly questionable opinion, the strangest portion of this highway meanders from somewhere hopeless in eastern Nevada to someplace even less upbeat on the western shoulder of the state. This lonesome stretch of road, known as “The Loneliest Road in America,” has earned the title. I can’t say what compels most travelers to test themselves against it, but my first encounter with “The Loneliest Road” was the result of death, theft, heartbreak, automotive maintenance, and a desperate craving for a sandwich.

After my father's death, a sad breakup that was entirely my fault, and being involuntarily liberated of all my belongings, I needed a task. This led me to the Pacific Crest Trail, where I walked North for several months from the Mexico-US border. My time in the high desert was consumed by thoughts of the big three - Food, Sex, and the Conundrum of Consciousness. All I had with me were the clothes on my back, a few more layers to fight the cold nights, food, water, a hammock, minimal toiletries (soap and toothpaste were the same product), and a small $20 pawn shop guitar. I was meant to be clearing my head and leveraging the solitude of a 2,700-mile stretch of narrow trail to work out what I might do with my life. As usual, I squandered much of that time, confusing pleasure with meaning.

After crossing the desert section of southern California, my feet finally acclimated to the long miles, I entered the beautiful and inspiring High Sierras. But what should have been a full and hopeful heart felt hollowed out and lined with a now familiar sense of purposelessness. This did not mesh well with the enthusiasm of my fellow hikers. I’d seen death on the trail, suicide specifically, forced my feet into frozen shoes, lost my way, crossed many mountains, drank the wine of generous strangers, and broken bread with both the downtrodden loser and the lighthearted dreamer. But no matter where I went or what I saw, a sense of purpose avoided me like it owed me money. Hiking through the wilderness had lost its charm. The allure of meeting and playing music with the weirdos in town had taken its place. I decided to drive to Canada instead.

My last night on the trail sealed the deal, though. After sharing a meal with two friends and about a million mosquitoes, I tied my hammock between two trees at roughly eleven thousand feet and enjoyed a panoramic view of the valley below before drifting off to itchy sleep. I dreamt that night of an encounter with an angry policeman. In my dream, I was even more stoned than usual.

I saw a cop approaching me with angry purpose in his gait. Convinced I was going down for the terrible crime of enjoying myself too much, my body tightened up like the skin of a swollen fruit, and I turned to walk in the opposite direction. The officer called out from behind me in a loud and booming voice, using the fake name I’d chosen for myself in waking life, “Dutch Malcolms!” My body relaxed as I said to myself, ‘Oh, that’s not me,’ and I carried on walking. “Dutch Malcolms!” He insisted again, this time so loudly it woke me up.

I looked up from my hammock to see my friend, a guy I still know and love to this day, standing on a large rock outcropping above me. He was calling down, using my alias and occasional trail name. He and his partner had already eaten breakfast, packed up, and were ready to go. I hadn’t even emerged to piss. He laughed at me as he said goodbye. With impulse as my guide and the advanced age of the morning as evidence that I was unfit for this adventure, I decided right then I’d find a road, hitchhike to the nearest town, and quit the hiking business for good.

As I packed up, I began thinking about sandwiches and knew where I could get a great one. Even though it was ridiculous, and possibly because it was so, I found my broken sense of purpose renewed by the pursuit of two pieces of crispy bread stuffed with meat, vegetables, and condiments. Molinari’s on Broadway in San Francisco became my new North Star.

I had two choices - hike back the way I came or head North and look for a way out. Being psychologically ill-equipped for backtracking, I chose North. As a guy who now navigates almost exclusively by memory or with the gentile-jockey computer in his pocket, it’s hard to imagine using only my eyes and intuition to find my way off the trail. I followed a series of roads and non-PCT paths, ultimately leading to a low fence bordering a ranch.

Approaching strangers with my hat in hand, asking for a touch of kindness or generosity, is not exactly my strong suit. I stood 6’3” tall, with long hair dangling greasily from my head and a scraggly beard covering my chin. My tiny backpack had a small guitar strapped to it, and I carried a long oak walking stick. I’m sure I was an unusual and potentially unwelcome sight. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone being happy to see an uninvited hippie landing on their property for any reason, regardless of what they happened to be carrying. I had to consider the very real possibility of an armed response to my arrival.

