The Seventy Mile Per Hour Blur is the Big Event

I drank a vanilla milkshake at the Dairy Queen, walked down the sidewalk to the liquor store, bought a fifth of Cutty Sark scotch, went back to my motel room, stripped off my clothes, and lay naked on the bed. I hadn’t touched a drop the whole way out here, but now I needed a shot or two to fall asleep.

For the past two days, all I wanted was to see was the world streaming past me from the cab of my pickup, the steady growl of the engine purring in my ears like a big cat. I watched the tree-covered mountains of northern Georgia flatten into the black dirt of Illinois and dissolve into the monotonous scrub of Kansas. Then a hundred miles into Colorado, the white-tipped nipples of the Rockies appeared on the horizon like a promise.

I came west hoping to outrun her. Hoping that if I put enough miles between me and the red dirt of Georgia, I’d forget the delicate crook of her neck, the sound of her laughter, and her smile, that beautiful, heart-stopping smile. I wanted the Rocky Mountains to cleanse me like a lightning bolt refreshes rain-dampened air. But, after two long days on an endless blacktop, I could still see her ghost in the rearview mirror of my memory.

It was finally time for sleep. I want to slip into that black velvet world where nothing hurts and my bloodshot eyes get to rest. But, I needed to quiet my mind and relax stiff fingers still clenched around an invisible steering wheel. I twisted open the scotch bottle and took a swig like a soldier hunkered in a foxhole. It burned perfectly. I took another and set the bottle on the floor within reach.

Across the street, McDonald’s golden arches glowed with hamburger persuasion, bathing the plaster walls of my motel room in a pallid yellow wash. So I tugged the plastic curtains across the window, but the lurid glow seeped around the edges and reflected off a cracked mirror, creating a twisted image on the carpet reminiscent of a Picasso painting.

With outstretched fingers, I pulled the bottle to me and lifted it to my lips, taking a long easy pull. The scotch went down like a sharp blade. I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing, but I couldn’t think of nothing. So, I thought about my long drive and how soothing this big ass event was supposed to be, but how it turned out to be a lot of meaningless this-and-that tangled in a ribbon of asphalt. Then I realized there is no such thing as a big event. Rather, one thing led to another and another and another until I mixed those things into a cocktail, tasting like miles of highway, and I made it into some big deal. It dawned on me, and I believe I’m right, life from beginning to end is the big event. It is the only thing that matters. Everything I experience flows with me in small chunks as part of my life and becomes my big event.

Maybe I was exhausted, perhaps it was the liquor, maybe I was borderline insane, but at that moment, I saw my life as a feast of moments that I could either consume or ignore. From start to finish, and everything in between, my life flows into me like Cutty Sark flows into my mouth and down my throat — rough and real. I now know, or at least I understand, that my entire life has been like a blur, streaming past me through my truck windshield at seventy miles per hour.

I looked at my cell phone, it was exactly twelve am, midnight. I wondered why it wouldn’t be more logical to say it is twelve pm because it’s nighttime. Yeah, it must be the liquor in me.

When I opened my eyes again, the light around the curtains had changed — whiter, brighter, happier. I checked my phone, eleven-thirty. “I’ll be damned,” I muttered, voice raw and flat.

I sat up, grabbed a Winston from the nightstand, and lit it. Rubbed my aching head. Rubbed my burning eyeballs. Ran my fingers through wild, greasy hair. Two days of coffee and French fries had raised a special kind of hell in my armpits.

“What woman would love a bubba like me?” I muttered, staring at the hideous reflection in the mirror. Not that I was looking for a woman, God no; not after what I’ve been through. But the hours I had just spent on the road left me feeling alone, completely alone. Maybe I’ve failed. I came out here hoping to forget her, to erase that part of my past. But the only thing the road gave me was more of me and a false expectation of this long journey.

I camped under the shower until the hot water gave out, then I stood under the cold blast and let it numb my head. It felt good to be naked and clean and cold. Almost human.

Feeling slightly less wretched, I left the motel room squinting into the high-altitude daylight and thin Colorado air. I went down to the front desk to check out and ask where I might pick up some Goodies or BC powder.

“Got a headache?” said the hard-bitten woman with smoker lines etching her mouth. Maybe she caught the sweet smell of Cutty still seeping out my pores.

"You have a good nose," I said, and she smiled shrewdly.

"King Soopers," she said, swinging her arm at the window indicating some undetermined direction.

I shrugged and shook my head.

“King Soopers,” she grinned. “It’s a grocery store, a nice one.”

She told me how to get there but I didn’t listen. Why should I? I have Google Maps.

I climbed into my pickup and turned the key. The motor’s familiar growl comforted me. I checked the rearview mirror and damn it, I caught a glimpse of her face. It was a fading moment, but I swear those blue eyes locked on mine. I felt a burn in the pit of my stomach.

King Soopers was a typical supermarket building, with a brick exterior, a treeless parking lot, and baking in the Colorado sun like an egg frying in a cast iron skillet. I pulled up next to a green-and-white Volkswagen bus, 1972 or ‘73 vintage, sporting its years like a comfortable old jacket.

