It may be my favorite feeling in the world; driving aimlessly down the road, no deadlines, no place to be, no one knows where I am or where I'm going. It was down one of those empty, desolate blacktops you sometimes find in the midwest that I was traveling one weekend. The sun was shining. Giant grasshoppers jumped out of the tall grass growing in the ditches at the road side and sulphur yellow butterflies gathered in clusters here and there on the asphalt. I hadn't seen a car in what seemed like forever and I was washed in the lovely feeling of having left the rest of the world behind.
     I had passed several signs pointing to the small towns that grow inexplicably out of the prairie soil, their reason and purpose long forgotten, existing now entirely out of habit. Casey, Redhook, Clement they read. The largest of them consisting of a gas station, a cafe and a beauty parlor, all of them of course with the prerequisite giant silo of grain. One sign that afternoon caught my eye, a simple sign that looked as if it had stood there in my father's time or maybe even my grandfather's. "Lexington Green" it said with an arrow pointing right, down a narrow blacktop.
     I slowed and turned feeling as if this town was exactly what I was hoping for. I pictured sitting at a lunch counter eating a hot turkey sandwich with lumpy home-made mashed potatoes and milk gravy followed by a a slice of pie washed down with an ice cold glass of water that had been filtered through a mile and a half of limestone before being pumped into the town's water tower.
     After fifteen minutes of travel amongst the butterflies and grasshoppers I began to wonder just how far this Lexington Green might be. Off in the distance I could see the glint of silver silos but none were near enough to promise pie anytime soon. Shortly I came to a cross roads and stopped looking left and right. Just at the top of the eastern rise there appeared to be some kind of building and I thought that maybe information could be had if someone were around. As I neared I saw that it was a gas station, possibly abandoned but worth the try. At it's entrance were two tires painted white and filled with red petunias one held at it's center a mailbox on a canted post that spoke of last winters snowplow. But cold weather and gray skies seemed an impossibility on a day like this.  Luckily as I drove closer I could see that one of the doors was up on the twin bays of the garage. Someone must surely be here.
     I pulled into the lonely looking lot with it's paint faded building barely displaying  a giant dinosaur and the letters Sinc... the rest had long ago faded and peeled exposing the concrete
block beneath. Piled up on the side of the building were various rusted car parts and old tires, an oily looking basin and fifty gallon drum that looked like it had been used as a burn barrel.
     The gravel crunched and threw up dust as I pulled off the blacktop and the everpresent sulphur yellow and white  butterflies rose up out of what had recently been a mud puddle but was now just a low damp spot in the rock. The front door was propped open to let in the breeze and a vinyl chair and a metal wire milk crate stood in the narrow section of wall between that door and the open one to the garage bay. Feeling obligated to do more than just ask directions I pulled up to the pump and shut off the car.
     A few seconds later a lanky looking guy came around the corner of the garage and nodded his head in greeting. His brown hair was naturally unkempt but clean and his green eyes were hazed by the cigarette that hung between his lips. His faded blue work pants and matching shirt were both sexy and ill fitting as they hung off of his body. A light trail of hair could be seen down the center of his chest and seemed an obvious continuation of the bit of hair that was growing on his chin. His face was cut thin but strong and the lines at the side of his eyes were evidence of someone who found it easy to smile.
     "What can I do for you?" he asked amicably as he drew closer, pulling up his britches and then
tossing the cigarette out into the gravel.
     "Well fill 'er up I guess and do you have a bathroom?"
     "The bathroom's at the back of the garage behind the counter, the door on the right but we don't pump gas no more so I hope your not on E. I work on cars here and there, but not much call for a filling station here on the edge of nowhere."
     "No problem" I said and went towards the restroom.
    "Jiggle the handle when you flush if you don't mind or the damn thing'll run all day."
     "No problem." I smiled and noticed that the name patch on his work shirt was as faded as the sign on the side of the building. I could make out what might be an Le... but nothing more. He stood beside the car wiping his hand through his unruly hair making a comb of his fingers as I walked into the shade of the building.
    Inside it smelled of grease and diesel and handcleaner. A radio sat on a shelf behind the glass counter filled with cardboard airfresheners and maps that seemed so faded as to offer no direction out of such a lonesome place. On top of the counter was a bottle of orange Nehi and half of a Zagnut candy bar with the wrapper folded over to keep the flies away. Hank Williams
sang "The Lost Highway" on the radio.The only other sound was the wind outside.
