Even the rain is trying to piss you off.

Interstate 41 at 12:52 AM on a Tuesday...well, Wednesday now...morning.  You and two eighteen wheelers heading north.  One is going 50 mph.  The other one is in the other lane, going 51 mph trying to pass the other one.

And the rain's coming down in big, ugly drops.

Your car is shaking a bit.  It should make the trip.  Should.  Of course it will.  No reason to worry about that.

An old 70s country-rock song is thrumming on the raido.

Aaaaaii-me
Whatchu gonna do?
Iiiiii think
I could stay with you
For a while

There's a sign coming up.  Gas n' Eats!  Smiley Welcomes You to Top Off All Your Tanks!  Open 25-7.  Exit in 5

You must have misread that 5.  You've already passed the sign.

And that's when you notice the gas gage is riding on E.  You should have filled up in Chattanooga after all.  And you're too far away from Murfreesboro.

That exit's coming up.

Welcome to it.  Let me know if there are questions.

Thanks

Graham Snow's Civic has seen better days. The tires are looking bare, and the wipers have to do double time to keep the rain off the windshield. At least the AC works. Most of the time.

The song sounds familiar, but he's only half-listening. There's real power in music in all forms, from classical to reggae to death metal. Normally he'd be sussing out the magic in this particular song, but right now, he's more worried about the big E on his gas gauge.

25-7? Graham grins in spite of himself. Truck stops and diners litter this stretch of I-24. Perhaps the universe is steering him to Smiley's today. He hits the blinker and prepares to take the exit.

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 2):

Interesting.  Graham's picture is a lot more clean cut than I was expecting

You notice your windshield wipers are keeping time to the country style bass beat going throughout the song as you head up the exit ramp.

Smiley's isn't one of those that sits right up atop the ridge of such exits.  When you get to the top, there's a stop sign, with a country road heading left over the overpass and into the tree line beyond, and to the right, where the road seems to bend around a corner.

You can seem lights that look more like lights from houses on the other side of the overpass to the left.  And a brighter glow coming from around the corner to the right.  But you don't see any signage or other indications there's a truck stop there.  The trees are taller than you expect, so it could just be you can't see anything from where you are.  Rain isn't helping much either.

Left or Right?

You can go straight ahead too and get back on the Interstate.

So much of the world is this massive interconnected web of strings, like a billion spiderwebs all laced together. Pluck one strand, and the entire network vibrates.

Pulling up to the stop sign, Graham weighs his options. Which way to the truck stop? Getting back on the interstate isn't an option, not with the gas gauge riding E. The lights that look like they're coming from a neighborhood might shelter a gas station. However, Smiley has Graham's interest piqued, and the brighter lights to the right seem to indicate something resembling a truck stop.

He looks at the dancing hula girl on his dash. "What do you think, Kissy? Left or right?" She continues to sashay back and forth. "Yeah, I agree. Right it is."

OOC: Let's go right and check out what's around the corner.

You're right about the portrait. How's this one?

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 4):

Sorry.  Wasn't trying to make you self conscious about the portrait.  New one does look a little more jaded.

The rain picks up as you take the right and motor around the bend.

You seem to have made the correct choice.

A large lot lays out on the left hand side of the road.  A brightly lit large shack of sorts sits in the middle of the lot, flanked by four rows of gas pumps, three on the right and one on the left.  All the pumps seem to be for both regular and disel.  Parked out at the edge of the lot, under some lot lamps that are only barely working, four or five eighteen wheelers are parked, the drivers apparently settled in for the night.

The "shack" is actually a decent size for one of these set ups.  You'd guess four thousand square feet or so.

But it's not all slick plastic and fluorescents.  The walls are plain wood, painted what you think is a pea soup green...hard to tell exactly through this rain...and the usual large plate glass windows aren't making up most of the walls.  Instead, it looks like someone renovated their ranch style house and turned it into a truck stop.

No signage is visible. Though you think you see what looks like a statue or mannequin by the front door.  It seems to be lit up somehow.  You'll have to pull in and go up to it to see.

The rain is coming down like a sheet at the moment.

As Graham pulls up to what he expects to be a truck stop, he pauses for a moment to take in the scene. Interesting. Even in Tennessee, he hasn't seen a set-up like this before. Was that someone's house? He wonders about the statue by the door. It reminds him of a statue of an Indigenous man he had seen once in Alabama, the one from the Hank Williams song. What might its story be?

He parks at one of the vacant pumps and gets out to fill his tank. He stifles a yawn. Maybe he can fill up on some coffee inside before he gets back on the interstate.

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 6):

I'm shocked someone still has a cigar store Indian up.  Or does your picture not show the protesters forming a human barricade at the restaurant entrance?

The rain sounds like lots of heavy ants clog dancing on the thin roof of the car porch overhead.  Gas prices are pretty cheap here.  Suprisingly so.  A dollar less than in Louisana.

You watch the digits on the gas pump rack up numbers.  There's a loud peal of thunder overhead.  The lights actually flicker for a moment.

You can see the statue now.  It's...not what you expected.  A deep sea diving suit.  That's what it looks like.  One of those big, heavy rigs when guys want to go real far down in the ocean.  Someone has set it up like a statue outside the store entry.

