At night the farmyard lights spatter the darkness with a rhythm and spacing which almost exacts the stars. The sky drawn to ground, I drive through the widely spread constellations, by Edwards’s and Stecklein’s, along the desert’s, then river’s, edges. Pat reaches forward with a fifth of Jack Daniels, I pass a joint on to Colin. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s music soars from the speakers, fills the minds already filled with alcohol, combines and lifts our spirits for at least a time. The car is a closed environment, a refuge sealing us from the world.
Stopping to urinate, we feel the crisp edge of night. The snow floor crunches as we walk the road’s gravelly edge, collapses as we melt it with our streams. We write our names if our kidneys allow, seizing the chance to acceptably expose our genitals. An owl hoots overhead in the trees above McTucker Springs, flies as we look up, startled. The headlights, left on, capture fencepost, wire and sagebrush, some of morning’s frost still upon them some twelve hours later.
We drive on through the darkness, watch the posts go by, feel the railroad tracks crossing diagonally beneath us. We turn away from the main roads, stick close to the swamps and the reservoir, the saltgrass and Russian olives bent and still. Snow begins to fall, quiets even the sound of our wheels grinding against the frozen gravel roads. Somehow, despite the loud music, we sense this quiet.
Headlights and farm lights scatter across the glistening flakes, form penumbras of feeble effort against the night. I turn the windshield wipers on to give me a meager vision, switch the beams back and forth from high to low to see which aids me best. The gathering storm will keep yet more people home than is usual, giving us who own the night that much more room. At a break between songs, Pat suggests we return to the bar for more beer. In truth, we need a break, a different company.
I swerve around, head back. It’s a quicker trip on the main highway, particularly when governed by purpose. A mile from Joe’s we can see its yellow light, casting far out into the night. From this distance it seems serene, a single building calm amidst the snow and the dark, but inside we know it is as raucous as when we left it.
Pulling up into the lot we hear music blaring loudly. We see a group passing a pipe outside the door, a beer in every free hand. Through the window we can see another four men playing foosball, others at the pool table and bar. We finish the Jack Daniels, readied to join a larger aggregate.
We feel safe here, in a landscape without threat. The late hours keep the Mormon majority of the population homebound, the scarcity of traffic lessens the likelihood of police—the world is ours, if only for a few short hours.