No Man’s Land

I leave Oklahoma City on a four-lane highway. The far right lane sign says it will close in 500 feet. Five hundred feet later, the far left lane sign warns that it will also close. I stay in the middle left bumper-to-bumper lane. Cars speed by in the far left and right lanes and disappear. Eventually, I realize that the road signs lied, and drivers have been speeding past and forcibly pulling in front of other cars. Now, all lanes are packed.

I ride the bumper of the car ahead, a white Chevy pick-up pulling a Sportsman Camper. It sports a window sticker that says, “Be a Flirt. Raise your shirt.” I consider it. My car temperature gauge is 104 f. A half hour later, left and right lanes open. I see a small town ahead. A sign warns, “One hundred miles to the next McDonald’s.” I enter No Man’s Land.

I see my 14th “Route 66 Museum at the Next Exit,” and the signs: Amarillo, 71 miles. Amarillo, 64 miles. I count 36 electric poles between House A and House B. Amarillo, 50 miles. Welcome to Gray County. It is raining. Near Groom, Texas, an ugly, cluttered little town, is an ugly, plain cross billed as “The Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere.” A monstrosity, really, with the biggest gift shop I’ve seen in long while. Nearby is a water tower labeled as Britten, USA, that leans like the Tower of Piza. “Where am I?” I wonder.

Amarillo, 40 miles. Amarillo 35 miles. 79 electric poles between homes. Cows huddle in patches of shade. The smell of horses and cattle lingers from Oklahoma. Amarillo begins to feel like a lost civilization, a strange thing to say about a city in north Texas. The longer I’m in Oklahoma and Texas, the stranger things seem to get. At a gas station is a twenty-something woman dressed like Alice in Wonderland buying cigarettes at the counter from a man who looks like Mr. Clean with a nose ring. Two men at the gas pump wear belt buckles the size of hubcaps. After a while, my perspective becomes Oklatexed and I’m thinking: Somewhere in this world, the great grandson of Count Dracula prefers to drink a cold can of diet blood.

I know I need to get out of Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is too much like Kafka’s description of it. Everywhere I stop for a break in Texas, locals at the tables talking about God always seem to be conforming to each other: “Being good won’t get you into Heaven. Being nice won’t get you into Heaven. Being compassionate won’t get you into Heaven. Being respectful won’t get you into Heaven. Being tolerant won’t get you into Heaven.” I’m thinking, if Heaven isn’t filled with the good, nice, compassionate, respectful and tolerant, who’d want to go there? Why not just stay in northern Texas?”