stationery destinations: Montana rock hound

. . . continued from stationery destinations: Bakersfield . . .

	A last-century Buick sedan — backed in — one donut tire — clumps of straw hang from the front bumper like occasional teeth — a figure sits inside looking down — as I get out of my car, they start their engine & pull away as if a relay race handoff — trunk bungeed shut — no rear bumper — license plate behind the back window.

I get out & slant in to the lobby, strapped to a shoulder bag & towing a handle-hitched rolling ice chest, & pull out my wallet.

The desk clerk wants an address other than the post office box on the license, saying it’s required by state law. 

I explain why I have a post office box — because my rural route carrier seemed unhinged. 

The clerk continues as if discounting the alibi,“ . . . & you said ‘Queen non-smoking first floor?’”

	“Yes.”

“You want two beds? “

	“No. Just one.” 

“Two keys?”

	“No. Just one.”

She hands over two keycards — says “Down the hall.” 

Roll on without any further explanations. 

	The double-queen room smells like cigs. There’s an ashtray on the desk. I park the roller-chest beside a bedside table with yet another ashtray near the phone.

I leave the belongings & go back to the lobby. I ask if my room is non-smoking. The clerk says “Yes. We moved all smoking to the top floor.” 

I tell her of the two ashtrays. She says she’s “sure it’s a non,”  but can move me. I say I have to go back & get my things. 

I go to the non-non-smoking. Rolling out, I notice a third ashtray in the bathroom. 

	When I take the old keys back, she asks if I’m here to see the state park. I say no — just on my way, west. As she passes a single new key, she says “You have to go to the river at night & make a bonfire.” Knowing I won’t, I ask how far. 

	(A sudden vision sees a person, alone, silently staring into a bonfire.

	The din is rushing water & crackling spits of embers.

	You see this person downriver & decide to come back to the park another night.)

	The clerk begins pointing to a map on a wall across the room, directing “Go through downtown. Take a left. There’s a little road with a ranger booth. A gravel road. Then a steep incline. Some guests said they wouldn't try it. I heard there’s a paved way, but don’t know. I was in a hit & run right here on this road. Guy left me for dead. Took me a while to go back to the park. Injured my knee. Torn lung, too. I'm a rock hound.” 

	I keep looking away, at the map as if studying it, while she narrates, but I’m merely waiting for a place in the conversation for a getaway. 

	She continues “There are these smooth rock groupings you can find by the river. Here, I’ll show you.” 

I turn around to face her again. 

She pulls out a large cell phone — almost too large to be a phone — & shows a photo of a single stone on a white dinner platter. 

It’s not a grouping as I imagined it, just a lone rock — a gray/brown sphere with a lighter stripe in the middle. She holds a c-shaped hand out in an attempt to show scale — “ . . . about a cantaloupe size . . . ”

She continues “It's like how pearls are made. Rock forms around a grain. I didn't get this one at the river. Went to a garage sale. It was in their garden. Said I was a rock hound and asked if I could have it — I bought the plate.”

I’m still staring at the phone when she starts scrolling again.

“But, my daughter found a great one . . . “  

The clerk’s eyes dart with the moving images, concentrating while saying her daughter was “ . . . at the river one day and saw some people pick up a rock then laugh and throw it down the beach. After they went away she went over and picked it up. It was broken. Two pieces.” 

She finds the pic with “Here it is.” 

	We silently review together. 

It’s a proper rock grouping this time: two vertical rocks are stacked on two other rocks. It comes off like a head-standing ball-peen mallet cairn with a smaller lump at the very top, resembling a casually pushed-back beret or tumor. The whole structure is leaning to one side. There’s a horizontal crack half way up, but the verticals fit each other perfectly seeming they’d once been as one. 

The broken scene has been re-stacked for its portrait — put right. 

I wonder if it was cracked after it was thrown by the laughing river people — underhanded, I hazard — grabbing the un-tumored end — letting it fly with undulating momentum like a hammer throw.

I didn’t understand what a rock grouping entailed until now.

	I try to change the subject by asking about nearby restaurants. She says to follow her to the front window of the lobby that overlooks the frontage road. 

I do & can see two restaurants across the road from each other. The desk clerk grabs a tourism map on a table & opens it up to a picture of the state park — 

“ . . . where the rocks are," she points & says while holding up the map. 

Then, she fingertips the foldout on a specific place: “CC's Diner, just next door.” 

I can see it from the window. It’s across the parking lot. 

She says she likes that one, “homestyle,” she says, then points to a map location across the street from it — the street where she was left for dead. 

“That one’s got a tavern attached.” 

I can also see that place from the lobby window, but she’s using the tourist map still — never looking up from the paper toward the actual street just beyond. 