Fortunately, when I found an inhabited place, no one opened fire. In fact, the two boots, denim, and cowboy hat-wearing guys I ran into overcame their initial and forgivable slow reckoning with my bizarre personage with open-armed generosity. I was right away covetous of their super cool pearl-snap shirts. When I asked them where I could find the nearest road to hitchhike to Bishop, they invited me to camp near their home, promising me a ride to town in the morning. I was introduced to the boss, a sturdy woman in her fifties with an imposing presence. She scanned me with gentle suspicion - like I was the stray dog the kids wanted to keep. Meeting my eyes with hers, she relented, “You’re welcome to join us for dinner - after a shower.”   

Washed up and wearing the cleanest clothing in my pack, I brought what I could to dinner – dry noodles, a clove of garlic, and some oily, room-temperature cheese. These were politely turned down, and I was instead treated to fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, thick slices of buttered bread, and all the iced tea I could drink. We joined hands and bowed our heads to thank the lord for the bounty before us. As I always do when everyone around me closes their eyes in prayer, I opened mine, checking to see if anyone else wondered if God had opinions on the sweet tea or the chicken – as is often the case, mine were the only open heathen eyes in the group. God, as usual, remained silent on the matter.

I was offered a bunk in the room with the fellas, climbed into a lumpy bed, and burrowed my head into a dusty old pillow. Full and grateful, I drifted off to a live choral production of “Cowboys Snore the Blues.”

The following day, I rode in the back of a diesel pickup truck with a high-energy farm dog. He leaned into the wind like the main sail of a schooner, flaccid tongue flapping rivulets of drool into the parched brush along the road. When we hit the outskirts of Bishop, he leaped from his perch on the big toolbox straight into my lap. The crazed creature peered into my eyes as if to tell me it was time to get out. The guys dropped me off in front of a thrift store, saying, “They got cheap clothes if you need ‘em, and the laundromat’s over there.” I took the hint; I smelled and looked gross.

I was determined to buy all new/used clothes. Not just new to me but new to my sense of style. From then on, I decided to start dressing like a cowboy on holiday - pearl snap buttons, collared shirts, and denim jeans. I couldn’t find any boots, so I settled for wearing a dilapidated pair of sandals. I’d need to work on my vocal delivery as well. I tend to say “like” too often to wear pearl snap shirts convincingly.

I took my new and old clothes to the laundromat, put on my rain pants and jacket, and washed it all. An hour later, I stood in the streets of Bishop, cowboy shirt tails stirring gently in the breeze, feeling more liberated than I have on any trail, ever.

After about a week of searching for the right vehicle, I was the proud owner of a mustard yellow 1971 Volkswagen Transporter - recently reconditioned and as simple as a vehicle could get. No radio, no air conditioner, just a gas pedal, a break, a clutch, and ample space in the back where I could put a mattress. It was in my price range and needed nothing, save for a complimentary valve adjustment after the first 500 miles of driving, as the rebuilt engine had only 50 miles on it on the day I picked it up. I promised the mechanic I’d be back in a few days and took off.

With a large, laminated, spiral-bound map in my lap, I pointed my vehicle East, slowly wandering through Nevada like a cautious and pregnant lizard on new rubber legs. I had planned on heading to San Francisco to meet my sandwich maker but decided to save that for later. My Mustard Lizard needed to make a really big circle.

The mechanic told me 65 miles per hour was the top speed. Shortly into my first drive, I realized he must have meant downhill, not the flats, and certainly not uphill. Fortunately, time was on my side. Wearing my new cowboy shirt and clean denim pants, the pace suited me just fine.

It was on my second day, wandering through the desert with no plan, destination, or objective more pressing than the sandwich I wanted to eat in San Francisco, that I found my way to “The Loneliest Road in America.” I saw the words running down the length of the blue line denoting the highway on my crisp new map; the letters looked like spilled beans, miraculously spelling an intriguing series of otherwise random words.

