Congratulations Truck Stop Romeo!

Love crisscrosses the interstate. It runs from coast to coast, border to border in veins of molten gold you can find if you have the courage to scoop your hand down and take the chance to get burned. Or if you wait long enough at an interstate rest stop in Eire, Pennsylvania.

You’ll be outside the bathroom, gazing wistfully into the national forest when you see her. She’ll be standing there with her dad, chewing on a sprig of grain, gazing out at the horizon. You won’t know whose daughter she is at first, you’ll just see her in those jean shorts and think to yourself.

Mmmm.

When you see her pappy walk up and put an arm around her, your blood will run cold. Her pappy will be Tom Jackson, the most ruthless sumbitch to ever run products between Scranton and Saint Louie. You and Jackson (nicknamed Action Jackson by many other truckers for his penchant for violence) will have history together, but when you look at that puss your first and last thought will be of how to get past those problems and inside of that denim.

When she comes up to the bathroom and asks you for a smoke you’ll see your in.

“You’se quite a sight after all this time on the road,” you’ll mumble to her as you fumble with your cigarettes, nervous for the first time in years. When she takes smoke from between your slightly trembling fingers you won’t need to see her eyes to know that they’re all squinty like they’re figuring something out.

“Reckon I am.”

Fifteen minutes later you’ll be having unprotected sex in a stall in the women’s room of the rest stop. She’ll be moaning softly so as to not arouse her father’s attention and you’ll be grunting, panting, breathing Christ’s name into her neck out of rhythm with your strokes. You won’t be able to see her face but you’ll know she’s smiling the whole time, that same mysterious, eyeless smirk that she had when she was takin’ that cigarette.

When you’re done her daddy will be furious. You’ll hear him yelling at her outside of the bathroom while you wait inside for the coast to clear. But you’ll know just from how shrill he be yellin’ and how calm her voice’ll stay that she won’t be in any kind of harm’s way. And when you hear the door of his rig slam and the roar of the engine as it blows away you’ll slink away, thinkin’ about how you can get in touch with her again, running your thumb across the piece of paper she handed you with her phone number on it, chewing your lip, praying that that girl is over eighteen, not even caring if she is.

You’ll know it won’t end well, but you won’t care. You won’t be able to stop thinking about her face, her smell, her pussy. It’ll be enough to make a man drink poison.

Congratulations Truck Stop Romeo!