Truck Stop
Interstate 20 between Abilene and Sweetwater doesn’t fit any conventional notion of the beautiful. Driving, one sees just miles and miles of dry scrub landmarked by little except blowing tumbleweeds and oil-drilling contraptions rhythmically sticking their noses into the ground. The occasional gas station sits like a lonely outpost as cars and trucks speed by. The rolling, green hills we passed east of Abilene have long given way westward to a brown, treeless plain, and there is nothing to charm or distract the eye, at least not this traveler’s eye. Not only is there nothing to charm, but, depending on my level of fatigue or hunger on this long drive from Houston to New Mexico, a lot to annoy. Billboards on Interstate 20 here assault the gaze, urging ever more buying of ever more things. Trucks speed by jockeying for position, as if getting twenty feet ahead of traffic provides any advantage. I can start to fixate on the ugliness and relentlessness of commerce and on all that is wrong with the world, especially as day gives way to darkness. I can get, shall we say, grumpy.
On other trips to New Mexico, Thorpe and I have taken slower, more peaceful roads north and west that reveal the beauty of this arid landscape, with sun-lit tan and yellow and brown grasses blending into the horizon. Open, unimpeded views of land and sky can clear the mind and settle my soul. But tonight, however, arrival deadlines require that we make miles quickly. So I try to be grateful for the efficiency and speed of this Interstate, but still want to grumble sometimes. One spot can be particularly annoying—a sprawling truck stop covering at least an acre in Tye Texas, garishly lit, with lane after lane of trucks parked or filling up with gasoline. We usually drive past, but tonight we must join the throng to fill our tank and our bellies.
I enter the truck stop, weary, in search of the women’s restroom, and walk past the rows of snacks and truck paraphernalia to an area of services for truckers. To my left are rows of recliners for resting or even sleeping, then washing machines and dryers. Straight ahead I see showers, then finally I spot the women’s restroom at the very back. As I walk toward it, I notice two men in the hallway outside the bay of showers, conversing. I might have walked past without noticing them. Ordinarily, if I had even noticed, I might have succumbed to negative stereotypes of truckers, indulging my snobbishness. But tonight something catches my eye. The younger of the two has his back to me, and I see him combing freshly washed hair that hangs to his shoulders. He wears jeans and has yet to put on a shirt, as he talks to another man I can barely see. He looks young and lean, and his body curves into the movement of the hairbrush. I could have stood there, so struck was I by the simple humanity and beauty of this man, clean after a long day of driving, perhaps sharing a story of the road with a companion in his world.
But I move on, understanding that this unassuming, ugly truck stop is indeed a sanctuary for men and women who drive these relentlessly efficient and harsh roads day after day, night after night, as it also is right now for me. It is not only a sanctuary, but if one is able to see it, a place with its own kind of beauty and grace. Somehow, this young man, who stands in the hallway brushing his hair, lightens my step. Grateful, not grumpy, I walk on.
