Route 66

It was wet wipe-time at the Wigwam Motel.

Each week on Friday, before the weekend “rush,” Sheryl pulled out the lemon-scented tube of wipes and cleaned the desert dust off the “artifacts” — giant hunks of petrified wood, their tops shiny from the asses of a thousand tourists posing on them for snapshots, the “ancient” Navajo kachinas — bought at the gas station down the road two for twenty bucks, the collection of classic cars in miniature — tiny red convertibles and aqua-colored roadsters, chrome fenders shining in the light that poured from the plate glass windows by the road. So many things collecting dust here.

Artifacts. That’s what her boss had called them when she took the job, but really, they were “memorabilia” at best, or maybe even “relics,” if you were being honest. Relics, like this old motel on Route 66, relics just like her.
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They’d been lying in bed, in a purple haze of afterglow and pot smoke when he slid his arm across her chest and ruined her life.

“Let’s go out West,” he’d said, blue eyes sparkling the way they always did when he got one of his big ideas. “We’ll be explorers, you know, like Lois and Clark!”

“You mean Lewis and Clark?” she’d laughed, shaking her head and passing him the joint.

“Whatever, you know what I mean.” His eyes flashed annoyance. He hated when she corrected him.

“We’ll take Route 66, “The Mother Road,” all the way to the Grand Canyon, — I’ve always wanted to see they Grand Canyon! — and then we’ll go to Vegas, baby! Strike it rich at the slots! Vivaaaa Las Vegas!” he crowed, Elvis-style, grabbing her hips and wiggling them on the bed.

She giggled but raised an eyebrow. “You know those things are rigged right? My uncle Donny lost his car out there thinking if he just put in ‘one more dollar’ he’d hit the jackpot. What do they say? ‘The house always wins?’ It’s no lie!”

“Sooo, we’ll work at the casinos instead!” He always had an answer for everything. “I’ll deal blackjack at Caesar’s Palace, and girl, with those legs, you could be a dancer in any show on The Strip!” He cut his eyes at her slyly. “Speaking of legs…why don’t you come wrap those things around me one more time, baby?”

He’d pulled her on top of him and kissed her hard. As he pressed deep inside her, all her arguments disappeared in the smoky air. She’d always wanted to drive Route 66.

They hit the road and drove across 7 states, made it to the Painted Desert, before it all fell apart. Truth be told, the beginning of the end was back in Nebraska, or maybe Kansas — one of those flat states with nothing to look at and nothing to do for miles but talk.

First, they got lost. Route 66 wasn’t marked as well as it used to be and somewhere around Lincoln they made a wrong turn and wound up in the center of corn fields that went on for miles. He blamed it on her and she blamed it on him and they nearly ran out of gas and got stranded. His eyes went hard and he didn’t speak to her for hours.

Then, she corrected him one too many times. They were talking about movies, and he’d mentioned Star Wars, and then held up his hand, fingers spread in a V and said solemnly “Live long and prosper.”

God, couldn’t he get anything right?

“That’s Spock! Like, Star TREK!” she’d said with irritation.

His brow furrowed in anger. “You think you’re so damn smart don’t you?”

He’d raised the back of his hand to her like he might slap her face, then dropped it heavily back to the steering wheel. She felt a small shock of fear tingle down her spine. Maybe this had been a mistake, but they were a hundred miles from nowhere. It was too late to turn back now.

They were cruising through the Petrified Forest in Arizona when the car overheated. It was 110 in the shade — if you could find any shade — and they rolled, steam rising from beneath the hood, into the visitor’s center parking lot. They were getting low on cash but headed in to the old Fred Harvey luncheonette to make a plan and eat some diner food, the chrome shining around the red leather booths.

They chewed in silence, each wondering what happens next. When she finished her sandwich, Sheryl noticed the pie display twirling beside the counter. “Do you think I could get a slice of pie?” she asked him. “That chocolate cream looks so good! We can share it…” she offered, batting her eyes sweetly at him.

He looked at her face, at the pies swirling in their case and then out at the parking lot. A van had just pulled in and some guys piled out, slapping shoulders and stretching. VEGAS OR BUST! was written in the dirt across the windows.

“Sure baby, get yourself some pie,” he’d said, and tossed a twenty on the table. “I gotta go.” He gestured toward the bathroom and walked away.

She called a waitress over and ordered her pie. When it came, fork tinkling on the diner dish, she sat contentedly staring out the window at the endless desert, slowly savoring each silky sweet bite.

She was thinking she needed to save a some for her boyfriend — what was taking him so long? — when she saw him walking across the parking lot toward the guys in the van. Was he going to ask them for help with their car?

He talked to them, gesturing animatedly to their broken car, the Vegas sign on their window. At first they looked wary of this stranger, but as usual, he charmed them and when they slid open the big van door, he climbed right in, a smile on his face, backpack slung over his shoulder. Wait. What the hell was he doing?

Sheryl rose to rush out the door after him but the waitress hurried over and stopped her, afraid she was skipping out on her bill. She pushed the twenty he’d left into the server’s hands and ran to the parking lot. The van zoomed off, tires skidding in a scatter of pebbles as the bros inside whooped and laughed.

She was alone, and he’d never even looked back.

What should she do? She couldn’t go home. Her mama had been so pissed when she’d left, furious that she was “gonna go live in sin with that dreamer in the City of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Her mother had warned her that this would happen and she’d be damned if she was going to prove her right. She was 21 years old and she could make it on her own.

