The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson

anything to do with it. I’ll bet you tried to sell them on every driver but me. Right, Bob? It’s okay to call you Bob now, isn’t it?”
    “You want more money?”
    “No,” I said. “I need more money. Five hundred won’t save my ass. I won’t do it for just a piece of a life raft. Let me tell you what I think. These television people want lonely roads and colorful characters with goddamn purple sagebrush and sunsets because they’ve done the amber waves of grain and ice roads to fucking death. Maybe the company volunteered me because I’m expendable. I can embarrass myself without embarrassing the company. If I don’t play well they can say, he’s not us. So, Bob, I need to think about it until at least Monday before deciding if I’m going to open up myself and all my customers to reality television — that’s what we’re talking about. Right, Bob? Parading us in front of America for some cheap laughs and cheaper tears.”
    The appearance of the woman on the highway started to make sense. Those perfect fingernails said something about her. What they said had nothing to do with dinosaurs and mountain biking. “And tell that television woman she better not step in front of my truck again,” I said. “See you on Monday, Bob.”
    He dropped his ass into his ergonomically designed leather chair.
    “On second thought,” I added, “I’ll call you. Just say yes, Bob.”
    “Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it your way. Stupid and stubborn. Just think about what you have to gain — and lose. You and 117 were made for each other.”
    While that might have been true, it wasn’t what he meant. “Monday, then,” I said, and headed toward the door.
    “One more thing,” he said. “Corporate sent in some IT guys. Were you on the company computer a few mornings ago? The one in dispatch?”
    For the first time in our conversation, I raised my voice. “Don’t start with me about the fucking computer, Bob. I can use it. It’s in my contract.”
    He pushed his chair backward and raised his open palms. “Whoa, Ben. Take it easy. The IT guys were here. They were curious. I said I’d ask you. That system was installed five years ago. You’ve used it maybe twice before. I was just wondering if someone else had logged in with your user name and password. That’s all.”
    “I was checking the weather report,” I said. It was the first thing I thought of. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him I had developed a passing interest in cellos that had already passed. Everyone would get a laugh out of that. “This time of year 117 can wash out,” I said. “Simple. That okay with you, Bob?”
    When he didn’t say anything, I walked out the door and breezed by the receptionist. The look on her prissy little face told me she was two digits into dialing 911.
    I was halfway down the hall. Bob shouted after me, “What woman?”
    I walked by the drivers’ lounge just as the handlebar mustache was coming out. “Do me a favor, Howard?”
    He asked me what.
    “You got a cell phone with a camera?”
    He nodded. “Sure,” he said.
    “You see that woman again, will you take her picture?”
    “Without her knowing? I guess I could do that. Why?”
    “I think I have an idea what she was up to this morning. In case it’s more serious than that, and something happens to me out on 117, show that photo to the highway patrol and tell them what we talked about.”
    He agreed.
    We walked out into the transfer yard together without any further conversation.

I t was dark by the time I reached my duplex. It had been a dark drive. The inside of my duplex was dark. If I had ever locked the place it would have been tough to find the keyhole. I’d lost the keys years before, back when I used to drink. Back then I couldn’t get the key into the lock under a searchlight. I tried to remember the last time I had paid the electric bill. I held my breath while I fumbled for the light switch.
    She was stretched out in my La-Z-Boy