You don't come home to Seattle. You drive straight to Ellensburg. I found this land five years ago. It was confusing to other people. No trees. Brush that pokes and scratches. Ticks. Rattle snakes are around. You looked slightly confused. You thought you'd humor me. Remember the bike you bought me for the truck? It was red, from Walmart. I'd never use it, it was a waste. Then I rode it every day. That bike could have been a hint.
First came the barn. No one called us back except John. He was working on another barn. Neither one of us with any barn building experience but the air inside John's barn was cool as a moat. Inside, the barn stood unfettered. We signed on: John-Sloan-Rodeo-Roper.
The well: 600 feet and only 2 gallons a minute.
The septic.
That took care of the line-of-credit.
Then we thought about trailers, modules, prefab. While we were camped in the barn overnight, I called John. He looked rough. I wondered if he was drinking. It turned out to be cancer. He was getting treatment.
The house started nine months ago.
And you were sad to leave this house. I am sad to leave this house. I've never lived in a house so long. Twenty years. The yard-guy, Mr Le, hugs me the last time.
I think that you will come home and help but you are busy making money, driving the truck. I start yelling on the phone. When are you coming home?
Seven days before I move, we move, you come to Ellensburg.
Thirty years of trucking is over as you step down from the truck.
I call and ask when you're coming home here to Seattle. You don't know exactly. There's a lot to do. You've moved to Ellensburg.

I don't know why there aren't any mosquitos. It is hot and it is dusk in Nebraska. The electric pot is sitting empty on the picnic table in the rest area. We ate all the dirty rice. I love dirty rice. Maybe it's the grease from the ground beef and linquisa.

You and I sit on the seat and turn our back on the table itself, the rest-area-art rises up behind us and past that is a little bridge that divides us from the main buildings. Tip noses the outskirts and then comes back to lie down in front of us. He looks over his gray and black shoulder and catches my eye. He holds the contact.
Tip is the only dog I have the experience of watching beauty register in his face.

The first time I saw Tip he was humping another dog at the pound. When I brought him home he bit my son two times. Tip is a dog with three badly healed broken ribs. Right away I started taking him places. He'd lie down on the grass in the Skyway park. His head was high watching the leaves blow, the grass ripple. He would shift his sight to take in everything. Then Tip would look with a sparkle directly at me before he'd look back.
Now, in Nebraska Tip lies on the grass in front of us and looks over his shoulder with his eyes sparkling. We are headed west. Sitting like this we face north. It is getting so dim our faces are shadowed. You and I don't say much. The quiet is welcome. We look out at where the grass ends and row upon row of corn picks up. The corn not only picks up but it travels in a steady wave as far as I can see.
Half an hour ago the black birds were dancing. Now, with the dark, they settle. I think everything is going to settle. I am wrong.

A tiny yellow flash of lightning bugs. They start here and there. They start close to the ground. They pick up the tempo. As you and I watch they twinkle higher on the corn stalks. Pretty soon they are above the corn. They enter the air. You and I look at each other. We look forward again. Millions of lightning bugs. We have never seen so many ever as they rise through the corn, rising into the air and thinning up to sky.

I want to hold on to this. I want to die with this in my eyes. This, the whole arch and roll of earth twinkling and sparkling as far as I can see.

There is a level of exhaustion with freight that works like anesthesia. I don't know how you do it. I can't. Finally you say that you'd work for a moving company. Not moving houses. Never moving houses. But the big movers move specialized equipment. You have to have experience. You don't have experience. They won't hire you.
It's snowing outside the windows of your daughter's house in Tewksbury Mass. It is a thick and clean quilt. We sleep for a day. Watch movies with Jessica and Rick at night. A level of exhaustion lifts. I am capable of minor independent thought. While I'm pulling the sheets off the bunk, grabbing the laundry, I find the old trucker magazines. Some pages are stuck together near the front. But it's the back pages that advertise. North American. United Van Lines. Jessica helps me download the applications. You prop yourself up in the corner with coffee. I ask you questions. I fill in the lines. You sign.
United Van Lines is different from the start. No one yells at us over the phone. No one says you have to break the rules. We cross the country in five days instead of two and three quarters. Instead of being confined to the truck waiting for the next order after delivery, we have at least a day off. We go in to the truck stop and pay for a shower.
And you panic. You say you can't make enough money to pay the truck payment. You grit your teeth. You sweat. You start yelling. There's no way in hell you can make the truck payment.
But not killing ourselves driving means not using the fuel. We start getting the truck repaired. The tires aren't wearing down. And the money is coming in.
We get two housemates to take care of the mortgage. We're never home anyway. The freelance archeologist stays for five years. The second housemate is more of an asteroid, coming and going. For a while, a gay opera singer working in a bakery.
And United Van Lines keeps being friendly. When we make it in to Fenton, people in the building smile right in our faces. Ed Cody gives us meal tickets. United has good food. I load up on salad. You love the pork chops.
Ed Cody asks if we've seen the new Driver Lounge. He sends us down to the oustide corner of the bulding where the office people smoke. There's a electronic button to push for security. We walk into the lounge. There's a free coffee machine when you walk in the door. Couches on both walls and a TV. And there's a phone. I walk right over. It unplugs I say. Look Tony, you can unplug the phone for dial up. In the corner is a stack washer dryer and that's free too. This is a room of miracles. But we're not done yet.
You open a door and inside is a shower. I open another door, another shower. And they are both free. We sit down on the couch.

