Fairytales in Fort Stockton

“Coffee?” The Indian man behind the counter reiterates.

“Yes, coffee. Is there a place I can grab a cup of coffee here, or anywhere in Fort Stockton?”

“Coffee,” he lets his brow furrow. He guides his bifocals up a notch on the bridge of his nose, letting the frames cover his thinning eyebrows. He rubs his head where sparse hairs tickle rough palms. He must have rubbed this spot clean before the last time a visitor came through town. I want to make sure we’re on the same subject – there is far too much confusion in his parted lips to be answering the question I believed I had asked. “Coffee.” He says again, speaking the word with a harder O than I’m used to, like that used in oaf or showoff or good-for-nothing-nomad. I shift with the weight of my bag, looking around to see if anyone else is as puzzled as either one of us.

“Yes. There is restaurant across the street.” He gives in. “And other restaurant here in pink building.”

“…and they have coffee?” cawwwfee, I let it draw out as if I interrupted the middle of a Rosetta Stone recording.

“They ah Mexican restaurant.” What am I asking?

I notice my voice is softer than usual, partially swallowed by the gravitational force of sitting semi-upright for hours as I move deeper into texas. I clear my throat to thank him but can’t bear to continue the conversation even for a wrap up. Fort Stockton is too easily stumped and I’m worried about the further damage I could cause. I cinch my backpack around my waist and head out the propped door. ‘The pink building’ – although usually a useful descriptor, in this case it was pure excess. ‘The only building’ would suffice. I slide past the other three customers and up to the counter.

“Can I get a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee?” the waitress repeats after me. I stop breathing temporarily, my organs all following the baited breath, turn their top halves to the aproned woman in front of me and wait for my next move. Really? What am I asking??

“Yeah, I can make you some,” she throws in craning her head toward the stale quarter pot from this morning. I exhale and my body starts ticking again. Pointing to a corner table near the window, I nod in gratitude and weave my way through chairs. The fake cloth pattern of the plastic is washed out by residual pink bouncing through the window.

I set up home for whatever amount of time a coffee will buy me in this joint and start typing away. Catching up on journal entries that I rationalize away as blogposts for the curious types in my midst, I knock back tepid mugs full of translucent brown water, tinged with the zing of the underside of a Mr. Coffee burner. Hours flow and I move to another food joint to get the best of Fort Stockton’s tex-mex smothered in cream. I tap in again and take a moment pause to wonder if I’m missing out on this city’s gems. The rowdy group of cowboys bear the brunt of my curiosity.

“So fellas, what’s good in Fort Stockton?”

“Oooh we got a live one!,” the tan wrinkles bunch like wadded leather underneath his wide-brimmed hat. They hoot and laugh and make side comments, eventually turning back to me with a twangy, “Darlin… you found yourself in the unofficial truck stop of West Texas. Ain’t much you can do, before we get to want.”

I smile and turn back to spooning my cheese sauce around the oblong ceramic plate. 

Time streams by and I find myself with only 80 minutes to kill before the bus pulls in. Trekking back to the convenience store where I was dropped off not eight hours earlier, I wave in response to the honks and ballcap tips that pour out of 18-wheelers. I survey the crowd casually to check my fellow bus riders – a couple pressed against the side of the cement blocked building, and two men doubled over with their hands covering their ears speaking in one-word answers on each side of the corner – I break left.

His name is undue salvation tucked into an army bag. Christian Resurrection. That, my dear readers, is potentially the only direct truth of the rest to follow, so feel free to dump your own grains of salt into the screen. Apply liberally. His eyes skirt over as I pathetically attempt to carve aluminum earrings out of a favored beer can. Smiles and conversation, winking innuendos and dexterous evasion of topics I find uncomfortable. I scan my brain for those familiar guards I set up with charming men, but traveling has left them eroded and in need of serious repair. Instead I loosen up and let him work his way into my memory; for the first time on my journey it’s not just the other way around. In several days I’ll be back at this same truckstop city, six beers deep at the local bar 8 blocks down the way. The men swarm at the novelty of a woman in this testosterone filled town. They call me Molly Ringwald in slurs and stumbles. They touch my lower back as they hand me another round on the house. They follow me at 3 mph in their bulky trucks and text me absurd offers of cash to stay the night. It’ll cover my meals and room, no mention of what it’ll cost. They compliment my hair and smile and mouth and survival style; my boldness, my laugh, my age, my temporary presence. Unraveling at an exponential rate with each bottle drained, I no longer need to search for hidden intentions – they are all festering and multiplying along the countertop, spilling onto the floor, crawling up the legs of pool tales and barstools. And I wonder why my guard here is full force allowing me to laugh off the prostitution proposals, violations of space, neglect of my words. Why charm slips through weathered cracks while machismo throws itself against stone walls, and whether there is in fact a real difference between an ogre and a prince.