Nothing Ever Happens in Thayne. Except Wonderful Things.

Route 89 South in Wyoming took me through the Caribou National Forest, and the tiny towns of Hoback Junction, Alpine, Etna and Thayne. Cattle, as always, grazed in the acres of butterscotch plains. My family was having a birthday party for my brother and called, mouths full of cake. "Where are you staying tonight?"
"I don't know," I said, staring at the Star Valley Rest Area and the darkening sky.
Greg was at the party and took the phone. "Honey, stay someplace safe tonight, please."
"Of course!" I flipped a U-turn and swooped into the rest area. "I'm gonna stay right here."
"Where's here?"
"Don't ask," I said, reading the sign that said "No Overnight Parking".

If the cops came I could just say I was driving through and stopped for a few minutes. Provided they didn't come twice, I'd be safe. In the meantime, I could head into Thayne and check out the one place of business still open, Paul's Bar and Steakhouse.

In the bathroom of the rest area I changed clothes and put on makeup. The structure was small and made of concrete block and arched glass ceilings. Sounds echoed throughout the space like a cathedral. I heard a car pull up and the men's room door open, then close again. I didn't hear the car pull away. A payphone rang outside in the hallway. I cracked the women's room door and looked. No one was around. I answered the phone. It was dead. I went back in the women's room, and heard the main door open again, then the men's room door. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Greg's words echoed in my ear. "Someplace safe." Was someone calling from outside to see if I was inside? Who was coming in and out of the men's room. My mace and my knife were both in the car. Dammit. How was I going to get out of here?

I pinched my car key between my index and middle finger like I used to walking home at night in New York. One well-landed punch and I could stick a key through someone's cheek. "Come and get me, you bastard," I thought, opening the door slowly and easing out into the hallway, walking sideways, my back to the wall. My dirty clothes were piled in my arms but could easily be dropped if I had to fight. Silence. I cleared the twenty feet of concrete tile floor from the bathroom to the exit in under a second. There was only one car in the parking lot besides mine, an old man and his Yorkshire terrier. I could have knocked him over with a strong breath. The muscles in my face relaxed. I hate being the softer sex sometimes. If I could live anywhere, it would be a world where a woman doesn't have to carry her keys like a weapon.

In Thayne I parked on the main street of town, Rt. 89 itself. A tall, older man with dark hair sticking out from under his trucker hat sat outside an antique store directly across from Paul's. Okay, so there were two places of business open that Tuesday night. He waved as I inspected the random smattering of merchandise scattered throughout the front lot in front of the garage-style doors. Most of it was Amish furniture and saddle horses. A pink motel ran perpendicular to the shop and shared the parking lot, rosy in the setting sun. "How ya doin'?" he called brightly.
"I'm great! Yourself?" I was buoyant just not to be dead or assaulted.
"Can't complain! Just 'bout to bring this stuff inside."
"Do you need some help?" I asked.
"Ah, no. My friend, he owns the place, he'll help me." His name was Larry and his face was sweet and his eyes were kind behind thick glasses. He fell into the category of people I call Insta-Comfort. I made a new friend in seconds flat, the best part of being on the road.

The Road is possibly the only place where I can go from nearly taking out an old man with a car key to falling into a friendship in fifteen minutes.

Antique shops are like crack to me. I'm usually pretty good about controlling my habit, but when it's right-freakin'-there and I have nothing better to do, that's it. It's over. I poked around the paths laid out between stacks and stacks of cabinets, hat racks, display cases and general oddities, decorating the house I don't own in my head. "Where ya from?" he asked.
"Baltimore."
"Well, then! We're nearly neighbors! I'm from Pittsburgh. I got a brother that lives in Columbia, Maryland. You know that place?"
"Oh, my god! Yes! I used to work in Columbia! I went to high school in Columbia! I hate Columbia, it's facist, have you been there? The housing association is evil! They control everything, even down to the color of car in your driveway and the color curtains in your windows! Ugh! Columbia!"
His eyes widened and he laughed. "You really like the place, huh?"
"Obviously! So what brought you out here?"
"My divorce."
"I see."
"My friend Len from back home, he lives out here. He owns this place, and the motel. He said, 'Come out here, Lare! (when he said it, it rhymed with "bear") Come help me with the shop and the motel and get away for awhile."
"That's awesome!"
"Yeah, it sure is different. Just took myself and my dog and came out here." He motioned to the Caribou Mountains that lay past the top of Paul's Bar. They were purple in the light of dusk. "This here's a great place. I may not go home."
"Given the choice between this and Pittsburgh, I'd stay too."
"Yup."