After hours of aimless driving in the desert heat, I was tired and thirsty. The sun had set, and I was looking forward to finding a place to camp for the night when I saw something genuinely baffling. At first, it was nothing more than a strange glow on the hard-to-pin-down horizon, confused by the shadows of hills in the distance. I assumed it was the bright lights of an electric sign for a restaurant. When I got close enough, the glow revealed itself to be far from restaurant signage. In massive and inviting letters, it promised –

“GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS!

ICE COLD BEER!”

Passing that place up never even occurred to me. I didn’t mind cold beer and had even stronger opinions about girls. Even though I’m not a fan of hanging out in strip clubs, I’ve always appreciated the boldness and bravery of the dancers. So, I pulled the slow-rolling Mustard Lizard into the parking lot – a sloppy mystic’s sore thumb among the handful of dusty pickup trucks. Landing in such a busy place after so many hours of mostly empty highway was a new kind of strange, if not especially lonely.

It got stranger and more lonesome as I approached a barbed wire-covered walkway and locked gate barring free entry to the building. As I pushed a grease-stained button under a small speaker and a camera, I felt like I was waiting for someone outside an apartment complex in New York. Except instead of city lights, all I saw were stars, and instead of a friend waiting for me inside, I reckoned there’d be many topless women. I waved to the camera as an unseen hand buzzed me in.

Inside, I fully expected to see about a dozen men and a team of dancers. I was wrong. For one, there were no men in the room. The long, nearly empty bar featured the only people in the place, two women, neither of whom, I was immediately pleased to notice, were dancing. Not exactly Girls, Girls, Girls!

Modern country music played at low volume in the otherwise quiet lounge. The bartender was roughly the same shape as my Volkswagen but observably tougher. What I assumed was the club’s sole dancer, a twiggy woman in her late fifties, looked like she might have spent most of her career stripping for a sunlamp. They made quite the pair. The pale bartender, wearing a mostly denim outfit filled to the brim with shiny and tight stretched skin covering her buxom and imposing features, topped it all off with a sturdy buttoned, form-fitting pleather vest. The other, the talent, sun-worn like a long-suffering leather wallet, wore a mini skirt, a loose-fitting, flaxen blouse with sequins sewn on, and a pair of high-heeled shoes so visibly uncomfortable it looked like she was paying a special kind of karmic debt, one step at a time.

“Whatcha’-ya-drinkin’?” The bartender had the kind of voice I would imagine cigarettes might if they could speak. Her demeanor was more grumpy DMV clerk than folksy barkeep. I half expected her to slam down a rubber stamp on the bar napkin or maybe staple it to my bill before handing over a drink. It was clear she was not to be fucked with.

‘How ‘bout a Coors?’ I said, thinking it would go well with my new Cowboy shirt. Silently, I hoped she wouldn’t notice or care much about the fact that it was untucked and dangling over feet so foolishly clad in stinky sandals.

“Come on, don’t be shy. You can sit with me!” The bar’s other occupant said this, patting the stool next to hers with a peculiar charisma. One which can only be described as a sort of convivial toast-crust sweetness with hints of quasi-distracted intra-personal gladness.  

‘Don’t mind if I do.’ My voice was shaky with nervous tension, thinking of the lap dance I’d soon politely decline.

The bartender laid out my drink much more gently than anticipated, collected my cash immediately, sat on top of the beer cooler between us, then frowned into the middle distance.

“So, what’s yer name, honey?” The charming dancer said, awkwardly touching my arm as I lifted the cold beer to my lips. I tend to take huge gulps of everything I drink, no matter what, so it took me a while to answer her. It didn’t matter; she forgot it immediately and called me Alex for the remainder of my visit.

‘And what’s yours?’ I asked, unable to confidently put a sweet nothing like sugar or darlin’ before the question mark.

“You can call me Shirley.”

When I asked her if she’d ever seen the movie “Airplane,” childishly hoping to reference Leslie Nielsen’s classic line, “… and don’t call me Shirley!” she exclaimed, “Oh no! I hate flying!”

My beer was empty after the second swallow.

