Clive's Corner

Joe pulled the truck up to let his father out.

“Thanks.” He said with labored breath as he carefully rushed out.

“You need help?” Joe called, but his father was already waddling away.

“You should have helped him.” Joe’s wife said.

“There was no time. I haven’t seen him move that fast all week.”

They stayed stopped in front of the entrance to watch the door close behind the older man. It was hard not to chuckle as they recounted the beads of sweat rolling down his contorted face. The impending bowel movement made had his body contract, and the contractions further pinched the nerve in his back.

“He looked like he was giving birth.” Ellie giggled.

“The miracle of motherhood” Joe said as he drove off to park.

“I don’t think would have made it if we hadn’t dropped him off.”

Ellie only half listened as they crossed parking lot. The heat between them and the truck stop blurred the air. The welcome sign—“Clive’s Corner, World Famous”—written in yellow letters on a bright red board, looked like a mirage. Behind the sign, an eight foot alien peaked out to watch them approach.

“Dad?” Joe asked louder than he knew his father would like. He began looking for the man’s boots beneath the stall doors. “You good?”

“I’m fine.” Grumbled a voice from the last toilet.

“Oh man. I didn’t realize it was that bad.” He said.

“What?” His father asked, palpably annoyed.

“You’re in the handicapped stall. Need any help in there?”

“No I don’t need any fucking help.” He growled.

“Ok, jeez. Just offering.” Joe said with a self-satisfied grin as he walked to the urinals. He looked around a bit while he peed. It was nice for a truck stop. The room was tiled floor to ceiling with white ceramic, though most notably, it was clean.

He washed his hands in a trough style sink and checked his teeth in mirror. Odd. He thought as the reflected room behind him grew. He had the unsettling feeling that someone was zooming out of a photo that we was at the center of. Mirrors, he realized, lined the back wall of the bathroom. The initial twinges of vertigo gripped him as his image expanded endlessly into a reflected oblivion.

“We’ll be outside. No rush.” He shouted at the last stall.

“Were these here when we walked in?” Joe asked as Ellie met him outside the bathrooms. He was standing in front of three coin operated machines.

“Ya. How did you miss them?”

“I don’t know.” He said, almost as an afterthought. A Pappy’s Stories fortune telling machine stood over him. The lifeless man wore a cowboy hat and a red bandana around his neck. His white beard looked unsettlingly like real hair and his plastic hands held a white crystal ball. An oil lamp burned over his shoulder. His eyes stared off, just past Joe’s.

Beside Pappy was another fortune teller, this one a Native American and out of order, and beside that a Love Tester that looked like it was from the Wild West.

“Do you have a dollar?” He asked his wife.

She rummaged through her purse.

“Only a twenty.”

“Thanks.” He said as he took it. “I’ll go get change.”

There is a low-grade insanity that comes with driving in the Southwest. The desert is never ending and stretches to the horizon in all directions. The feeling of permanence is inescapable, it becomes difficult to remember where one left from and impossible to imagine where one is going. For hundreds of miles, all that exists is endless.

Clive’s Corner sat in the middle of this expanse and as Joe walked out from the bathrooms he noted that the restroom atrium bisected the shop. Towards the front door, there were snack isles, a drink fridge, and display of cheap sunglasses, but in the other direction was a curio shop and small confectioners counter.

He had intended to get change from the front register, but he found himself walking deeper into the store.

“Would you like to try some fudge?” A plump woman asked as he walked by. Homemade fudge, $2 hung above her head. He hadn’t had fudge in years and was pretty sure he didn’t like it.

“Ya, ok.” He said, though unsure as to why. “What do you recommend?”

“Classic fudge is my favorite.” She said with a wink and a nod towards a large brown lump.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Do you want to try it first?”

“That’s ok. I need change.” He said and he handed her the twenty.

Joe’s father and Ellie were standing in front of the Love Tester and he could tell she was egging him on. It was a tall wooden box on faux silver legs and with a pull-lever set into its center. Test Your Love was written in looping letters across the front.

The older man was slouched, favoring his right leg. The awkward pose kept the pressure off his lower back but it made him look like he’d drank too much and had long lost the ability to stand up straight.

“Want some fudge?” Joe asked as he joined them.

“No. I left enough in there.” His father said, gesturing towards the men’s room.

“Gross.” His wife said. Joe giggled and clapped his dad on the shoulder, eliciting a wince.

“Oops” He said with a smile.

“Give us a dollar.” Ellie cut in. “Your dad is doing this one.”

A light darted up and down the machine, illuminating the ten types of love. Joe’s father pulled the lever and three watched the light stop on SPICY. The buzz of machinery preceded a red ticket dropping into a small metal dish.

You’ve got an appetite and your lover is waiting for you to take a bite.

“Ya right. Your mom hasn’t let me bite her in years.” he said after reading it aloud. Joe wasn’t sure what to say. He opened his mouth, but it hung slack and wordless. Thankfully, an unpleasant sound gurgled from his father’s stomach causing a panicked return to the bathroom. 

“Which one do you want to do?” Joe asked Ellie.

“The fortune teller.”

He handed her his second dollar bill.

As soon as the machine processed the money blue grass started playing and the automated the still pupils began to shift from side to side. His jaw began bouncing up and down.

Here’s a fortune from a wise old mind. He said in a Hollywood hillbilly accent. Listen close!

The machine whirred and a yellow ticket printed.

A stabled horse stays fed, but will never live free. Take risks, it’s time to run.

“Sounds nice.” Ellie said. She and Joe stood in an uncomfortable quiet. Neither said what they knew was on both their minds.

“You do one!” She said with forced playfulness.

“Right.” Joe said, grateful to her for ending the silence. He pulled out his last dollar bill and fed it into the receiver.

Here’s a fortune from a wise old mind. Listen close!

Instant gratification can be tempting, but it is rarely the road to happiness. Now is the time to invest in yourself and plan for the future.

Joe’s father walked out of the restroom. He looked clammy and the few hairs holding onto his head were in disarray.

“We should get out of here before they see what I did in there.”

“Gross.” Ellie said again.

As they left, Joe and his father tossed their fortunes.

“You wanna toss yours?” Joe asked Ellie.

“I already did.” She responded, the paper safely pressed in her back pocket.