A short man walked around the corner from the motel, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots and a t-shirt. He had a blondish goatee and a slightly intimidating air about him, the kind that must be cut through to get to the true kindness of the man. He nodded a hello, looking somewhat surprised that Larry and I were just shooting the breeze, about ATVs and canyons and mountains and things that aren't Eastern. Larry said, "Jessica, this here's Len I was tellin' you about."
"Hi, nice to meet you," I said. "How much for that bike?" I pointed to an avocado green Schwinn.
"That's not for sale."
"What?"
"That's muh bike." He had a lilted way of talking, an iambic pentameter all his own that I loved.
"Why is it out here with all the stuff?"
"Why not?"
I couldn't argue.

Larry told Len what I was doing. "That how you ended up in a junk shop in Wyoming?" Len asked me.
"Pretty much! But this stuff isn't junk."
"Oh, yes it is."
"Depends on your idea of junk, I guess. I love this stuff." I grabbed a stiff white cowboy hat and slid it down over one eye. It was too big for my head and it stood up nearly six inches too high.
"That looks nice on ya!" Larry said.
"Oh, whatever. It looks silly."
"Nah, you look just like the rodeo girls 'round here. Don't she, Len? Look like one'a them rodeo girls?"
"Sure do."
I blushed.
Larry asked, "What size shoe do you wear?" He led me over to a cabinet full of pointy cowboy boots.
"Oh, I can't wear those."
"Why not?"
"I'm not a cowgirl."
"Nonsense. You are now."

I poked my head into a side door in the garage, that led to another room filled with antiques. Not antiques in the Christie's auction sense, but in the stuff-my-grandmother-had-that-I-used-to-think-was-crap sense, like macrame owl wall hangings and bright orange vases. "Len redid this whole room. It used to be shut down for some time, but he bought it and redid this whole room." I had to slip sideways past a giant mirrored mantle to even get into the room, thick with dust. Like the garage area, it was stacked high with pathways running between. Taxidermied heads hung on the wall, antelope, deer and elk. While checking out a lamp in a corner, I screeched when I touched a stuffed badger. Larry was in the doorway, leaning on the mantle.
"Are they really that big?"
"Yeah, they're real big. And mean!"
"What do you mean when you say Len redid the room?"
"Oh, he put all that paneling up," Larry said, pointing to the unfinished diagonal cuts of wood on the wall. "It was scrap from the lumber mill. And he did the plaster up there on the ceiling." The ceiling was white, with circular ripples radiating from the center of the room in a sort of bas relief. It was nice.
Len walked up to the doorway. "You like my twenty-six dollar room?"
"Huh?"
"Cost me twenty-six dollars to redo this room."
"Len's really frugal," Larry told me.
"I see that."

"So what brought you out here from Pennsylvania?" I asked Len.
"Aw, I always wanted to do my own thing. I could do it there, but I could do it better here. And I always loved travelin'. On the motorcycle. Me and muh wife, we'd ride all over the place, not needin' much. And wherever we went, I'd get more junk. I like it. If I saved money by sleepin' under a truck, I could buy more junk."
"I like that, too."
"Where're you sleepin' tonight?"
"Someplace. Around. Nearby." I didn't want to narc myself for sleeping at the rest area.
"Someplace?"
"Yeah." I blushed. "I don't want to tell you."
"Well, y'know you can camp down on the river bed."
"How much?"
"Free."
"What?"
"Yeah, it's totally free. You just can't stay there longer than 14 days."
"Hmmm.... No, I think I'll just stay at the res--ting place that I picked... earlier. It's free, too."
"Is it the rest area down the way?"
"No. No, absolutely not. It's the... other... place."
"It's the rest area, isn't it?"
Suddenly sheepish. "Yeah."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to turn you in."
"Thanks."