“Whatcha doin’ way out here in Salt Wells?” Her eyes were asking other questions, but not of me. One of them seemed to want to know what the Bartender was up to, while the other eye was interrogating something on the wall slightly to my left. I didn’t know where to look, so I focused on a liver spot near her left eye, telling myself it was probably once a lovely little freckle. I’ve always had a fondness for the wall-eyed and for weirdos - I liked Shirley immediately.

I told her all about the Pacific Crest Trail, the sandwich I was aiming for, the Mustard Lizard, and the weirdness of “The Loneliest Road.”  

“Well, you found us, so I guess it ain’t that lonely, huh?” She said this while pushing her finger down one of the veins on the back of my hand like she was chasing a bubble out of freshly laid wallpaper.

‘I guess it isn’t.’ I said, wishing I’d remembered to say ‘reckon’ instead.

“So, whatcha wanna do now?” Swinging each of her eyes to meet both of mine nearly made them collide in the middle.

‘Well, after San Francisco, I was thinking I’d make my way up to Canada. I made some friends on the trail I’d like to see again, so I figured I’d keep heading North until I…’

She interrupted me with a less dreamy but still playful tone. “No, honey. I mean tonight. Like, right now.” I couldn’t tell if she was winking or rebooting one of her eyes by turning it off and back on again.

‘Oh … well, you know, I’m just, umm, really enjoying this cold beer.’ Tipping the now empty bottle in her direction, I continued. ‘I’m not much in the mood for a dance.’ For some reason, I thought drifting in and out of a terrible old-west patois might make me seem like a firm and confident guy but one with a kind and gentle nature.

The bartender, who had been pretending to ignore me while listening carefully from two feet away, chimed in. “Young man, do you know where you are and what this is?”

My mind raced as I searched for something more grown-up and less insulting than “titty-bar?” Fortunately, at the last second, my memory offered a much more dignified, albeit totally incorrect, response – ‘A Gentleman’s Club!’ I laid it out like a child proudly answering a teacher’s trick question.

“Oh, honey …” the dancer chirped, slapping her forehead with her hand, finally giving the back of mine a break. “… this is a legal brothel!”

Like the moment of release in my dream with the cop, the anxiety of delicately declining a lap dance morphed into profound relief that I’d be guiltlessly turning down so much more. I honestly had no idea that brothels were still a thing, much less that they were legal and kept out in the middle of nowhere! Stupidly, I blurted out the contents of my mind, ‘So that’s why there’s all those trucks out there!’

The two ladies doubled over laughing. The bartender caught her breath and said, “You got to be THE GREENEST thing that ever walked in here! Seriously! I’ve heard a lot of shit in my time, but nobody’s ever saidthat!”

Feeling like an idiot, I was back in familiar territory. Now relaxed, I asked my new working gal-pal, who would thankfully not be dancing for or with me, some questions.

With another reboot of her eye, she said, “Oh, sugar, we can’t talk about this at the bar. We gotta go to my room if you want to talk ‘business.’”

I apologetically explained that I was not a customer, but I did have about a million questions. She assured me there would be a no-pressure sales pitch in the back of the house where all would be revealed. I ordered another beer and followed her to her room.

Shirley seemed to be relaxing as well, disappointed to know that she didn’t have a customer on the line but perhaps relieved not to have to hold the hand of a hapless hippie as he awkwardly undressed her. Once in her room, she handed me a document I am sad to report I lost somewhere in my travels. It was a dog-eared, tri-fold menu printed on thick, blue card stock in black Xerox ink. The company logo was a fuzzy smudge atop a hilarious list of services. Items like “The Salt and Pepper,” “The Shower Party,” or the “Tijuana Tango” were all broken down into various price ranges, depending on the amount of time or number of ladies you needed to, as Shirley put it, “Getcha’ where ya’ need to go!”

Shirley quickly dropped the sales pitch, handled my endless questions patiently, and eventually opened up about her personal life. She held out an often-handled picture in a frame, “This is me on the set of ‘Showgirls.’” – a movie popular in the late ’90s. Beaming with pride in a blurry photo of young women in one-piece bathing suits was a much younger version of the lady sitting next to me on the edge of her small bed. She was gorgeous, fit, confident, and the only one wearing sunglasses. As she sat there, grinning at the photo of the good old days, her thin frame was covered by skin that just seemed tired. It loosely rolled over the top of her tiny skirt, freckled and harshly tanned like an aged saffron robe draped over a temple's steps. I’d say it was sun-kissed, but only if the sun were John Wayne and her skin was a recently rescued damsel, catching a hard mouth, full-face-press from the Duke. But I felt happy for her. For nostalgia to arrive light-hearted, and not poisoned by dark longing for days long gone, is a rare gift. I liked her more by the minute.

