Truck-stop Therapy

Some things about late-night, long-distance driving are pure joy; I miss them when I get back to the subway, bus, and train journies in New York. Late night, the big, long-haul rigs litter the side of the roads, clustered just outside towns before the No Parking signs show up, clog up rest stops, and make just about any place home. And some nights, like tonight, low clouds and low fog make roadside gas stations into fountains of the most unnatural glow; grim colored lights streching into unhealthy rainbows above highway overpasses. And sometimes, with the right mind and mood, the cadence of follow-and-pass, speed-and-slow, never-stop but for when the gas is low tempo of the nights drive turns into an endless flow of ideas and stories. Maybe, just maybe, if you stick your ear down to the road, you'll hear it whisper the stories of every passing truck and car, murmuring about far-off places, singing songs about journeys sill going on.

But when you're really lucky, you'll tune in, just on the edge of radio range, on something really fun. And then you roll into the Bayou City, basking in that zydeco that reminds you of a home you left long ago.