Inside the store, the fluorescent lights buzzed incessantly. I wound through the aisles, located the pain relievers, bought a pack of Goodies powder and a quart of water, and headed back out into the high plains sunshine.

The VW bus was still there. A fine-looking young woman sat behind the wheel, thick blonde hair falling around her shoulders. She was holding a cup of McDonald’s coffee while reading a newspaper spread over the steering wheel. Her window was open; I could hear Paul McCartney singing "The Long and Winding Road" on her radio.

How appropriate, I thought. I had an urge to tell her I liked that song. But I thought maybe I just wanted to say something. Maybe I wanted to hear my own voice, or maybe I wanted to hear her voice. I don’t know. She probably has a beautiful voice, calm, low, and female, I thought.

Instead, I silently slid into my truck and stared at the Rocky Mountains in front of me. For two or three minutes I soaked in their awesomeness. The gray and white peaks fanning out across the western sky, as if they'd been stitched onto a bright blue canvas, the scene a gigantic postcard…only real. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving life to the silent mountains by asking them, “Were you worth the trip?”

I opened my water bottle, sprinkled the Goodies powder onto my tongue, washed it down, and waited for the kick. While I waited, I pulled out my Texaco roadmap and unfolded half of it, tracing the narrow black line I’d drawn from Blue Ridge, Georgia to Denver, Colorado — now, somehow, ending in this parking lot next to this green VW bus.

I thought about turning around and heading back to Georgia as planned. I needed to get back to work, but being this close to the Rockies, I decided to reconsider. I wanted to look at the whole roadmap, to see all my options. I got out of the truck and laid the map open across the hood.

The girl in the bus looked up from her newspaper, catching me standing there like a man at a crossroads, scratching my head.

“What are you doing?” she called out, smiling.

I grinned back. "Nice bus."

"Thanks," she said, pushing hair from her eyes. "I'll be living out of it for a while."

"I'm figuring out where to go next," I said, feeling a bit sheepish holding down this big map as it rippled in the wind.

"Where you from?" she asked, lifting her coffee.

"North Georgia," I said, loudly, as the wind had picked up. "And you?"

"Here. Well — Colorado Springs," she said like it was no big thing.

I nodded, not sure where Colorado Springs was.

"What brings you west to the Centennial State?" she asked, her coffee finally making it to her lips.

"I’ve never seen the Rockies," I said. "Had to see if they really are big."

She tilted her head and shot me a look like an arm was now growing out of my forehead.

"What do you think?" she said.

"From here, they look small."

She huffed. "Dude, we’re fifty miles out."

I squinted and rubbed the back of my neck.

"So where are you headed?" I asked.

She got that wild look in her eyes. again "You’re not gonna believe it," she said. "I’m headed east — to Tennessee. I’ve never seen the Great Smoky Mountains."

For a second, we stared blankly at each other, like we just found out someone discovered dinosaur bones on the moon.

“The Appalachians,” I nodded, “they’re my stompin’ grounds.”

She grinned. “I want to see how green they are.”

We both laughed.

“You came a long way for a look at the Rockies,” she let her head tilt toward the range.

I felt my face go flat and expressionless. And she noticed.

Her brow formed three deep rows, “Did I hit a nerve?” she said softly.

I shook my head, “No, not really, but,” I took a deep breath, “kind of.”

“You runnin’ from something?”

I didn’t answer. I rubbed the back of my neck and closed my eyes for a second.

“Everyone’s runnin’ away from something,” she added.

I nodded, “Yeah. I thought I was running away but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I’m running toward something.”

“A woman?” she said.

I shrugged, not wanting to go into it with a stranger and a woman.

“What are you running from...or to?” I asked, hoping to put the elephant on her shoulders.

“I needed to get away, clear my head. The road was calling my name.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said a slight smile ghosting my face.

“Maybe we were supposed to meet here, in this parking lot, at this moment," she said.

“You think?”

The breeze picked up again, tugging loose strands of her hair into the sunlight. She laughed as she pushed it back, and for a moment it felt like we were the only two people left in the world.

“I don’t know, but I need to be in Kansas by dark.” She winked, folded her paper, and started her VW. She reached out the window and we shook hands.

"Good luck finding your mountains," I said.

"You too," she smiled.

She cranked up the window, started the engine, and gave me a quick nod. The bus bounced over a pothole, kicking up little dust phantoms that swirled in the light like smoke.

I watched her drive off until the VW shrank into a green dot, and then disappeared.

I thought I needed the Rocky Mountains to forget my pain. Turns out maybe all I needed was a stranger, a young woman with thick blonde hair, a good grip, and a map of her own.

The mountains leaned in closer as the sun tilted west. A wind, they call a Chinook, blew fresh and dry down the eastern slopes, across the King Soopers lot, cooling the baked asphalt.

I folded the map and put it into my glove box, fastened my seatbelt, and started the engine.

The Rockies loomed ahead, a stone wall wrapped in newness and adventure.

I pressed on the gas and headed west.

In minutes, I hit the Interstate doing seventy. The blur of life streaming through my windshield was now different...but it was good.