Fifteen
At about four in the afternoon we reach the Mojave Desert, in the
southeast corner of California. We don’t want to go to Las Vegas, which is
quite near, and crossing the desert right now, a trip of about eighty miles
through abandoned and hot territory, doesn’t seem like a good idea to us. So we
start looking for a place to sleep along Route 66, here repeatedly intersecting
Interstate 40 and finally turning off to the desert, as we do. After leaving
the interstate we drive for at least half an hour through deserted, bare
countryside looking for Goffs, the only place in the next fourty miles that is
mentioned in the Lonely Planet. Why that is we don’t understand, because when
the narrow asphalt road finally makes a tight curve we stand in front of a
wooden sign swinging on a rusty iron pole. ‘Goffs’, it says. ‘State of
California. Number of inhabitants: 23’. Those 23 live in a total of four houses
and one camper, that are spread out over a square mile of dust and heat. At
least, that’s what we assume, because we don’t see anything or anybody. Not
even a sleeping dog or a rattling screen door that we could head for and ask
where around here we can find a place to sleep.
At a gas station a bit further down the road, where the crew of a nearby
army base is staring petrified into the heat, they tell us that it’s not going
to work in this area. To find a place to sleep we have to make a detour of
fifty miles to Ludlow. If we’re lucky. If not another hundred and thirty five
miles to Barstow or from there another hundred miles to Los Angeles. That’s
completely out of our way, so we head for Ludlow.
Ludlow turns out not to be a town and not even a village. Ludlow is a
gas station with a mini mart on Route 66 (‘open 24 - 7’), with a cafe-snack bar
facing it (‘breakfast - lunch - dinner’) and a low, worn down building with a
neon light blinking ‘Motel’ next to it. Next to the light sits a rusty
Chevrolet pick up in front of a wooden shed with a sign ‘office’ on the door.
The door is locked. There is no one at the doors of the motel rooms either. I
walk around the wooden shed, looking for a possible second entrance, and see
only when I’m back in front a note pinned to the doorpost with a crooked
thumbtack. ‘For vacancies see mini mart’.
The man behind the counter there, apparently 24 - 7 not only running the gas
station and mini mart but also the motel, drops his head far backwards and
elaborately stares at us with one eye. “A double bed hai?”, he manages to ask
in a way that we ourselves start doubting our intentions. Finally he makes up
his mind. “That’ll be 55 plus tax.” We push the cash across his counter. He
throws a key on it.
We pay and wade with our key through the heat back to the motel. The
cardboard of the door feels as if prudence is called for, especially when the
carpet inside the room turns out to pretty much obstruct the door. A heavy
smell of disinfectants comes right at us, but there is a big king size bed and
there is air conditioning. With a little effort we close the aluminium window
that is slanted in its grooves and turn on the AC to do something about the
sweltering heat. It works. Just as, after some angry clattering, do the tap and
the toilet.
When I return a little later with two plastic bags from the mini mart,
where I got ice cubes and drinks, a group of messy looking ravens is blocking
my way. They are bigger than I would like, look at me with askance heads and
shriek fiercely. Their beaks are hanging open. The one in front hops a few
steps closer and makes a hacking movement with his beak to one of the shopping
bags. Only when I wave it at him and firmly stamp the dust, do the beasts move
back a bit. With small, slanted jumps. Barely enough to let me through.
A moment later, still a little disconcerted, I take a shower. The water
appears in unexpected blasts out of a bumping pipe. The shower curtain is made
of transparent plastic and can barely hold on to the last shower rings. When at
the next blast of water it grabs my belly with a clammy hand, I call out for
Janny to see if she’s there.
“No worries.”