On the face place of the helmet is a smiley face.  The yellow face is winking at you, with it's tongue hanging out on the opposite side of it's goofy grin.

You guess that's the signage.

The pump shuts off.  Your tank is full.

There's another loud boom of thunder.  This time you can see lightning flash.  It's from the direction you came.  Looks like the storm is chasing you up the interstate.

Weird that the gas prices are so cheap here. A dollar less? If anything, Graham is used to gas prices being a few cents more in Tennessee. Pretty strange.

He looks up as thunder crashes past and wonders how much worse this storm is going to be. He finishes pumping his gas, replaces the nozzle, and screws back on the gas cap.

The diving suit is more than a little strange, certainly this far from the ocean. Graham looks up again at the storm and then decides to check out the interior of the gas station. Hopefully the coffee's not more than twelve hours old at this point.

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 8):

The door chimes with a friendly Ding! and then a rather clunky DOOOONG

The inside of the shop feels like some one took out the wall between their living room and garage, poured concrete over the floor, and then stuck in refrigiration cases and cheap metal shelving.  It looks like that because...well.  That's what it is.

Along one wall is an old bar.  The bar is set up with fairly newish looking coffee machines, a fountain drink machine, and several hot trays where greasy, old looking sausages turn slowly on heated metal rollers.

Thankfully, it's one of those coffee machines where the beans are ground by the cup.  They have quite a selection of beans too. Columbian.  Dark.  Blacker than Dark.  Robust.  And about seven others.

Across the store/living room from the bar is a counter with the cash register.  An older man, probably in his fifties, is seated behind the register, reading a Diver magazine.  He glances up at you as you come in, then goes back to his magazine.

There's a plethora of goods on the shelves.  Goethe's Cow Tails in all flavors.  Mexican pastries.  Hot 'n Sweaty Chickpea snacks.  The list goes on.

He's not sure what he was expecting, but Graham wasn't expecting this. He's come across some old buildings converted into convenience stores before, but never before has he seen a house transformed like this. Peculiar.

He walks over to the drink bar, chooses Blacker than Dark, and pours himself a cup. He finds himself craving something sweet, maybe some caramel and sea salt Oreos or a chili chocolate bar.

Graham goes up to pay. "Hey, I saw your sign on the interstate. Are you Smiley, or is that the diving suit's name? What's with the '25/7'? And did this place really use to be someone's home?"

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 10):

No chili chocolate bar.  But they do have the Oreos.

The old guy behind the counter stops thumbing pages in the magazine and stares up at you.  His salt and pepper hair has thinned out to a bald pate on the very top of his head.  His clothes smell cleanish, but there are old stains on the sleeves of his t-shirt.  One large one almost blocks out the word Divers in the logo Divers Go Deeper

He sets the magazine aside and swivels around on his stool, reaching upwards to ring up your items.  He doesn't have a scanner.  Each item has a price tag stuck to it.

"Well," he wells, peering at the sticker on the Oreos and then forcefully tapping the keys on the register.  "This was my uncle's house.  And I inherited it.  Too big for one guy.  And I needed a job.  So.."

He shrugs then points at the name tag stitched onto his t-shirt.

BILL

"Smiley was just my nickname when I was workin' down on Gulf Shores.  But that's my suit.  Or was.  I was a police diver.  And I needed a name for this place that was...whadyacallit?.."catchy".  And I thought "Smiley's" might be catchy."

He finishes ringing you up.

"Got your attention, didn't it?"

Outside the rain starts coming down harder.  Bill glances out the window and frowns.  "Weather didn't say it was gonna come down like this.  Roads bad?"

"A diver, huh? What was that like? What made you go into that field? Do you still get a chance to do much diving now that you're not on the coast anymore?" The rain doesn't seem to want to let up, and Graham doesn't mind waiting it out a bit. He takes a sip out of the coffee and watches the rain outside.

"It was coming down pretty hard on the interstate." Graham considers the rain and whether he ought to continue on. He half considers looking for a hotel to bed down for the night.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Tue 09 Aug 2022.

In reply to Graham Snow (msg # 12):

<blue>BILL</bill> shakes his head when you look around for a scanner to use I-pay.  You hand him your Mastercard.  He apparently can take a credit card.

He shrugs at your question.  "I grew up down in Biloxi.  So been around water all my life.  But..."  He shrugs.  "Now I'm here.  Life takes you where it will.

"You're welcome to wait out the rain."  He points to a far spot on the wall.  A hallway leads further into the building.  "Got a lounge for truckers back there.  Showers you can use if you wanna get the stink off.  Help yourself."

And with that, he picks up his magazine and goes back to reading.

"Thanks, Bill. I think I'll take you up on that offer." Graham collects his coffee and Oreos and wanders off toward the back.

As he goes, he reflects on the rain. Graham thinks about the trucker in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that has rain follow him wherever he goes. Weird things seem to follow Graham, as well. He is used to the odd and surreal happening to him now, and he wonders if this unexpected rainstorm is part of that.

Still, it's late, and a shower and a short rest sounds good. He wonders when Bill sleeps. If this is his place, why is he up after midnight? He looks back once and then continues onward in search of the shower.