But I realize now, considering my own relationship with the frozen past - the 23-year-old version of me had no frame of reference for what dark longing might look like. I’ve learned that a smile is often a veil. That giggling hides sadness the way a lampshade hides an intruder. And showing a young stranger an old photograph of your much younger self is more like a flashlight pointed at relevance than almost anything else. That said, I hope I was right then and wrong now.

As the conversation drifted from the menu and her role in the brothel to her glory days as a film extra and exotic dancer, we landed on her true passion - music. “Oh, I’ve always been a singer!” She was charming in a way I’d not experienced, with an alloyed effervescence I can now only describe as elder-prostitute-bubbly - skeptical, but not cynical - wounded, but not jaded. She asked if I liked to sing, and I told her that, even though I had cut off half of my toothbrush handle to save on weight, I had hiked with a small guitar strapped to my pack. “Ya still got it with you? I got a karaoke machine in the closet! Lemme ask if I can bring it out. If I can, wanna go back to the bar and play?”

On rest days from the trail, I stayed as a guest with generous families, crashed in hotels with other hikers, and camped in the backyards of numerous “Trail Angels.” Many nights were spent playing music around campfires or in the sitting rooms of my hosts. Occasionally, the guy I started the trail with was there as well. He carried a mercifully rare instrument, a plastic, telescoping didgeridoo. That oddball accompaniment was more pleasing than you might guess, but a far cry from having a woman sing harmony or even take over for my less-than-average singing voice. I looked forward to that as I walked through the barbed wire parking lot, $20 guitar in hand.

Back in the bar, a comically large karaoke machine had been wheeled next to an ice-cold open bottle of Coors with my name on it. Shirley asked me to play a song for her so she could warm up her voice. I opened with Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” I could hear someone singing along but couldn’t see Shirley from behind her plus-sized Karaoke Tower. It was the bartender, grunting through the chorus. Shirley called out, “Hey, Alex, you gotta nice voice! But I don’t know the words to this one. I can’t remember the words to most songs, really. That’s why I like Karaoke. You never forget the words with that little bouncing ball on top of ‘em!”

I was surprised to see the bartender openly enjoying herself. Her demeanor had softened somewhat. Allowing the lanky hippie to bring in outside entertainment and Shirley to drive something the size of a small motorcycle into the bar seemed a departure from her otherwise brick-ish style of command. Shirley squeaked, “Ooh, I forgot the most important thing! I’ll be right back!” And trotted down the hall back to her room.

As I tuned up, the bartender leaned in and croaked, “You know, we’ve got other girls.”

“Uhh, yeah? No, Shirley’s great. I think she’s real attractive, uh, you know, sweet and, um, pretty. It’s just I can’t afford a night like that, and uhh, well, after the trail and all, I just…”

“Sure.” She said with knowing cynicism. “If you change your mind, I promise you ain’t gonna hurt nobody’s feelings. You want some whiskey?” She was damn near smiling.

I was clearly lying about finding Shirley attractive. She might have believed me about not being able to afford the night. In truth, I was too shy and too nervous to partake in anything else. Facing the sadness of paying someone to pretend they liked me is bad enough, so paying them to screw me is obviously temperamentally out of reach. I also didn’t drink whiskey, so I worried I might wear out my cheapskate welcome. I assured her I was a generous tipper; that much, at least, was true. I need not have troubled myself with those concerns; we would soon forget about the customer/client dynamic altogether.

Shirley returned wearing a pink feather boa around her neck. The accessory did the trick, leaving her energetically engulfed in such profound glee I could practically feel it. She plopped down a thick, spiral-bound booklet of all the tunes in her machine. “I’ll start with my favorite!”

