Seventy Tuuk Miles (The Big Nothing Part Four)

 An hour and a half later, inside an outback bar and restaurant, we sat at the complete end of the place in case we needed to escape out the back door. 

Almost everyone in the restaurant stared up at us when we walked in, the old men adjusted their glasses, the old women scowled, and held onto their purses as two full families eyed us with almost open mouths; even the noisy kids stopped coinking. 

When we sat down, it quit quickly as the patrons snapped out of their homicidal trance, one man kept wiping an invisible moustache as he eyed us nervously; the main waitress missed all but three of her teeth. We kept our conversation under the veil of about four different fans blowing around the back area we were in. 

As we figured out our orders, I couldn't escape the glare of a young country woman eyeing me as she cradled her infant sister. She looked about eighteen or nineteen, wearing a dull red shirt and jeans, but her eyes were a dark brown like mine as she shyly exchanged glances with me. I couldn't look away, it was like her secret she'd never tell anybody about, I felt bad for her as she finally looked away with a distinct bleakness in her eyes.  

''Jhiwon..is it alive?'' said The Inch as he looked down at our order of fried mushrooms, curly fries, chicken wings, and homemade bar ranch; ''oh, that Jhiwon tastes great'' said The Jaffer as he bit into the curly fries. The food was a surprise, it may have been laced with something, but it was excellent bar food

Side Door Panties (The Big Nothing Part Three)

''This pair of panties, right here, has just been in my door for...I don't know whose they are, and I've asked, like everybody, whose they could be and they told me that they don't know either.'' says The Inch holding the undergarments in his hand and folding them back into his car door as he punches eighty down the highway. 

''I don't know where the **** they came from but they're my lucky, like, side of the door, car panties, I guess now.'' The Inch continues as I laugh in the passenger seat; Garrett, The Jaffer, in the backseat nodding his head in appreciation. 

It was a mid day in July with the heat tanning our arms outside the window. The highway looked like an endless strip of asphalt in the sea of green corn stalks on each side.

When we got in the town of Ollie, population no more than fifty people, it seemed like any other day out in the middle of nowhere. Trucks cruzed by broken down homes as I spotted what I've been looking for; in the middle of the town was a small road with a series of abandoned buildings on each side. We parked The Inchmobile II (a 97' Buick Park Ave four door) next to, what looked like, a former store front; the property still for sale.

Almost every window in the two building structure was broken out, shards of glass littered the floor, along with pieces of the former roof which had collapsed long ago; the beams smashed down in a corner. Little remnants of the roof still existed in the joining building we were standing in. The other had it's roof still on but the back wall had looked as if it imploded backwards in on itself. The Jaffer started pissing on the broken window ledges.

The joining part we were in had almost been completely taken over by wildlife inside the barrier of remaining brick walls that surrounded us. Complete piles of rubble was amassed in a heap near the front door and an old table that held moldy dictionaries and the remnants of a phonograph.

Back in the main building, the piles of were a mixture of rubble and garbage; a moldy couch laid against the wall with an empty pack of Busch Light from the late 90's stuck under it. The floor was completely littered with garbage of about twenty years; an Apple II computer stuck out in a pile of broken chairs. The Inch walked out on the glass laden sidewalk in front of the building and said ''I think that's cig worthy'' as the heat beamed down on him with the birds chirping on top the stoop of the building.

Next to the lonely scene laid a small patch of fenced off junk. Another dilapidated building was just across the small street; ''the ratio of livable to unlivable houses is now one to one'' says The Inch as he gazes upon an abandoned pub. Only the stickers on the window signified it's past as the door was locked.

''Meanwhile, the shoelace around my neck gets tighter as the noose lynches'' said The Inch. I turned and said ''yea, I think it's time for a cig''.

We drove a couple blocks to the small city park, exactly in the middle of town, houses lined around us as trucks kept circling around like vultures hovering over the carcass. The local sheroof kept his eyelids open as he joined the rally around the city park. Sweat formed on my brows as I huffed the cigarette down and nervously eyed The Inch who revved up The Inchmobile and we were off.

These were towns on the edge of desperation. The locals were insecure creatures that crept behind their window sills with shotguns in one hand, and possibly, hard drugs running through the veins of the other. This much isolation creates an eerie atmosphere of silence that is only broken by vehicles coming off (or beside) the nearby highway.

Granted, the drivers usually waved at you, but that only felt true when they were driving far away.

Boone County (The Big Nothing Part Two)

We had long passed Tama; it's light soaked, neon paradise, of the Meskwaki Casino was the last sign of life in western Iowa. 

The Inchmobile II (this time a Buick Park Ave) had been firing on all cylinders since we left. The smell of cigarette smoke and energy drinks was heavy in the air. The Inch looked reserved but his knuckles were white as he held onto the steering wheel as he knew the contraption could burst into flames at any moment.

The only light was from other cars on the highway and passing lights from towns we passed. The more street lights I saw, I knew that we were close to the city of Boone.

