33
Thunder Road
The desert highway rolled into an intersection. I wasn't quite sure how to get to where I wanted to go. My expedition to see the Mojave Desert wasn't quite what I had expected it to be. Gas was running low, and I thought for sure that I was either going to get mugged or die. Which I thought was an awful shame considering I had made it this far. Now, I know better—I was somewhere outside of Twentynine Palms—but at that moment, I was convinced I was in the Middle Of Nowhere. So at that intersection I rolled up upon, looking like a giant concrete cross in the middle of the desert, I waved down a truck transporting bales of hay.
" 'Scuse me."
"Ya?"
"Um, where's tha I-10 and tha closest fillin' station?" I tried to talk Southwestern for these folk.
The truck driver stopped for a second, weighing the route in his head.
"Ya see that road up 'head there on tha left?" The mustache-wielding man pointed out the window towards a long stretch that ran into the mountains. I nodded.
"That there is Thun'ner Road. You'll wants ta follow that and it'll take ya where yer lookin' t'go."
"Thank ya, sir."
I could tell he appreciated being called sir.
He nodded. I nodded. He drove on by.
I looked down at the infinite gray line that ripped through the canvas of ivory sand on both sides. The desert was beautiful. The sun was hot and the air was dry, and it wasn't quite the past and it wasn't quite the future––you couldn't tell what it was—it was just now. It was me and that car, and the road in front of me and the road behind me. And in the hazy blue distance, the mountains stood tall and grand like the ancient edifices of time that they are. Solemnly listening in on all of history's stories as we ephemerally drift on through. Undoubtedly set to outlive us all.
Standing there, staring out at the vastness of the desert, at the magnificent white clouds sweeping boundlessly across the blue sky, and feeling the heat of the sun beating on my skin, I got thinking of you, Max. I got thinking of all of our adventures as kids, and wished you were there on this adventure with me. You would love the desert. Open, soundless. Free.
So getting back in my car, which was like a little piece of home, I followed the trucker's direction and sure enough that street sign read:
Thunder Road
And not long after, I found my fillin' station, shared a smile with the gap-toothed woman working the cash, and embarked upon that endless drive. It was long, it took a long time, it took until the sun set beyond the mountainous horizon line. But that didn't matter. Because my faith in that long stretch of asphalt known as Thunder Road took me at last to that place I wanted to go. Home.