Seeing Mirages in Montana

After leaving Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I made my way into Mecca.

Mecca for me has, for some reason, always been Montana. I'm not sure if that's because it's the most exotic sounding place in the continental states or one of the most remote; I really don't know why at all. But for some reason, Montana has always been calling my name. And finally, after 26 years, I got to answer it.

Williston Basin, North Dakota, just two miles east of the Montana border, is cowboy country. I stopped at a tiny bar to use the bathroom and nodded hello to the one patron in the place -- a cowboy too old to still make the runs. He was the first real cowboy I'd seen since fumbling down the backroads of South Dakota last summer. It wasn't a moment too soon; I was inordinately excited just to see this white-haired man in a ten-gallon hat and boots. Again, American Exotic. Or at least more exotic than Laurel, Maryland.

When I crossed the border into Montana, the landscape barely changed. Still, I was in awe. Montana. Finally. I stopped to take a picture of horses. Between Maryland and North Dakota I probably saw four hundred horses. But these were different. They were Montana horses. Same with the clouds in that famously big sky. I pulled over to the side of the road just to crawl on top of my car and stare at the endless heavens. A healthy-looking man in a blue pick-up pulled over behind me. I waved and smiled a guilty smile.

"I didn't mean to make you pull over, I'm just enjoying the view!"
"Oh! Okay! So you're just taking a rest!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Oh! Okay! Well, if you need anything fixed, I got tools! We could fix it now!"
Ordinarily, the subtext would be, "And I could put my dick in you as payment!" But not this time. This was Montana.
"No, but thank you so much! Have a nice day!"
"You, too, ma'am!"
And that was that. Two strangers being cordial. Coming from Maryland, that is exotic.

On Rt. 2 I learned the four-finger steering wheel wave. People driving past me would hold up the fingers on their left hand while their thumb held the wheel. I loved it! Before, I thought the FFSWW was reserved only for people you knew that you saw driving by in a small town, but these people didn't know me! And they still waved! Well, I became a waving fool, holding up my fingers at a near right angle each time I passed a car.

I drove into tiny towns off the Interstate, unafraid thanks to advice handed down from Dean in Watford City: "You ain't gotta be scared of runnin' out of gas, 'cause the railroad runs right parallel to Rt. 2. Back then, the law was every seven miles the train had to stop, so now every seven miles there's a little town. It's sure to have a Conoco, or a Cenex, they're real big around here."
He was right, I didn't fret all the way from Watford to Browning.

Through Lohman, Glasgow, Prentice and Moscow, I counted the bars -- at least two per town -- and stayed fairly full on fuel. Just as in North Dakota, most bars and gas stations were also casinos, with electronic roulette and blackjack machines in a cordoned-off area. In Glasgow I also bought razors, my first since leaving home, a pack of three plastic Bicks for $4.50. For that price, remind me never to forget razors again. Still, as hairy as I had gotten since leaving Maryland, it was quite worth it.

There were keychains for sale at the counter. They were no bigger than my pinky and looked like tiny ice-scrapers. I asked the young girl at the register, "Is this for scraping your windshield?"
"Um, yeah, it could be," she said, unsure of what I was asking. "And people also use them to scratch their scratch-off tickets."
"OOOH! I get it!" But I didn't buy one.

Stopping on the side of Rt. 2, I rollerbladed a bike trail through the steep Montana afternoon, leaving my sneakers under the one trail bench and getting my car tires stuck in the mud on the way back out of the ravine that led to the trail itself. Past the trail, road work led me down a three-mile gravel stretch I wish I could forget. Later that night, I heard a horrendous squeaking coming from my front end. "Oh, shit," I thought. "That car trouble that skipped over me last year is visiting me now!"

I stopped that night in Malta, Montana, one of the bigger towns between North Dakota and Glacier National Park on the state's Rt. 2. It was getting close to dusk when I pulled into town, not sure if I should splurge on a cheap motel or rough it in the city park as I had in North Dakota. The park advertised camping, but "roughing it" was being kind. The sites were quite primitive, much moreso than in Watford. No showers, no electricity. I stopped in the bathroom of the city park, which bordered the baseball field. A Little League tournament was going on, tiny children in stocking socks and mesh caps running around, chasing after toddlers with authority. It was a Town Happening and, though I wanted to belong, I didn't have a five-year-old to dress in a jersey.

Instead, I checked out campsites. A young Hispanic couple wrestled in the grass by the bathrooms and, for a moment, I missed the warmth of human skin. I passed them by, pretending not to notice the first stages of foreplay, as much for my own celibate sanity as their conjoined naughty one. For five dollars, I shouldn't have complained about the sites themselves, but the morning hike had called up some less-than-friendly odors from the recesses of my underarms and I needed to bathe. A motel and RV park sat kitty-corner to the park and I sat, blinkers on, debating whether I should spend the money.

"It can't hurt to inquire about prices," I thought, turning off the car in the parking lot of the Riverside Motel And RV Park - Full Hookups! I left the keys on the front seat and the window open, fully expecting to hear a price too steep to warrant and then turning my lonesome self over to the rustic confines of the town park. Yet when I walked in I knew I couldn't just walk out.

A fragile old woman in a wheelchair sat at the ready to take down my information. Her desk was a small window between an obvious apartment and a makeshift common area. She gazed at me expectantly and somewhat overjoyed that someone was staying at the Riverside that night. I knew then that I was good for at least $35.00 that night, plus tax. Who knows how long the woman had been sitting there at the ready for some soul to wander through?

