5:28 PM. I'm in the lobby of a low-budget motel watching as the woman behind the counter fumbles with the key card machine. I'm not exactly sure how I got here. I followed Route 77 until I decided to divert before I crossed the border into Virginia. And now here I am in Bluefield, West Virginia. 

The woman's obvious wig features two-tone bangs and only succeeds in making her face appear older. That's probably not the look she's going for.

"Damn it," she says and tries again. "Never had any problem with keys but they gotta go and modernize everything and... damn it."

I glance around at the deserted lobby, drumming my fingers on the side of my briefcase. There are the obligatory plaid upholstered seats flanked by plastic plants that look about as real as the woman's hair.

She continues her wrestling match with the key card machine. The struggle is real.

I don't mean to be rude but this could go on for some time. "No restaurant? Just the vending machines?"

"There's a breakfast buffet down here in the lobby at 6:30."

"Then I guess there's no lounge."

She shakes her head. "Oh, and if you use the pool, swim at your own risk."

"Is there any place around here I could get a drink later?"

"Well, there's Captain Silky's down the highway about four miles. I hear it's a nice gentlemen's club. And there's Brandy's down on forty-eight, about seven or eight miles off the interstate. Gotta DJ. I think karaoke, too."

"I'd just like to buy a couple of beers to take back to the room."

"Not into the club scene?"

"My Elvis suit isn't back from the dry cleaners. Can't do karaoke without the Elvis suit."

Absolutely no change of expression from the clerk.

"There," she says satisfied with herself and hands me the mutilated key card.

"Right across the highway there, in the mall is a general store," she says. "They have beer and wine and such."

Doing my terrible Elvis impression I say, "Thank you very much" and push through the front doors.

As I approach the access road to the main highway, I find that there is no sidewalk. I trample through the grass. Cars rush by. People give me peculiar looks as though I'm carrying a severed head.

I arrive at the intersection of the access road and the main highway. There's the mall on the other side of the four-lane road. I wait for an opportunity while the cars and trucks whizz by.

A car zooms past with a license plate that reads: JESUS. I thought he'd have a nicer car than that.

Finally,  a space in the traffic opens and I make a mad dash out to the grassy median strip. A horn blares. A passing driver yells, "Asshole!"

I survey the last two lanes separating me from the mall parking lot. The traffic is even heavier there than in the two lanes I've just negotiated.

A police car lights up, approaches slowly, and stops at the median strip in front of me. The officer in the passenger seat rolls down his window. He appears to be in his late 20's, straight out of the academy. His name badge reads JENKINS.

"Whaddya think you're doing?" he says.

"Trying to cross the street."

"This is an interstate."

"That explains the hundred-miles-an-hour speed limit."

"Can I see some identification? Driver's license?"

"I'm not in a car."

"Let's see some identification, sir."

I hand him my wallet.

"Take the license out of your wallet, sir."

I follow his instructions.

"Pennsylvania, huh? You staying at the hotel there?"

I nod.

"Have a car?"

"Sure."

"Then why don't you use it?"

"I'm just going across the street."

"This is an interstate, sir."

"The mall's gotta be, what? Maybe two hundred yards from here?"

The officer looks across the interstate toward the mall.

"To drive there," I say, "I'd have to go all the way down to the next intersection and turn around."

"Can't turn there, sir. Have to go to the next light."

"That's even worse! I'd have to drive a couple of miles just to get across the street."

"Interstate."

"Right."

"What is it with people like you? Be a lot easier for everyone involved if you'd just go back and get your car."

"Okay. Forget about the mall."

"I'm not telling you to forget about the mall, sir."

I turn toward the hotel, waiting once again for a space in the traffic. The officer behind me says, "Careful crossing the interstate, sir."

At the first opening in the speedway traffic, I sprint across the street to a chorus of car horns and barely make it to the other side without being run over. I trudge through the lawn toward the hotel's parking lot thinking about how this situation is wrong on so many levels. People all across America are in declining health due in large part to the sedentary lifestyle we've created for ourselves. We sit in our cars on the way to the office. At work, we sit all day at our desks. Then we sit in our cars on our way back home to sit at the dinner table and afterward sit in front of the TV. We don't even need to get out of the car to buy dinner. We place our orders from the car then a bag of food is handed out of a window. God forbid we expend any energy. As a result, our bodies atrophy and many of us become overweight and obese. And then we die. But that's the way it's supposed to be, I guess. I was nearly arrested for brazenly attempting to actually walk to a destination. Stay woke. Lesson learned.

I get into my car and begin my three-mile drive to the mall that I can see right across the street. I turn on the radio. An announcer says, "As the forced evacuation of Utah's residents meets some resistance, the White House Press Secretary had this to say..."

"The progress is amazing and should not be diminished by partisan politics. As Theodore Roosevelt said, "The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight. These are the sacrifices any nation must make to secure its freedom."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. This is the kind of bullshit I used to write!

The Press Secretary continues. "The President expresses thanks on behalf of the American people for their sacrifice. He said that they are, all of them, patriots."

Angrily, I turn off the radio. I notice that my fuel gauge reads: E. There's a gas station coming up on my right. It looks like it's been there since the 1960's, though it's entirely devoid of folksy, homespun charm.

I drive up to an island of gas pumps and get out of my car. The store features vintage stained aluminum siding that rattles when trucks roar past on the interstate. A neon sign in the front window says "OTTO." The "L" has gone dark. 

A loud voice that sounds like it's coming through a tube startles me.

"Cash or charge?" The question squawks out of a tiny speaker wired to the top of the gas pump.

"Uh, cash."

"Push the button."

"What button?"

"Push the button up underneath."

What the hell does up underneath mean?

I run my fingers around the edge of the pump and find the button.

"Cash or charge?"

"Cash."

"Pump your gas then come on inside to pay for it."

"Okay."

I open the fuel door on my car, unscrew the gas cap then begin fueling.

At the pump in front of me is a rickety old truck. The truck bed is precariously stacked high with all manner of discarded scrap metal objects. The guy fueling the truck is of indeterminate age. Dressed in a filthy mustard-colored mechanic's overall, he stares through glassy, bloodshot eyes. I smile at him as I begin pumping my gas but he doesn't acknowledge me. Maybe it's just as well. 

I go into the store to pay for my gasoline. An elderly woman with a name tag that says KATHERINE is perched on a metal stool behind the counter. A chrome microphone taped to a drooping flexible arm obscures my view of her face. She takes a long drag on her cigarette then sets it into an ashtray, smoke curling out of her mouth.

"Pump four?" she asks.

I nod.

"Thirty dollars."

I spot a box of Cheez-Its on the snack shelf. "I'll take these, too."

"Thirty-five sixty-three," she says.

I hand her the money then rip into the Cheez-Its. I can't remember the last thing I ate. No wonder I'm starving.

Outside, the truck grinds into gear and lurches forward. Through the window, I watch in horror as a rusted metal barrel gorged with metal parts and components rolls out of the back of the truck and crashes down onto the hood of my car. The windshield is demolished. The thunderous explosion jolts Katherine off of her stool. The truck rumbles out of the lot and rattles down the highway.

I bolt outside with Katherine right behind me. 

The fifty-five-gallon drum rests half on the dented hood of my car and half on a sea of shattered glass covering the dashboard.

"Geez Louise," says Katherine.

"Can you call the police?" I ask, still in shock.

"You ain't gotta phone?"

"I did but... oh, hell."