The idea of being in my stepmother’s presence without an ally was unthinkable. Besides, this way I could take Mack with me. She knew that round-trip airfare would make me have to choose between rent and food and a one-way ticket might mean that she would have to find another girl. It was Candy’s idea, hitching the ride instead of flying. He comes into my bar pretty regularly when he’s not on the road. I’m riding shotgun with Artie Schmidt because I need to get back to the East Coast. I’m hoping that Artie will stay put long enough for me to visit the ladies’ shower room. Take it.” Unlike the majority of the people jammed into the booths and bellied up to the counter, I have no appetite, no desire to heap my plate with eggs and sausages. How hungry can a man be who has sat in a rig all day, keeping busy with radio and Red Bull? The restaurants offer big man’s meals, all-you-can-eats-chicken-fried steak, biscuits, apple pie. TAs are little shopping centers, catering to folks who live on the road, modern Gypsies, with anything you can think of for your vehicle from oil to mud flaps to little bobblehead dashboard figures of football players and Jesus. He likes to keep on schedule I like to pause for an hour and get the blood flowing in my legs again after hours in the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, inhaling Artie’s cigarette smoke and drinking warm, flat Coke. We’re sitting in a Travel America rest stop, one of the several that we’ve visited on this west-to-east run. “You gonna finish that?” Artie stubs a blunt finger in the direction of my English muffin.

The dog who danced a novel susan wilson