We got off the highway and came onto the main stretch of town. We had little to eat at this point, we saw a country buffet and was prepared. We walked in and it was the usual country sight, people porking down on greasy food, and swatting at their kids to shut up.

I glanced at the menu, saw the prices, and felt that the crap wasn't worth that much so we settled for Burger King across the way. I was laughing at the woman's reaction as we left, she looked disgusted but couldn't seem to recognize the disgust around her.

The Inch was ready to set his teeth on a hardwood table so we rushed in and got our food. I sat there, next to a TV, and watched the weather forecast; cold and colder. It felt like it took us forever. I kept scanning out the window to try to get a glimpse of what we would be seeing but it was pretty dark. I could see a small strip mall but all the lights were off, the buildings empty, and only a decrepit car wash sat; radiating hissing neon light in the night.

When we were finally finished, we walked out and got back into it. Just before we got downtown, I heard the thump of bass and saw bright, colored, lights radiate off the passenger side mirror. A party bus slowly passed us, the people inside were full of drunk 20 somethings grinding all over each other, I laughed and leaned out of the truck to get take a picture of the debauchery. Once I got over the window ledge, some chicks and dudes turned, smiling and drinks in hand as I took their picture. I got back in and took out a cigarette. The Inch was laughing and so we cruised on through town looking for something to explore.

It was dead, we went up many hills, passed a lot of locally owned hardware stores, and finally realized that we were downtown. It was much like any other small town downtown; dim streetlights, quiet streets, and the turn of the century architecture that always seemed to glimmer in the night.

We wandered the streets until we passed a bar that was being filled from the party bus. They were already drunk and ran into each other as they all stumbled into the bar only to get more drunk but everything was still quiet. Inch was plotting to sneak into the booze shack with the drunks but we had a mission. Granted, it wasn't much of a mission, but, getting hammed and being stuck in Timbuktu with The Inch, wasn't it.

We, then, took to seeking about anything interesting. It only seemed to be getting later and nothing was panning out. We were spreading more and more out of town until The Inch spotted this large building behind a high school. We drove over the high school parking lot and saw that there was an abandoned concrete building. We eyed it for a while until The Inch drew a cigarette and walked up to the front door of the office. He laughed, saying, ''watch this motherf***** be unlocked'' and pushed open the door. I was laughing at this point and followed him in.

The place had a real musty smell and everything was dark except the front office. There was insulation and plaster all over the floor. I told Inch to take out the light on his phone and point it to the floor as we went through the place. We walked down a small corridor, I looked to my right, and saw a stack of antique computers thrown around the floor. Inch was in the next room and commenting about we were either going to be arrested or murdered by junkies coming out of the dark. The whole place was in front of a relatively busy intersection of the end of town. Headlights kept bleeding through the windows as we crept around.

The Inch would keep stopping in mid walk and tweak about how he could hear ''footsteps'' or something. ''I'm getting really bad vibes from this place, man'' he'd say. I could see outside from a window and saw that the place must of went back a 100 feet more back. The place just seemed too big for this small building and I couldn't figure out how to get back there. I walked into, what must of been another office, and almost into the insulation hanging in big, pink, slabs out of the ceiling. Ceiling fans were busted and more parts were covered in water damage.

We finally found ourselves where we started and saw another corridor that we didn't notice the first time. It led towards the back and into a staircase heading down.

There was no light at all. Inch could see the gears turning in my head and said ''Hell no, no way, for all we know there's a horde of angry metters down there just waiting to cop another dollar fifty to buy some H''. Inch thought he heard some noises from down there and ran towards the front door. I followed him out and we were out in the cold again but it was all exciting. I was ready for about a thousand more experiences like that; getting more intense with each one. The Inch was stumbling back to his car like a drunk old man. Just drunk off his own fear.

The Inch was spooked. The demons had reached into his brain and took out his senses. He was convinced to leave but instead we went deeper into Boone County.

We reached the end of town and passed this school. The parking lot was full of cars and people kept coming and going out of the gym doors. I was intrigued so I had him stop and we went inside. We wouldn't see any of these javes ever again anyway. It ended up being a Catholic school having a basketball game. Parents and kids were walking in and out of the halls to get to the gym. I turned and saw on the wall was a picture of the Pope, of course, but somehow it struck me as hilarious. Just a large picture of an old guy with an awkward smile on his face plastered on the wall.

The Inch was rolling on the floor as we went to the closest restroom, some kid was horrified by our appearance as we walked past, and we left. Now, The Inch was in a hurry to leave. He had drug connections back in town to attend to. 

We wandered until we saw a gas station. I spotted this shacked out one and only found that the place was abandoned and had a car graveyard in the back and a pop machine, still full, that had been there for at least five years now; the wrapping long faded and the liquid probably now more poisonous than it started out as.

Luckily, there was another gas station next to this and we stopped there. As The Inch went in to pay for gas and some energy drinks; I set up an actual table in the back of his truck, I was ready for some fine dining, and I quietly smoked a cigarette as he came out laughing. I passed him the rest of the cigarette and we were back on the road again; cheap energy drink and nicotine running in our veins and the cold beating on Inch's arm as he smoked.