That "Drifter" Look, Pt. II

If we had been doing this the old-fashioned way, finding nightly lodgings would be a lot easier. Breeze into a college town, find a bar, and have some young coeds take us home for the evening. While that is a possibility for Skip, it is not an option for me. (I’m hideous.)

After a late dinner at a truck stop Perkins, I told Skip that I would drive ahead but not more than 14 miles. We had looked at satellite imaging of the area, and there was a spot 10 miles from where we were. I told him that I would drive ahead, scout out his short lane off of the highway, and if it was good enough I would make camp. He could then crawl in and pass out in a few hours.

I drove down the road, but finding this lane on the opposite side of the road, at night polluted by industrial park flood lamps, was more difficult than I had anticipated. I drove at least 20 miles under the speed limit, then I sped up; I made at least 12 u-turns within a 4-mile radius; I made turns onto lanes and gravel roads, but then promptly turned around realizing: a) they were too sketchy, or b) … no, sketchiness was pretty much the only factor. (The one time I had found something promising, I passed a hulking figure on the side of the road. I didn’t see his face, and I didn’t want to see his flash of blade in the pale moonlight.) After driving through a ploughed field, I rounded an abandoned semi and found myself staring into the headlights of a county sheriff. Shit.

I signaled with my headlights that I would be driving up next to him. When I put down my window, he asked, “So, what are you doing?” I pulled the non-profit charity card and told him that I was just looking for a vacant lot to bed for the night. He told me there was nothing like that in the area, but if I wanted to go down to the light and head left I would find a truck stop in a few miles. I knew that I wasn’t going to do this and he probably saw it too because he said, “Follow me.”

“Are you taking me to the truck stop?” I asked.

He made that brief snort out of his nose that people do when they find something either really amusing or ridiculous; in this case, it was probably both. “Yeah,” he said, “follow me.”

The sheriff took me to a truck stop, where I hopped out of the car, nodded and waved, and then walked inside. I peered out of the window a few minutes later and he was still sitting there. I walked up and down a few isles, glanced briefly at the country music CDs they were selling, and then went back to the window. He was gone.

With that, I went back out to my car and decided to give it one last effort to try and find this lane. Otherwise, Skip was going to have to secure his own bedding for the night. I finally found the lane I had been looking for on my way back toward Ashland. The lane sign had been obscured by a tree, making it almost impossible to see coming from the other way. I drove down the lane slowly and pulled in front of a brick building that had a few cars parked outside. I walked around to the side and saw a grassy area that would work for the night--it was a clearing, but I figured if I set up the tent in a corner by the trees it would be fairly inconspicuous. I set up the tent (a Carolina blue hue) and walked around the woods, gathering ferns and branches to cover it with. After about twenty minutes I took a step back. It wasn’t bad; anyone giving the clearing a cursory glance might look past it … at night … with no moon.

The night itself was fairly uneventful. Skip found the tent a little before 1am and I went back to sleep.

I awoke around 7:45am to the sounds of machinery typical of an industrial park. I stepped out of the tent to use the bathroom and stretch my legs, and afterwards I decided to walk 30 meters over to the building to see on whose lawn we had spent the night. I walked up to the front door: Virginia Department of Corrections: Parole and Probation Office, District 41. Holy shit.

They also opened at 8:15, which means that in about twenty minutes this place was going to be lively with southern officers of the law. For those of you who know the story about Memorial Day Weekend in Macon, Georgia, on the lake, you already know that me and southern law especially do not get along.

Of the many differences between Skip and I, he does not have a record. I managed to wake him up, drag him out, make him take pictures of the set-up (for posterity), and dismantle the rain fly before the first person showed up for work. When I heard the car pull in I popped my head up from behind the tent, a meerkat sensing trouble. I have a sniper’s sense about PO’s, and she was not one of them. She had come early to turn on the lights and make the coffee—I was not waiting around for those coffee drinkers. Ten minutes later, camp was broken down and I was driving away, leaving Skip holding his own pup tent and sleeping bag, breathing in my exhaust fumes and dust.