Tooling around the shop for the sixth time, I inquired about prices of things, as if I was actually going to buy something. "How much for your Hoosier?" I asked Len. I don't remember what he said.
"You really gonna buy somethin'? You're travelin' around, girl."
"Oh, I know. I just was wondering about your --"

(Okay, now, please understand. I am about to attempt to recapture the utter perfection of this moment. Just know that even if I fail to crystallize the symbiotic magnificence, the moment itself was so undeniably wonderful, it cannot be summed up in prose. In other words, you had to be there.)

As I was finishing my sentence, pointing to an organ-grinder monkey toy on a shelf, my eyes rested on something far more magical: A 1974 metal-and-hinge Six Million Dollar Man lunchbox, with a cartoon picture of Lee Majors' face surrounded by smaller cartoons of him jumping over a car, bending steel, outrunning a horse and uprooting a tree. I collect lunchboxes. It's an affliction and an addiction. I have a Strawberry Shortcake, an A-Team, and some others, but this was a Six Million Dollar Man. So really the sentence turned into, "Oh, I know. I was just wondering about your --- (at this point I'm standing stock still and pointing like a woman possessed) SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN LUNCHBOXOHMYGODDOESITHAVEATHERMOSHOWMUCHDOYOUWANTFORIT?"

Len stared at me like I was nuts, which I was. He pulled a ladder out of a crawlspace and climbed up to the box. "Forty dollars," he said, before he reached for it.
"Does it have the Thermos?"
He opened it up. "Hooo! Fifty dollars!"
"Oh, no! I don't have that much!" He started to put it back on the shelf. "No, wait wait wait! I want to hold it."
"You gonna buy it?"
"I don't... think I have... that much. I know I don't. You really want fifty for it?"
"What can you give me?"
I was going to save money by sleeping at the rest area that night. I didn't need to eat the next day. "I can give you twenty-five." He considered it. "With that and one more dollar you could remodel another room!"
Len smiled, like a father giving into a daughter. "Cash or credit?"
Sweet victory! "Debit."

I signed the receipt and Len handed me another slip of paper; it was a registration slip for the motel. I looked him right in the eye. "I don't have money to stay here."
He gave me another smile. "No, I know, I just want your contact information, so I can keep in touch with you. I like what you're doin'. You're doin' it right."

I never made it to Paul's Steakhouse that night. I ended up sitting in front of Len's shop long into the night, talking to my new friends. Len brought out some Smirnoff Ices and Larry passed. "I don't drink no more," he said. "Seen it do more bad than good."
"Yeah, so have I," I said.
"My son has a problem. Well, more than a problem. " Larry spoke slowly. "He's a crack addict. Him and his wife. I though it was just him. They were living with me for awhile and she had me fooled -- oh, she had me so fooled! Every other day it was, 'Oh, Dad, I need some money for diapers,' or 'Oh, Dad, I don't know where he is, but I need this.' But the whole time she was doin' it too. Takin' my money for it. One day she took off and left me with the baby. They were gone for three days! Took my truck, so I couldn't even get to the store to get milk for the baby. I had to call my ex-wife, my first wife, that's his mom, and say, 'Look, can you help me? They took off and I can't get no milk for the baby.' She came over and stocked the house with groceries, and thank god she did 'cause I couldn't! So when they came back I told 'em, 'You'n's can't stay here no more. You'n's no good right now. You'n's need help I can't give ya.'" He paused, and I processed the Pennsylvania dialect. "Yeah, it's hard to kick out your own, but what else could I do?"
"Who's got the baby now?"
"My ex."
"Well, that's good."
"Oh, yeah. She and I get along real well. It's the last ex that I have problems with. She tried to take me for everything I had, which wasn't a lot, y'know? So I took my friend's advice and just sold everything before she could take it away. Sold my business, sold some cars. Oh, she was burnt up about that! But I don't care."

