Outpost Notes
Posted: April 2nd, 2005, 3:07 pm
It is blowing fifty-knot gusts, with dust rolling in from the southwest. My neighbor is outside, mowing a patch of gravel with a weed-whacker. Another spring day in Nevada.
I rent a trailer by the week, next to a casino-bar combo; a blink-and-miss truckstop sort of place. But it has dollar drafts at the bar, and a library, packed into another trailer further up the hill. The library is open three, maybe four days a week. Just try the door. Raylene tends the books. She is a bug-eyed, ponytailed woman of sixty who doesn't trust the government. I figure this place can't be all bad.
My trailer is more than I hoped for.... vintage 1971 snap-on beige wood grain with tobacco accents. The ceiling is drooped and stained, the parquet tiles are buckled, and the carpet is still damp from recent Biblical rain. The whole thing lists a bit to the west, but it is much more space than I need. I am a lucky man.
The only constant here is wind. It punished my psyche, then my shelter. The sheet metal creaks and snaps, the windows rattle and whistle, and the west wall lifts a quarter-inch or so in the best jackhammer gusts. It's all background noise to me, by now. The furnace is dead. I pile on ten blankets a night to battle an entrenched record spring freeze.
I remember a quiet morning or two.... seven-thirty under my blanket mountain. I heard a thump, and I felt the trailer shift a little more to the west. Then came a knock on the door, and I stumbled out to open it. Before me stood Wilford Brimley.... I'll swear to it. He asked if I had a shotgun for sale. Another morning, I heard a rhythmic scrape and thud. My neighbor was laying concrete block. I checked the clock.... quarter-to-six. These are hands-on people who favor percussive springtime repairs in direct proportion to how late I stayed up the night before.
The horizon is unstoppable from here. I will take every back road I can find and retain the wealth. And I suppose I might get careless. Raylene must have sensed this when she let me in on the latest snake invasion, that of the Mojave Green; an aggressor which might chase me and try to inflict venom much more deadly than that of the common rattler. But then, Raylene also thinks NASA faked most of their space photos. Nevertheless, I check under the truck more often these days.
It has been an interesting few weeks.
I rent a trailer by the week, next to a casino-bar combo; a blink-and-miss truckstop sort of place. But it has dollar drafts at the bar, and a library, packed into another trailer further up the hill. The library is open three, maybe four days a week. Just try the door. Raylene tends the books. She is a bug-eyed, ponytailed woman of sixty who doesn't trust the government. I figure this place can't be all bad.
My trailer is more than I hoped for.... vintage 1971 snap-on beige wood grain with tobacco accents. The ceiling is drooped and stained, the parquet tiles are buckled, and the carpet is still damp from recent Biblical rain. The whole thing lists a bit to the west, but it is much more space than I need. I am a lucky man.
The only constant here is wind. It punished my psyche, then my shelter. The sheet metal creaks and snaps, the windows rattle and whistle, and the west wall lifts a quarter-inch or so in the best jackhammer gusts. It's all background noise to me, by now. The furnace is dead. I pile on ten blankets a night to battle an entrenched record spring freeze.
I remember a quiet morning or two.... seven-thirty under my blanket mountain. I heard a thump, and I felt the trailer shift a little more to the west. Then came a knock on the door, and I stumbled out to open it. Before me stood Wilford Brimley.... I'll swear to it. He asked if I had a shotgun for sale. Another morning, I heard a rhythmic scrape and thud. My neighbor was laying concrete block. I checked the clock.... quarter-to-six. These are hands-on people who favor percussive springtime repairs in direct proportion to how late I stayed up the night before.
The horizon is unstoppable from here. I will take every back road I can find and retain the wealth. And I suppose I might get careless. Raylene must have sensed this when she let me in on the latest snake invasion, that of the Mojave Green; an aggressor which might chase me and try to inflict venom much more deadly than that of the common rattler. But then, Raylene also thinks NASA faked most of their space photos. Nevertheless, I check under the truck more often these days.
It has been an interesting few weeks.