I back away with the ice chest in-tow, thank her & walk towards the hallway.   

	The new room has a non-smoking staleness, but no ashtrays. I park the cooler again, pull back the bedspread — first thing to always do in any motel — & drop the bag & keycard on the turn-downed top sheet. Next I power up the TV — to leave it on while I’m gone — to fool any would-be thieves, you see . . .  

Last, I hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, pull to a click & walk down the hall. 

To avoid the desk clerk, I go out a side door, instead, to cut across the parking lot to the diner she said she liked. 

	Entering CC’s Diner, I hold the door open for an ancient couple with to-go boxes. At the empty host podium, I scan the room. 

More ancients, slow-eating. The temperature is physical — not as warm as — stuffy. 

There’s a tired salad bar — I can feel it cosmically wilting. 

It’s neither quiet nor not, as if humidity could be a sound. 

I take a menu from a stack & survey. There’s a picture of a soup with a name I don’t understand. It’s a dark broth with a rainbow sheen that resembles an oily rain puddle in a bowl.

It also shows Oyster Stew. I think of the Rocky Mountains & can’t place the pairing of facts together at first, then suddenly can with a wince. 

On the wall behind, a smiling gallery of crowned-&-sashed Miss Montana 8x10s hang. 

I leave the menu on the podium before the host can arrive & walk across the two-lane where the desk clerk tore her lung. It’s the River Inn: casino, lounge & motel. 

	The casino is just a few slot machines in a corner of the main dining room. I walk through the restaurant, find the door to the lounge & go in. Two tenders move around each other behind the bar. 

A Specials! board is framed above the bottles with a food-word written in dry-erase cursive. It looks like "Haurackey — with Spanish Rice.” 

Possibly a fish?

I ask the younger bartender what it is. She smiles at the other, older bartender who says a word that doesn’t match the spelling. I say I don’t know that word. The older says she copied it from the sign, outside, in front of the restaurant. 

The younger bartender pulls out a phone to find an image of the dish. The older bartender reads from the back of an order pad that it’s “a flatbread with beans, chopped steak and sauce that comes with Spanish rice and soup or salad.“

I say, “You mean like a sopapilla?” 

The younger bartender says “I don’t know” & shows a smart phone pic of a platter with a sopapilla-looking bread spread with refried beans & meat. It’s topped with ribbons of liquid color. 

No rice. 

I thank her & ask for a menu. 

First off, I see a green chili dish — close enough to Colorado, I guess, but I order a salad instead. 

	A loosened tie comes in & asks about the Special!. The older bartender pronounces it differently this time & describes nearly the same: this time, though,  it’s emphasized that there's a “light coating of beans.”

The tie says “Okay” then looks at the menu & orders something else. 

A sign behind bar reads that state law requires you Must be born by May 21 1997 to be allowed in the bar. 

I’d recently met someone new around then — that same year, just north of here: “No giving up this time,”  I’d said to an old friend who had recently given up at the time. 

The friend nodded with a flat smile.

	A graying combover in green coveralls comes into the bar, sits down & orders a cola-mixed drink right away, like he’s late. He talks about his son moving into a rental he owns, living there while fixing it up — the coveralls “redid the floors” but his son “will have to do the trim. I don’t give a fuck about the trim.” He tips back the tumbler.

The younger bartender asks about his drink. He says “Hell, I’ll have another one” & goes on with “Yeah, he'll just have to move in & deal with the trim on his own unless his girlfriend lets him move in with her. Maybe that'll happen. I don’t give a fuck about the trim.” 

	A middle-years — tall — stands at the bar & slurs a question about the Special!. The older bartender says a third pronunciation of the dish & starts to describe. 

The loosened tie adds “Light on the beans!” & laughs. 

Tall says “I’m in”  & slaps the menu shut.

The coveralls recalls he “knew a wrestler years ago. He was tall, too . . . taller than usual.”

Tall doesn’t react & just takes a pint sip when we all look at him. 

	I leave through a different door, this one leading directly outside to a gas station. There are cig ad signs on the front window of the c-store. I think about it, but don’t go in & walk past the River Inn restaurant/lounge sign. The pylon-sign LED flashes a cheaper rate than mine & a moving banner blinks “Steak Huaraches w/ Spanish Rice!”

The older bartender must’ve had to watch the Special! pass a few times while jotting her translation. 

I safely cross the hit-&-run two-lane & approach the Super 8.

I can see the desk clerk lit up inside. She’s looking at her phone while talking to a guest. 

I pat my shirt pocket for the room key. It’s not there. 

I’ll have to go back through the lobby. 

I didn’t take any of the clerk’s advice.

I’d better get my story straight.

There are more road tales in REAR-VIEW REFLECTIONS.