You go to sleep for four hours and get back up at midnight. You've shaved off a ten hour break. A cup of coffee in the truck stop. We set out again at 1:00am. By 6:09, Cleveland Ohio, you are sluffing out of the cab. Morning fog, off Lake Erie, holds you upright. You disappear at the back of the trailer. In my mind, I see you swing both back doors open. Somehow you will back in to a door that at best is yawning through the white tumbled figures of cloud. The first fork lift jostles the truck as it pulls into the trailer deflating the airbags.
By eleven we are backing into Akron. I take Tip for a walk. The morning is too bright, it stings my sleepless eyes. Tip noses the sidewalks. He lifts his leg on a tree. He is a generous dog with those he loves. He will make do, feign a wonderous level of interest, in a blowing syrofoam cup if that is all I have to offer. We meander. Delivery vans pass by. A silver sided canteen truck turns left into another parking lot and blows its horn. Let's go back Tip, I say. Let's see if the lunch truck comes to our warehouse.
It does. I get a sausage sandwich. I eat a bite, take a bite and hand it over to Tip. We sit side by side. You come for us, sitting on the curb. I can see the shipping papers sticking up from your back pocket. We are done loading in Akron. You are gray from lack of sleep and don't want anything to eat.
We make it to Canton. There's a Dukes truck stop. We're there by 2:00. It is fourteen hours since you got up, already skating on sleep, at midnight. I go in to brush my teeth like it is first thing in the morning. When I come back, I notice that you've parked straight into the sun. You want curtains you ask? You are standing naked, already taken the rubber band from the back of your hair. No, no curtain. And you slide between the covers while I take off my clothes. I have to climb over you but already sleep has locked you down.
The sun shines through the windshield. It fills the whole cab like an aquarium. Sun butters the duvet and penetrates the coverings, the feathers, wool, flannel, skin. It sinks between the filiments of muscles and buries its treasure within the marrow of our bones. We do not move for a long time.
But when we do, our generous dog leads the way. We walk to the back of the truckstop and start the climb up the hill. Tip roots under the brush checking for rabbits, sure at least of mice. You and I puff because this is a steep. We swagger at the top. We walk up to the commercial signs posted high above Interstate 77. We're as high as the motel signs. It's clear up here. Tip scouts out the brush.
You and I sit as the sun flattens against the horizon. I say let's wait for the signs to light up. We can try you say. You say you want some beef vegetable soup though.
Tony, what did we deliver this morning? I can't remember. I can't either. Well, what did we pick up? Hmmm. You're hand goes to your back picket but there's nothing in there now. Fixtures you say. Fixtures? Probably fixtures. Well, they could be fixtures anyway.

One thing truck drivers do is line up really well. Parking and mirrors are points of pride. They angle up,kissing the bumper of the truck in front, push the gear lever into reverse. Inch by inch they place that back trailer corner a breath from the trailer alongside. The driver leans out the door. The driver hops out and rechecks. Leaps back in. And the trailer glides backwards.
No one paints parking lines for truck drivers.
Morris Illinois, mile marker 112, interstate 80. I always call this truck stop Romeos. The sign says R Place. It's as dark outside as it's ever going to get. The rain blows sideways. It clings to me like jelly on toast. The parking lot is big and always full. We have to park back row. Starting out, I step right in a puddle and ice water crawls up my ankle. Up in front, water skids off the roof in a solid curtain.
When the door shuts behind us it's so quiet we might be packed in cotton. There are a few people, clean dressed, but not enough to make me nervous. At the register they fork to the right for a seat as we cross to the left, drivers' section. The waitress comes right over, flips the coffee cups and starts pouring. She looks at you.
Men come first in truck stops.
Chicken Pot Pie you say. You've been thinking chicken pot pie since crossing from Davenport into Moline. I wanted to stop at Iowa 80. Iowa 80, there's a walk up the hill behind, a gravel road, farm land. Just cut behind the truck wash. But you want chicken pot pie. What the hell, I order chicken pot pie too then I slip out the booth.
There are only a few truck stops that sell anything except USA Today.
USA Today.
You got a lot of truck drivers listen to AM radio too. Subtlties don't hold up in a working cab. There's too much noise off the engine. You miss every third word. Your eyes are always keeping up with the outside. There's only a small piece of your brain open. USA Today, AM radio, holds up a simple standard, direct and unswerving. They're not asking you to think past the next mile marker. They're nothing but a pep-rally.
Romeos sells the Chicago Tribune. If they still have yesterday's I buy that along with tonight's. In our booth I read outloud. Chicago is looking at the frigid depths of Lake Michigan as a piped in conduit for cooling office buildings. The pot pie comes. I read inbetween mouthfuls. Outside the window the rain splashes down. Truck lights richochette, cross like light sabers, as they pull in one after the other and snake back out. Few parking places left you got to blind side. Not many tired truck drivers want to blind side at night in the pouring rain.
You finish and angle yourself against the corner with coffe, four sugars and cream.
I keep reading.
In the morning, after coffee, we stuggle up one at a time. There's only room for one at a time. Our clothes are damp, cold. They'll warm up in an hour. But the sun's out. You, Tip and I wander over to the open grass area. Tip noses into everything and we follow until I split off. My toothbrush in my pocket, I walk inside and into the women's room. There's another woman. She's wearing clean clothes. This is not where she brushes her teeth when she wakes up.
At least there's no one else.
On the way out I stop by the glass front bakery counter. Today they have pumpkin bread, loaves swaddled like babies in white tissue paper. I buy two and then in the Quick Mart I look for today's Chicago Tribune. But it's still too early.