Larry brought out his dog, a black cocker spaniel named KC. Len followed suit and handed me the leash attached to a huge brown pit bull named Dagger. "Watch him for me, will ya?"
"Sure!" I sat on a barrel next to Larry, who sat on an Amish chair. Dagger kept inching his way under my knees and lifting up my legs with his back. A fight broke out across the street at Paul's, and we could see through the open door that a little guy had tried to punch a big guy. As always, it was about a girl. They ended up brawling on the street, looking like a scene from a spaghetti Western in front of the darkened mountains and flat-front, two-story buildings. Except one was wearing baggy jeans and a wife-beater.
"In two minutes they'll be best friends and buying each other shots," Larry predicted. He was right.

As Len putzed around, putting the things in the shop, Larry walked KC and asked me along. "Hey, I was gonna say to ya, if you want to stay someplace tonight, I stay in Room 1. And I ain't no pervert, I don't want you to think that at all. But I'm just sayin', I'll sleep on the floor and you can have the bed. KC, she sleeps under the bed, so she won't bother you. And like I said, I'm not a pervert or nothin', just a dad."
Who said chivalry is dead?

Len came back and took Dagger's leash, and we watched two old men, both with white hair, flannel shirts, tight jeans and cowboy boots, come walking out of Paul's towards the motel. "These guys are a hoot," Len said quietly, before they were in earshot.
I hadn't even talked to them yet and already I loved them. They reminded me of Statler and Waldorf, the two old men in the balcony on 'The Muppet Show'. As they got closer, Len called to them. "How ya doin'?"
They were drunk. The skinny one was the louder of the two. "WE'RE TWO SPITS DRY OF A WHISKEY BOTTLE!"
I threw my head back and laughed harder than I had in days, even with The Brendans.
He was a fountain of hilarity. "WHERE'RE YOU FROM, LITTLE LADY?"
"Baltimore." I was still wearing the cowboy hat.
"BALTIMORE? IS THAT IN THE UNITED STATES?!"
"Yes."
"WELL, IS IT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI?"
"Yes."
"THEN IT'S NOT IN THE UNITED STATES!!!" His laughing blue eyes fought for attention against his huge nose and wrinkled smile. He spoke with a lilt playable only by someone completely intoxicated.
"Well, where are you from?" I asked, giggling.
"I'M FROM EYE-DA-HO!!! THAT'S THE YOU-NI-TED STATES!!!" Drawing out his words, he made me laugh so hard I could barely breathe.
"What are you doing out here?"
"I WORK FOR THE PIPELINE!"
"GREAT!!!" I shouted, joining the chaos.

The two men eventually went to bed, visions of flasks dancing in their heads. I figured I would hit the sack as well, and started to say goodbye to Len and Larry.
"Wait," Len said. "You sleepin' at that rest area?"
"Yes."
"You got a sleepin' bag?"
"Yes."
"Well, why don't you go ahead and put your sleepin' bag on top of the covers and you can stay here in room 3 instead." It wasn't a question, it was an order.
"Are you sure?" My eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Why'd'ya think I had you fill out that card?"
I blushed, then gushed. "Thank you so much, oh my gosh! Thank you! And I'll help you clean rooms tomorrow! I really will! And I won't use the towels, I'll use my own towels! And I won't make a mess, I won't eat or drink or anything, I promise!"
Len laughed. "Okay, okay, calm down! Just keep things neat and make sure you don't use the covers, that's all."
Larry spoke up. "Hey, if you got time tamarraw I can take you for a drive up to one'a the canyons! Would you like that?"
"Yes! Wake me up whenever you want! I'd love that!"
"Well, alright then!"

I was shown to my room, and set it up "Leave No Trace"-style, like backcountry camping. The sleeping bag went on the bed and I turned the heat on, as what warmth had lingered during the day died with the setting sun. I watched part of a terrible soft porn and then flipped to an infomercial, then the late-night baby channel, with pretty shapes and colors kaleidascoping across the screen, mesmerizing me. "What does it say about me that I cannot look away?" I thought. But all it said was that it had been nearly two weeks since I'd even seen a TV, not since I was in Malta, Montana at the Crazy Cat Lady Motel.

A sign on the back of the door of Room 3 told me just how lucky I was:

ROOM RATES:
$65.00 PER NIGHT

Yes, I am the luckiest girl in the world.