She went back to the car and grabbed her suitcase, her sunglasses, and headed out to to the road to hitch a ride to Vegas.

The first car she hopped, a minivan with an all-American family that talked too much and sang along with oldies on the radio, got her as far as Sun Valley.

The next was a quiet man in a beat up truck. He didn’t talk much but when he pulled off the road by the railroad tracks in Holbrook, unzipped his faded jeans and grabbed her by the back of her neck, she knew just what he meant when he demanded “a down payment for the rest of the ride.”

She struggled fiercely, clawed at his face, and managed to slide out of the truck as he sped away, tearing up her knee when she hit the shoulder. She limped into town and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she saw the ridiculous concrete dinosaurs of the Rock Shop, the flashing neon warrior at the Apache Motel. She was at the heart of Route 66 now.

She took her chances at the Wigwam Motel. The white tipis with bright red doors glowed in the streetlights, set back from the highway, a nostalgic image of a simpler era for her. She could feel the ghosts of the road tripping families who parked their magnificent land cruisers here and spent the night on their way to the Grand Canyon.

The elderly owner took one look at her dusty, tear-streaked face and took pity on her. He gave her Lidocaine and Band-Aids for her knee and set her up in Wigwam #5. She gave him an earful about her boyfriend and her Vegas dreams. “That boy ain’t never coming back,” he thought.

“I’ve been looking for a night manager,” he mentioned casually as she left the lobby. “Maybe we can talk about getting you a job in the morning.”

She nodded, grateful, and walked across the parking lot to her tipi. Inside the angled walls she found a double bed, Navajo blanket folded neatly on top, a tiny table with a mini fridge below, a tube tv mounted to the wall and a bathroom so small she had to hunch over to take a shower.

Home sweet home.

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And that’s exactly what it had been for the past two years.

She took the night manager job. She was on duty from noon to nine o’clock when the reception desk closed. From twelve to three she changed bed sheets, scrubbed toilets and swept floors in the 15 little tipis they rented to adventure seekers and nostalgia buffs and dreamers.

From three to eight thirty she worked in the office, checking folks into their rooms, giving out keys and wifi passwords. Yes folks, these days even wigwams have wireless. And, once a week she was on Clorox duty, keeping the artifacts free of dust, shining like the day they were made in a sweatshop in China.

Don’t get her wrong, she loved Route 66. Loved the kitsch and silliness and the glow of neon at night. But she’d seen it from the inside out now, lived it from the inside out and now she could see the difference in fool’s gold and fourteen karat.

That Friday she checked in a family of four…
“But WHY is it called the Wigwam Motel when these are TIPIS, mom?”
“Well, honey, people just weren’t as culturally aware back then…but aren’t they cool?!”

And a couple roadtripping their honeymoon cross country….
“I always thought staying in a wigwam on Route 66 would be SO romantic!”
“I sure hope the beds in those tipis have good springs!”

And a man on a motorcycle in dusty leather chaps…
“Where can a guy get a cold beer around here? I’m parched.”

And one guy, who pulled up in a real classic Chevy, fenders gleaming, the car a midnight blue that matched his eyes…
“I know it’s silly, but I just love Route 66. There’s something timeless, a little romantic about it…”

She gave him his room key and when his hand lingered over hers she met his eyes and found a question there.

“I get off at 8:30,” she said simply.

“You know where to find me,” he replied.

A few hours later she hit the lights, her day at its end, and the neon Wigwam Motel sign went dark.

It was Friday and there were still five vacant tipis on the lot. The highway beyond was ghost town-empty. The heyday of the Mother Road had long since passed this cracked blacktop by. Sometimes the loneliness of it was too much to bear.

She filled a bucket with ice from cooler, tucked in a few beers and headed to Wigwam #11.

When she knocked on the door he opened it lazily, those dark denim eyes widening in surprise.

“I, I didn’t know if you’d come,” he stammered.

“What’s that they say?” she asked boldly. “Get your kicks on Route 66?” She waved the bottles at him invitingly.

They sat together on a green iron bench in the hot dusk. Their knees touched in a companionable silence beside his cement tipi, drinking beer and watching the moon rise as the last rays of the sun disappeared.

When the bottles were empty he leaned toward her in the gathering dark and kissed her full on the mouth, the bite of beer both bitter and sweet on his tongue. Rising, he took her hand, opened the red door and led her inside. “What do you think of the mattress?” she asked him, and pulled her shirt over her head.

In the haze of afterglow they lay facing each other on the twin bed, feet tangled in the Indian blanket. He rubbed his fingers over her knuckles and kissed them.

“You know, I was thinking of driving on to Vegas,” he told her. “Maybe stop by the Grand Canyon? You could come with me…”

She rolled onto her back with bittersweet smile. What was it with her and these damned dreamers?

“Thank you, but no,” she said, kissing his chest as she rose. She slipped back into her jeans and shirt.

“I’m afraid this is where the road ends for me. But, why don’t you send me a postcard from the Strip? You’ve got my address.” He shook his head in disappointment and she knew she’d never hear from him again.

With a last kiss, she walked out the door, into the cool desert night.

He watched her go, through the tiny window of his tipi, watched her unlock the door to Wigwam #5 and step inside.

As the light clicked on in her tipi, ‘her home,’ he thought, he wondered how the hell she got here. Her story was just another relic on the roadside of Route 66.