The record on the jukebox changes as I walk toward the counter. Blue Oyster Cult, "Don't Fear the Reaper."
I hate it when the inanimate pretends to have a sense of humor.
***
He looks up when I sit down, flicker of interest in eyes the color of sun-faded denim. The blue-eyed boys have always been my weakness. I meet that brief look with a smile that's more sincere than I intended, flash of white teeth between candy-apple-red lips. It's hard, dressing for the truck stop circuit. Can't be too wholesome or they're afraid to even talk to you, too much chance that you're some sort of lure set out by the local cops. Sandra Dee doesn't play with the long-haul boys. Neither does her evil twin--going too far the other way makes you look like you're just another lot lizard, not worth the cost of conversation. So here I am in flannel shirt under denim jacket over too-tight wife-beater tank top, faded jeans worn as thin as paper, hiking boots, and makeup that would verge on slutty if it wasn't so inexpertly applied. I know my audience. I've had a lot of time to study it.
"Hi," I say, questioning lilt blurring the remnants of my accent, blotting out the route signs leading to my origins. "I'm Rose. Do you, um, come here often?"
He looks my way again. His eyes are kind. That makes it a little easier. We're about to get to know each other real well. "Honey, let me stop you right there. You're way too young for me. Hell, you're way too young to be out here. Don't you have a home to go to?"
"Not for a long time."
"I see." Disapproval overtakes the kindness like the sun going down--but it isn't directed at me, and that makes what has to happen next easier still. "When's the last time you ate?"
This time I don't have to fake my smile. "Too long ago." It's true. I'm always hungry--one more consequence of being what I am--and I have to follow certain rules. If the living choose to feed me while I'm material, the food has flavor and substance. If I try to feed myself, it's only air and ashes, like chewing on nothing.
"Can I buy you a burger?"
"Sure."
***
The burger tastes like Heaven on a sesame seed bun with ketchup and raw onions, and if Larry wonders why I ask him to pass me the condiments before I put them on, he doesn't say anything. The coffee is even better than the burger, and the apple pie is so damn good I could weep. The living don't know how lucky they are.
Larry finishes his food while I'm still demolishing mine. After that, he just watches, until I'm chasing crumbs with the tip of my index finger and wishing I'd thought to chew a little slower. He clears his throat. "I was thinking, Rose..."
"Yeah?"
"I don't think a girl your age should be alone in a place like this. Now, you don't have a reason to trust me, and I'll understand if you don't think it's a good idea, but I'm rolling for Detroit tonight. I'd be happy to take you along, get you to a place where maybe...you could find somewhere to stay."
Oh, Larry. He won't be getting anywhere near Detroit tonight. I know that, I've known it since I saw him across the diner, but that doesn't matter, because this is what I wanted; this is what I came here to do. I push my plate away, and if he sees that my smile is painted on over sorrow, he's polite enough to ignore it. He's trying to help. Most truckers are essentially good people, living one of the few vagabond lifestyles that's survived into this new world of electronic mail and cellular telephones. They help each other when they can, and they like to be seen as shining knights riding dragons instead of snow-white chargers.
"Thank you." I tug my borrowed coat tighter, smelling old perfume, old sex, old lies. My lies are some of the oldest of them all, but I tell them for the best of reasons. "I'd really appreciate a ride." Rides are what I unlive for, after all.
The waitress who takes Larry's money looks at me a little too hard, a little too intently. She knows me, she's deep enough into my America to know me, but she's still in the shallows; she's still too close to the daylight to understand why she knows, or what, exactly, it is that she's seeing. I flash her a smile and she steps backward, counts Larry's change wrong twice, and finally--once the register is closed--flees into the back. She won't be here much longer. She'll go back to the daylight, leave this blacktop twilight to the people who can breathe its air and not worry about suffocation. That's good. People like her should get out while they still can.
Then Larry leads me out of the diner to his rig, and the waitress doesn't matter anymore.
***
Most truckers have permanent addresses, places they sleep when they're not rolling down the midnight miles, eating distance and turning it into dreams. Very few truckers consider those addresses to be anything like home. They live and breathe for their iron darlings, their eighteen-wheeled wives who carry them so faithfully and understand what it is to be one half of a marriage that goes deeper than passion, all the way down into true, undying love. Larry's truck shines like a beacon through the outside dark, glittering with a light he's never seen. If I asked him, if I had a way to frame the question, I bet he'd tell me he's felt it. That he feels it every time he crawls into his little wandering-man's bedroll and closes his eyes: the arms and the protections of his lover, soothing him into sleep.