With the flip of a switch, the karaoke monster hummed to life. For sure, the song erupting from it surprised me, but it was nothing compared to the bewildering vocal performance that followed.

The vibrato of an organ trailed by a thumping bass line and a heavy drumbeat told me right away that “Paul Revere and the Raiders” had licensed one of their backing tracks to the makers of the hulking Karaoke Tower.

I was transfixed as Shirley swayed in front of the machine, clutching the microphone with one hand and the bitter end of the boa with the other. Her hips glided back and forth in a bizarre, subtle humping motion - off-beat but rhythmic.

“They took the whole Cherokee Nation…” Shirley’s already unfocused gaze went from that of a charming wall-eyed oddball to a cold-hearted hammerhead shark. “Put us on this reservation…” Gone was the curious, bubbly charm - “took away our way of life…” - in its place, a delivery so husky, deadpan, and emotionless it initially seemed like some Avant Garde joke. “…the tomahawk and bowie knife…” Instinct told me to read the room before letting out the appreciative laugh, knocking at the door of my throat. “Took away our native tongue…” The bartender certainly wasn’t laughing and had fixed her gaze on Shirley’s hips with rapt attention. The tips of her teeth glistened, just visible between her parted lips. “…and taught their English to our young…” To be fair to Shirley, that tune is a slow burn, gradually building up with each phrase to a powerful crescendo. I hoped the climax might tease a touch of pizzazz from my new, otherwise fizzy, friend. “…And all the beads we made by hand…” The big line was moments away. “…are nowadays made in Japan…” I braced myself for a beautiful trainwreck of high-energy flat notes and more questionable dance moves. But when it came - “Cherokee People! Cherokee tribe!” It was delivered with the same inexplicable lifelessness as the rest of the song. “So proud to live! So proud to die!”

The only appreciable reaction to the swelling of the backing track was that her hip thrusts went deeper, briefly finding the beat, as the feather boa was threaded seductively under her tiny skirt in a way that even the heathen living in my skull found wickedly juxtaposed to the severity of the lyrics.

Shirley sang every line of that tune without so much as a grin. Her tiny hips and worn-out feather boa maintained their strange hunching and gliding. I appreciate that she aimed for a seductive delivery, but she accidentally hit the bullseye of beguiling performance art. As the song ended and the organ faded behind the sound of howling wind, Shirley took a solemn bow. A smattering of pink feather bits caught up in the sequins of her blouse while a few strays landed on the dingy carpet at her feet - like roses thrown on stage by the family of desert rats who surely lived somewhere on the grounds. The bartender and I clapped like she had just cured cancer with her voice.

“Wasn’t that fun!”

In three simple words, Shirley expressed more emotion than she had in the three minutes of that song. I loved every second of it. The strangeness of her choices, the cognitive dissonance in her perception of key and pitch, the way she committed to the instrument of her voice, and the quirky sexuality of her stagecraft - every aspect of her routine carried such intense weirdness it made me want to know everything about her. The contrast was so mystifying I was bummed out that it was my turn to play.

But that’s what we did, for hours! I would play a song, and the bartender would grunt the lines she knew while Shirley looked through her book for the next number. As soon as the tune was over, Shirley would take her turn and drone-hunch through various billboard hits of the Seventies and Eighties. What her performance lacked in energy was compensated for with a singular fearlessness I admired. Occasionally, when she was familiar with the chorus of the song I was playing, she would deliver an off-key and detached interpretation of whatever words she could remember.

“I fell in to a swirling ring of fire.” She murmured along with Johnny Cash’s famous chorus.

I had as much fun that night as I ever did on the trail - trading tunes as I marveled at Shirley’s metamorphosis between and during performances. She puzzled and enchanted me. I left hoarse from singing, cheeks sore from smiling, and quite drunk on overpriced Coors.

As we said our goodbyes, Shirley hugged me so tight that I checked with the bartender to see if it might not be free. She didn’t seem to mind and shook my hand like I’d passed my driver’s test. I was in no shape to drive anywhere. So, I passed out in the van in the parking lot, where I dreamt, not of cops, prostitutes, or future sandwiches, but of my good old days, too young to realize I was living through them as I slept.