I spent some months in Europe I say. You've got that stiff as cardboard look to your face. I gave up showers everyday. Yes, is all you say and I want to throw my coffee at you. The cup wiggles in my hand.

I'm not taking a shower once a week.

If it's so important to you, you can grab a shower when I fuel up.

Are you crazy? I am not taking a shower while you fuel up!

You got fifteen minutes you say. How much do you need.

Fifteen minutes to grab the stuff. Walk through the snow to the truck stop. Stand in line at the counter. And if there's no line, get a key and a towel. Find the right door. Get the shower stuff out. Take a shower. Get dressed. Repack. Drop everything off. Walk back out to the fuel island. Fifteen minutes is not going to do it.

I have to log the fuel.

All I want is a shower every three days.

I'll probably have to take a piss too.

Fuck you, fucking asshole.

Thank you.

This is where the shower project begins Tony. Reshaping the experience.
In the malls I search out The Body Shop. There is an oval of brown soap that you come to name "Stinky Soap." I buy an aqua soap box. There are rubber massage tools that cup in the palm of your hand. Natural sponges. I buy micro-beads to scrub pores and french lotion from Sephora. Our shower bag is bursting.
It takes a few tries for you to stop startling in the shower with me.
It's new.
But then you take over washing my hair. I stand with the hot water hitting my back. You hold my skull between both hands and knead the soap on my scalp with all your finger tips. I lean my weight against you fingers. Steam rises in clouds.
You're saying we could extend the cab on the freightliner. We could add a shower.
What?
Extend the cab and have our own shower.
I do not want to start cleaning a bathroom in the truck.
We could take showers anytime.
Tony, I want to get our three towels from the counter. After the shower, I want to throw them into the dirty towel bin. Do you see any Comet in the truck? No. Is there going to be any Comet in the truck? No.
The showers I remember though, they're the ones after unloading two hundred bed steads at a dormatory in Mississippi, or twelve stores of dress racks to different malls in one hundred ten degree weather. The showers that don't fade away are the ones with the seat in the wall of the shower where we both sit with our elbows on our knees and droop our heads. Right side to left side. We just sit there waiting and hoping for enough spark of energy we'll be able to get dressed again.

In Iowa, most of the two door rest areas are gone. More glass now with an illusion of levels. Wyoming has solar heat. Utah holds on to the red stall doors that only come up as far as your chin. Texas has some big, fancy rest areas. When you cross in from Louisiana, that rest area has a whole community of armadillos. But Texas keeps it picnic areas with toilet paper strewn in the brush. I don't even talk about the east coast. The east coast is packed with capri, pedal pushers, hair that's just made its exit from the stylist. East coast I use the chamber pot.

What rest areas hold in common is no mirrors. The most there is a wavy square of metal pinned on the wall above the sink.

This is the fun house.

The truck holds two hundred gallons of fuel. One hundred in each of the chrome cylinders each side of the tractor. If the load is light, the wind comes from behind, we can get most the way across the country. No need to see your face in a mirror. I loose track.

This day, you drove into the morning hours. I slept. Five a.m., while the coffee makes in the cab,Tip and I walk around picnic tables in this desert rest area. Standing in the open, I use my water bottle to brush my teeth. Migrant workers, ruffled black hair, bend forward off the seats of their dusty cars. They unbend like stems toward the pale light, stretch up slowly. Little kids hang on to their legs. There is a silence.

The driver's side of the truck is facing east. Every rim on the outside wheel reflects the orange glow of dawn. My eyes follow the line to the end of the trailer. The face in each mirror is the face of the sun.

Tip jumps from truck step to cab ledge and on inside. I have to grab the rail, the steering wheel. Tony's sleeping on the bunk facing the back wall. I pour coffee into two cups, both for me. Tip jumps on the passenger seat. The truck starts ka-pow and as the idle smooths I log the date, hour, milage,the rest area.

Driving a truck is slow and steady. It's full of wide turns and looking a long ways down the road so that quick maneuvers that make your heart pound, hardly happen. All these tires and wheels, they ground you right within the motion and navigate you under the sky. I put my blinker on. It clicks its rythm. The truck coming up the interstate starts gliding into the passing lane as I keep pulling out and gaining speed. The other truck is in front. I flash my lights and before I finish, his right hand signal already comes on .

I look at Tip. Tip looks at me and then back out the window. We're heading east; the sunrise is upon us.