Checking in was a process. Having left my debit card in the car, I had to go out to get it. Then she had to pick it up with her slow, rheumatoid fingers. Then she had to swipe it through the machine with said slow fingers. Then she dropped it. Not wanting to invade the space of a disabled person, I waited patiently as she tried to bend at the waist and pick it up, which took another five agonizing minutes. I silently chided myself for impatience, during which she made several comments about not having her glasses. I finally caught on, saying, "I can get your glasses for you."
"Oh, yes, dear, they're just on that table there in the kitchen."
Just going into the small kitchen for eyeglasses, I walked halfway across the woman's humble apartment, sealing the deal that I would stay that night. Whatever Uncle Sam was paying her (or not paying her) for disability, I could at least supplement.

Still, she trusted me to walk my muddy feet into her quarters. That in itself was a welcome better than a parade, and a payback for whatever paltry amount she was asking in return. Minutes later, after she had given me full reign over the credit card machine despite finally picking up my card, I was signed in to Room #10 and on my way.

The squeak of the car was giving me a very hard time out in the driveway, to the point where I wasn't sure if the squeak that I heard was myself or a crazy person screaming. I parked the car and still heard the crazy person. "JJJEWWWABUUYY, KIIIIUMBBBBACK!" It repeated over and over, sounding thin and desperate. "JJJEWWWABUUYY, KIIIIUMBBBBACK!" Finally I wondered enough who was making the noise. It was my disabled friend, having miraculously wheeled her way to the customer door and was holding open a way to yell for me. "JJJEWWWABUUYY, KIIIIUMBBBBACK!" she called, scaring me.
"Are you okay?!" I screamed, almost not wanting to hear the news.
"Yes, dear," she said, wheeling back to her desk. "But I gave you the wrong key. Somebody is already in 10. I have to put you in 11."
Oh, sweet Jesus, I thought. She really scared me with all that yelling.

Room 11 was the cleanest room I've ever rented for $35.00. I get wary now, having paid more than that for a shitty room in Kentucky, complete with a decorative bed spread (cigarette holes) and its own custom paint job (boogers on the walls). But at the Riverside Motel, I actually didn't think I would get scabies from sleeping in the bed.

Thus began a strange night in Malta. I took a shower and set a chair in front of the door because the door itself didn't lock (truly odd). I brought my knife into the bathroom with me and listened for any sinister noises. "Psycho" has always stayed with me, and I have a fear of motel showers.
Then I burned my tongue on chicken soup I heated up. A car pulled up outside as I was getting something from mine and a weird woman emerged from the backseat, wearing a straw hat and blinking maniacally. She plodded with tiny steps up to Room 10 as the older couple in the front seat watched her. From their body language and expressions, I couldn't tell if they knew this woman or had just picked her up wandering down the street and took pity on her, driving her back to her room. The woman shook and her eyes darted around like someone on hallucinogens. I went back inside quickly, not wanting to get into a conversation.

Later on, I walked around the streets, checking out the stores in this tiny town. I had to cross three sets of railroad tracks that run right through the center. An underpass was built for cars to swing below the trains, and a mural painted on the concrete side showed an eagle flying in front of an American flag. "Oh, look," I thought. "A Maltese falcon." The stores were all dark at ten o'clock and the sun had just dropped beneath the horizon, darkening the windows. There was a scrapbooking store, a beauty parlor, a hardware store, and a western clothing shop. There were also three bars/casinos and I walked quickly past them, not wanting to draw attention. Turning down a sidestreet, there was a one-screen movie theatre and a tiny greenhouse, as well as a three-bayed auto repair shop with a sign that read, Matt's Service Station. "I'll have to come here tomorrow," I thought morosely. "How in debt am I going to go to Matt? Will I have to go home?" Homesick as I am, having to go home seems like the cruelest fate that fate can deal.

For an outsider, it's hard to trust a mechanic in a small town. I walked over to the tiny VFW with the neon Budweiser sign and popped my head in. The light was dimly orange, a stark contrast to the pale blue sky outside. Three elderly veterans in their issued hats sat at a tall table, their pins and medals glowing in the light of the popcorn machine. Six older people, men and women, sat talking at a shorter table that seemed weighted down by the large ashtray in the center. The women each had short hair that puffed on top, and the men wore flannel shirts.

"Hi," one woman said, smiling but wary. "Can we help you?"
"Yeah, hi," I said nervously, feeling quite out-of-place. "I'm from out of town."
Two of the men exchanged looks that said, "Well, duh!"
"And I need to get work done on my car and I was wondering what the best place in town is?"
The elderly veterans whispered among themselves as the six small-table people traded confused looks. "Well, Matt's is the only place in town," one woman said. "If you can make it to Harrington, (the next town over) they might be able to help you too."
Of course. The only place in town. So Matt's is was.

Walking back, I picked my way across the tracks and saw a cat sitting near the doorway of my motel room. I was still pretty far away, and I cooed, "Here kitty, kitty!" It ran, and disappeared. I mean, literally, I have no idea where it ran to. It darted behind my car, and then was gone. I looked everywhere, under my car, down the walkway, everywhere, and the cat was gone. "Was that a mirage?" I wondered. Alone in the dark, on the road where no one knows your name, your mind begins to play tricks on you. And for a second I truly believed that the cat was really the crazy lady in Room 10, who had morphed into a cat and also had powers of invisibility.