     I stepped past the counter to the door on the right. Two other doors opened off the tiny hall both open. One was to a tiny storeroom/janitor's closet the other seemed to hold a small metal framed bed, a night stand, and maybe a dresser. I went into the bathroom and searched for the switch when I felt a string hanging from the ceiling tickle my ear. I reached up and gave it a tug and the round glowing florescent donut on the ceiling flickered and hummed. Despite the rusting chrome around the mirror frame and a line of rust from the once dripping faucet the bathroom was clean and tidy. A can of shaving cream and a razor sat on a small stand next to the sink.  A dispenser for condoms (25 cents) and an out of date calendar shared the wall by the toilet. I unzipped and took a leak without shutting the door all the way. It seemed silly out here in the middle of nowhere.
     I washed my hands and splashed water on my face before looking in the mirror. Despite the unflattering blue light I looked happy and relaxed and that's exactly how I felt. I stepped out of the restroom and looked into the little bedroom at the end of the hall thinking for a moment about what life might be like for the person who lived there. Surprisingly, instead of seeming bleak it seemed simple and tidy, quiet maybe, except for the radio but not completely unattractive. I turned to go back to the car and he stood there behind me watching me watch his life. I was, of course, embarrassed but it washed away with a flick of his shoulders and a look in his eye that didn't apologize or convey any shame for his home.
     I smiled back at him and said "Get lonely out here?"
    "It might if you were the lonesome type but I'm pretty happy on my own and you never know what the road will bring by now and then. Just about the time you wonder if you're the last one out here someone shows up looking for something. And there you are."
     " Like magic."
     "Well, I don't know what it's like where you're from but I've found that if you slow down and just let things be what they are meant to be everything you need will come right down that road just when you need it."
     "Sounds good to me but I don't know if I would have enough faith for that kind of waiting."
     "It's not so much faith as it is holding out long enough for the evidence to pile up, and the next thing you know there you are in the middle of nowhere talking to a stranger just when you were looking for a bit of conversation."
     "I hope I'm not disturbing you." I said, realizing that we had started a conversation.
     "Not at all," he smiled and shrugged that endearing shrug again, "Like I said the road brings what needs to be brung. It was meant to be."
     "Fate, huh?"
     "If you like."
     "Well, you may be right about that. I saw the sign about fifteen minutes back and thought maybe I'd find a small town cafe with a sandwich and good pie. Either I got lost or the road had some other reason to send me this way." I joked, but he pointed with the jut of his head toward the vinyl stool  front of the counter and told me to sit down for a second and then stumbled off into the garage wiping his hands on the rag from his back pocket.
     In a few minutes he came back in with two sandwiches on paper plates and then reached behind the counter and tossed a bag of chips on the counter as well. That done he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a second bottle of Nehi.
     " I think that's about as close as your gonna get around here for a little ways but it would be nice to sit down and eat with someone for a change. See maybe the road knew just what we both needed."
     "Are you sure? I mean..."
     "Have faith brother!" he grinned, "Dig in for it gets cold" and smiled again at his own joke.
     I pulled up a stool from the end of the counter and sat down. He raised his sandwich in the air as if to propose a toast and took a big bite out of it. "Don't forget to eat the crust it'll make your hair curly." and again the smile.
 I looked at him more closely as he ate unselfconsciously, taking a chip out of the bag and then pushing the open end towards me. He might have been twentyfive or he might have been older or maybe younger, I couldn't tell. But he was the most personable human being I had met in a long time. He had the freshness of youth about him but a wisdom that spoke of at least a little age and learning. Here he sat sharing a meal with a complete stranger as if it were an everyday thing. We hadn't even exchanged names.
     "Thanks, I needed this." I said.
     "It's nothing."
    We ate on quietly but companionably neither feeling the need to fill the silence. A few times I could feel him looking at me. It was if he was wondering if I recognized him yet or had figured
something out. Then he'd take another bite of his sandwich and go back to eating. Somehow this didn't make me feel uncomfortable. There was a happy recognition in his stare and a genuine friendliness that was unmistakable. When his sandwich was done he hopped up and disappeared through the garage door again and then returned momentarily with two slices of pie.
     "You're shitting me!"  I said without thinking. There just as I had imagined it when I went looking for Lexington Green was the perfect piece of pie and two ice cold glasses of water that I knew had been filtered through at least a mile and a half of limestone.
     "Hope you like peach." he said and pulled a fork out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me.
     "My favorite."
     I sat after finishing the pie contemplating this odd turn of fortune. When I had left the house this morning in search of that long stretch of road I couldn't have imagined that it would bring me to this odd weigh-station in the middle of nowhere. It was if I had taken a turn at that last cross roads into a place that I never knew existed.
