THE BLUES HIGHWAY

 

Driving across Louisiana on Interstate 20 had little to recommend it, but we expected things to get more interesting after crossing the Mississippi River. There we would turn onto the famous Rt. 61, the Blues Highway, and follow it to Leroy Percy State Park about seventy miles north of Vicksburg. We meant to stop at a grocery store before making the turn to get some things for supper, and other odds and ends, including gas. We missed it though. I, the navigator on duty, gave Ann some bad directions.

Rt. 61 has plenty of musical history but few people. The section we were on is a two-lane ribbon through sparsely settled farmland, mostly cotton I think, with cultivated fields stretching a long way – I haven’t been able to find out exactly how far, but a long way – to the Mississippi River levee. There were few towns and gas stations, and the faulty gas gauge dropped to what might, or might not be, empty. We thought about going back to Vicksburg, but believing that there just had to be a station up ahead, we kept going. A line in a Blues song calls Rt. 61, “the longest road I know.” That has multiple resonances, but for us, physical distance crowded out all other understandings.

The romantic vision of touring the country in a classic VW was fading, when we came upon an isolated, one-room post office at a crossroad. Yes. Postal clerks and firefighters can always give directions. I asked the only clerk in the place where the nearest station was. “I’m not from around here,” she said. So much for postal clerks knowing their way around.

A delivery truck was idling nearby while the driver tended to some papers. I knocked on his window.

“What direction are you headed.”

“North.”

He looked off into the distance for a moment. “How low are you?”

“Real.”

He shook his head. “Well, you better go south. The nearest one is a little grocery store about twelves miles back.”

“That far? Twelve miles?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be going that way myself in about ten minutes. I’ll be right behind you. If you run out, I’ll take care of you.”

Did he know Cindy, the water-bearing angel who had come to us that time we ran out of water after breaking down in west Texas? She had said, “I’ll stay with you till you get help.”

We turned around and went back the way we had come, driving slowly to use as little fuel as possible. We felt relieved, but also a little contrite about our fearfulness. The feelings were ebbing when we passed “about twelve miles” without seeing anything other than the road. But then at seventeen miles, a small frame store appeared. It was in serious need of a paint job, and the gas pumps were worn and dusty. The ghostly gas station that had appeared mysteriously along the Columbia River during our trip out west came to mind. How much repetition was the day going to hold? Not much, it turned out. This time, the dusty pumps didn’t work. I tried to go into the store to ask about them, but the door was locked. I rattled the screen and peered into windows. Eventually, a young woman responded.

“Sorry. I was out back.”

I asked her about the pumps.

“Oh, we don’t sell gas anymore” Oh no. “But you can get some over yonder.” She pointed across the road and down a ways to a run-down store much like her own.

It had one working pump. (It dispensed regular-grade gas, and the van runs better on high octane, but it was not a time to be picky.) It held 11.1 gallons. I’d never been sure what its capacity was, but I thought it held thirteen. If so, we were not as near to running out as we’d feared. When we got to an internet signal, I looked online for the exact figure, but I couldn’t find it. I got hold of Tom, and he said 15.9. Clearly, it was time to fix that gauge. But maybe not. Working properly, it would have deprived us of the truck driver’s reminder of the pointlessness of faithless fears and worldly anxiety. I watched for him to pass so I could wave my thanks, but he didn’t. Didn’t see him when we were driving back north either. I suppose we just weren’t looking carefully enough.

A twenty-minute inspection of Leroy Percy Park made the Hampton Inn some distance away in Yazoo City seem much the better choice. We got there hungry and tired and in no mood to drive around looking for it. Usually name-brand motels put up billboards with directions at the approach to towns. If this Hampton Inn had one, we missed it. I stopped in a beer-and-lottery-tickets convenience store and asked directions. Yazoo City is a small town – population just under twelve thousand – but the route a customer laid out was full of twists and turns. By the time I got back to the van, all I could remember was the general direction and that I should circle by the courthouse. I was that tired.

The guy in the store had followed me out. “Follow me. I’l take you there.”

He and another man got in an old car that needed a muffler. I hoped they would make it to the motel without a traffic stop. (They were young and black, and they had an air freshener and something else hanging from their rear-view mirror.) We wound our way through downtown and past the courthouse and some grand old houses and after a quarter of an hour pulled up without incident in front of the motel.

The rest of the evening presented a variety of conveniences, but they didn’t bother me much. I fell asleep thinking about the fairy-tale appearance of the truck driver and our harbor pilots.

 

3 thoughts on “THE BLUES HIGHWAY

  1. Nancy Garnez

    Wow: without saying an explicit word you put it all in the nutshell we are inhabiting these days. Or is my word gauge on a false empty…thank you.

    Reply
  2. Rosalie Fontana

    Running out of gas on a deserted highway — this could have been the start of a mystery novel. So many ways for things to have gone wrong here, so I’m glad it all turned out right.

    Reply

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