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.