     He tossed the plates and chip bag into the garbage and wiped the crumbs off the counter into
his hand and threw them away. "Gotta wash my hands." and he was up and into the bathroom.
     "Your turn!" he called over his shoulder as he walked into the little bedroom at the back so I returned my stool to it's origional position and went in to wash my hands. When I came out he was standing in his room with that goofy grin. "Want to see something pretty?" he said making me wonder.  He stepped to the window on the back wall and pulled back the curtain. Through the glass I could see a field of beautiful yellow and purple flowers stretching back to the horizon.  It was like a painting had come to life and been framed in the window. The cornfield that ran along the road had blocked my view coming in but here it was and it for damn sure WAS pretty.
     My eyes teared a little at all of it. The beauty of the field, the innocent openess of this stranger who gave his gifts so freely and joyfully. I looked again out on the field blinking the tears down.
     "They grow them for drying  but I like to think that if you walk across that field you come to heaven and I feel privileged to live this close. Maybe someday I will just kick off my shoes and walk across there and see. But until then I'm content right here on the edge of it, in limbo
waiting to see what the road'll bring.
     I was at a loss for words and the tears that I had tried to hide welled larger and my mouth hung open like it had been tugged down by my heart. My throat was too tight to talk even if I could think of something to say.
     "You'll catch flies doin that." he said and chucked me under the chin to close my mouth, but his hand stayed there and I blinked and swallowed and nodded my head. He gave me the gentlest sweetest kiss. I raised my hands up sliding them along his lean rib cage and around his back pulling him closer, Pulling him into me and myself into him. He smelled like soap and sheets that had been hung in the back yard to dry, he smelled like the car seat that you fell asleep in as a child. His hands were sure but gentle and we stood there, forever maybe, just holding on and breathing and listening to each other breath and swaying like the flowers outside the window, our bodies telling each other everything we needed to know.
          He had known somehow all along what this day was to bring. It was as if he had heard my car turning at the cross roads days ago and had time to get ready. To bake the best godamn pie I would ever have. To practice that smile. To plant a million purple and yellow flowers outside his bedroom window. I teared up a little again but he just laughed and kissed my forehead and pulled me in close once more. Soap and sheets and car seats and a long ride home all over again. My body lost it's tension. Everything that I had been holding onto and against was no longer there. This moment was the only moment and I breathed freely.
     I raised my head and smiled at him and he said, "There you are!" and it meant "Hey! you finally made it." and it meant "Hey! I've been wondering when you were going to get here." and it meant "Me too. I feel the same way too." This time I kissed him. It was moist and sweet like a a warm peach and he tasted honest and clean like limestone water and my head was filled with sulphur yellow butterflies and my heart was jumping like grasshoppers. I pulled him close and push my body into his and laughed and said "Damn!" at least six times in a row because what in the hell do you say when you feel this good? It's not like you ever did feel this good before. And he laughs back because he's happy that you are and you think, "Damn, damn, damn!" all over again. I want his shirt off now and everything else too I want to be in him and around him and all over him. I want to laugh and look at him while I pull back the curtains and show him the field of heaven on the other side. I want to give back to him as freely as he has given.
     When he is naked I kiss him everywhere until he moans and holds the back of my head and
says Damn, damn, damn!" his own self and then I pull back and smile and think, "All right here's
where you get to find out just what the road brought you today."  and start all over again until he is squirming and holding my head and saying "Fuck!" because even "damn" isn't enough now and I feel good because I want him to feel good and I want those magical green eyes to scrunch closed and his head to turn side to side.
  We lay there breathing and smiling and sweating until it is evening out and the flowers glow in the last of the sun outside the window. After some time he climbs out of the bed and pulls me with him leading me out of the bedroom and out into the garage. Here, backing onto the office bathroom, is a small room with a shower, a sink and a toilet. We stand together under the stream of water fore-head to fore-head soaping and washing each other and kissing. Afterward he dries me with the towel and wraps his arms around me from behind  kissing the back of my neck in little tiny kisses. My dick thinks about stirring again but I know, my whole body knows, that this is the beginning of kissing goodbye. I turn around and smile and look again into his green eyes squinting in a smile and smile back. We kiss again and head back to his room and our clothes. We dress quietly, satiated and happy. When I am dressed again he reaches into his closet and pulls out one of his work shirts. It fits almost a little tight through my thicker arms and shoulders as he pulls it onto me, one final gift in a day filled with many.
       "You'll be back you know." he said with all of the same assurance that he had told me earlier that the road always brings what you need just when you need it. "It won't be soon but you'll be back and you'll stay longer next time." I believed him as we stood there in the light from outside. The moths flew crazy circles around the light and bumped it's reflection on the window. He walked me out to my car and I climbed in and rolled down the window so he could stick his head in for another kiss.  I smiled then and put the car in gear and headed out of the lot. the gravel crunched again under my wheels. He walked behind me smiling until I turned out onto the road. I knew he would go no farther, that that was the boundary for him and that outside of that magical circle he would cease to exist. I reached for the collar of his shirt and pulled it up to my nose to smell again of soap and fresh sheets and car seats and noticed the patch that had his name embroidered on it and pushed the brakes down with my foot. I turned on the overhead and read it again "Lexington" it said. I raised my head up and looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see him disappear into the filling station. I noticed the sign above the garage doors for the first time. "Travelers Rest" it said and underneath in smaller letters it
read:

Lexington Green Proprietor

As I watched the light dimmed above the sign and the whole place winked out of sight.


Post Script:
     About a month after I got home I had a dream. Well, really a dream within a dream. I was an old man dreaming of a time long ago of a place that he had been to that brought him great joy. When he woke from his dream he dressed quickly in an old shirt that he hadn't worn in years and got into his car. He wasn't sure where he was going exactly but drove as if he did, trusting that he would get to where he needed to be in good time. After a few turns and ever darkening roads he began to wonder, but after awhile he saw a sign and then, in the distance, a light. As he drew nearer he could see the source of this light and tears rolled down from his old eyes and he found it
hard to swallow. When he was a short distance away he let the car roll to a stop and shut off the lights. He climbed out of the car and walked forward resting his hand on the hood. He could feel the exquisite heat rising up into the crisp fall air and his hand shook a little as he looked up the short stretch of road at the service station. His chin warbled slightly and he teared up again as he began to walk, never taking his eyes off of the sign that said Travelers Rest. Without even realizing it he was soon hearing the crunch of gravel under his feet and he was strangely exhilarated as he walked forward. When he got there he noticed a sign on the door that said "Welcome back stranger! Come on in. I'll be back soon. LG" The old man went in and waiting on the counter was a glass of cold clear water as fresh as if it had been filtered through a mile and a half of limestone. He sat down on a stool at the counter to drink it and looked around. After a moment he rose again and went into the bathroom to splash a little cold water on his face. He looked for the switch and couldn't find it but felt a string from the ceiling brush against his ear. When he pulled it the florescent donut on the ceiling sputtered and began to glow. He went over to the sink and splashed his face with water then looked into the chrome framed mirror.He looked happy and rested. As a matter of fact he looked again. He wasn't sure how old the face that looked back at him was. He might be twentyfive or older or
younger. He wasn't sure. He dried his face and stepped out of the bathroom and looked through a door at the back of the hall. A small metal framed bed and night stand could be seen through the slightly opened door. He felt great overarching joy fill him. He began to shake a little in anticipation as he turned though embarrassed at his spying until he saw the smiling green eyes and the shrug of a shoulder that said welcome home.
     As is often the case with dreams time passed strangely and years and days and minutes went by with confusing irregularity but it seemed that after quite some time of a happy simple life Lexington looked into the eyes of the no longer old man and smiled then stood.They had been sitting behind the garage staring at the beautiful field of flowers that stretched to the horizon.  When  his companion stood also he pulled him close from behind and kissed the back of his neck in what they knew were the beginning of goodbye kisses. His companion turned around in his arms and pushed Lexington's chin up until he could see into his beautiful green eyes, kissed him one last time and said, "You go on now. It isn't my time yet. I'll be after you in a little while. Lexington smiled at him that beautiful scrunched eyed smile and sat down and took off his shoes setting them neatly aside. He rose again with his hand on his lovers arm letting it trail off as he walked into the field of flowers. When Lexington had grown so small on the horizon that he could no longer be seen his lover turned and walked around the side of the building. Above the rusting auto parts and old tires were what was left of an old sign painted on the building. All that could be read now were four words. SINC it said. As he walked on he looked up and saw a man sitting in a car at the pumps looking slightly lost and confused. "Well look what the road brought me today!" he said to himself as he smiled and the lines crinkled up around his green eyes.
    The man in the car looked up and saw the gas station attendant come around the corner. The name on his shirt flap was faded and worn. He could only make out two letters - Le...