The rising sun is distant and cold. It pulls itself lazily over the horizon and hangs there as though to catch its breath. The night slinks guiltily away, the sky forfeits its stars. An unassuming bird flits-

“Can you take a picture of us?”

I arrived an hour before daybreak, following the suggestion of Autumn by the Wayside and, absurdly, found I was not the first. At 4:00am there was already a station wagon there, brown and idling, soft shadows moving inside. I assumed I was the more imposing figure, a lone stranger from the woods, and gave the car a wide berth.

They began to stir around five.

“Sir? Sir?”

As our great star heaves itself upward into the frosty void (“Maybe he’s hard of hearing, honey. Walk up to him!”) the atmosphere warms and splays out against the cliff side. Perched on a roadside barrier, legs dangling over the drop, the sharp, dust-laden wind cuts into me suddenly. I start to cough.

“You all right there, son?”

I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder, anchoring my body to the fringes of this highway pull-off as though my coughing fit had threatened to send me over the edge. I don’t realize, until the warmth of those fingers, just how long it’s been since I’ve felt the bare touch of another human.

‘Located between Mile Markers 45 and 46, the unnamed state look-out point is just the thing for the jaded traveler. Practically surrounded by other, near-identical look-outs, this small stretch of highway distinguishes itself from the others with an available restroom and a higher-than-average vantage point. Unfortunately, this also makes it the more popular stop and company is to be expe-‘

“Son?”

The man behind me is as wide as he is tall, his pendulous stomach straining at the tucked-in cotton of his t-shirt. His also-large wife stands behind him, near the station wagon. His also-large kids stare daggers from the back seat.

“Son, are you on drugs?”

“What?” I say, “No…”

“Well, if you were on drugs, I’d tell you it’s not too late to stop. My best friend told me something like that back when I was drinking a 12-pack a day. Didn’t know I needed to hear it.”

“I’m not on drugs,” I tell him, stumbling onto sleeping legs as I attempt to swivel on the barrier. “I got dust in my eyes.”

The man scratches himself under the rim of his cap and surveys the area, now behind me.

“Quite the sunrise we had,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Where’d you walk from?”

“Town.”

“Which town would that be?”

I think for a moment, realizing I’ve already forgotten its name. The man’s kids are arguing inside the station wagon, their screaming muffled and indistinct. One of the boys leaps out of the door and starts teasing the others from behind the car. The woman tells them to get back inside.

She doesn’t trust me at all.

“It’s all right, babe,” the man calls, “Let’em stretch.”

She leans into the cab and speaks to them in a tone that is as quiet as it is serious. They pile out the other side and stand around, somberly trying to avoid looking at me.

“Don’t mind the old lady,” the man says, mildly apologetic, “Little over-protective, that one. It’s why I married her!”

He raises his voice at the end and the woman almost smiles.

“My name’s Bill, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Bill By-the-Way.”

“We got a joker over here, Mary!” the man shouts.

He turns back to me, chuckling, and an expectant moment comes and goes.

“Quite the sunrise,” I say and Bill rubs his hands together.

He nods.

“Well, Mr. Joker,” Bill says with a sigh, “Speaking of the sunrise, the wife and kids and I were hoping to see if you could snap a picture of us real quick. Got my camera here,” he says, pointing to a little point and shoot around his neck, “and we just need a fella with a steady hand and a good eye.”

I cough and stretch my legs.

“Sure.”

He hands the camera to me and walks over to his family. Bill’s got his apologetic look on again as he talks to Mary and points out a place near the look-out. She doesn’t seem happy with Bill’s willingness to put the camera in my hands. I look out at the road and wonder where she expects I would bolt to. Do I look like I need money?

“All right, kids,” Bill says, “Gather on around here for the picture.”

I pretend that I’m familiarizing myself with the workings of the camera while the family arranges itself but, with just half an eye on them, it’s clear that something is wrong. Bill’s putting on a good front but the kids are moving around like scolded dogs, even the little taunting one from before. Through the polite barrier of the camera, I watch Mary and Bill and try to remember the warning signs of domestic abuse, of drug addiction, of hostage situations.

“All right, joker,” Bill says when the family has arranged itself, “See if you can’t snap this picture.”

I take a couple but their smiles are all uneven and their eyes are looking down. The sun is rising further into the sky behind them now and backlighting the frame. I grow conscious of the time, of the book in the back pocket of my jeans.

Where to next?

“I think I got you guys,” I tell Bill, trying to mirror his false enthusiasm but he holds up his hand as I approach.

“You mind looking over’em just to make sure they look good?” Mary’s face falls as he says this. “Just a, you know, a quick glance over. It’s hard to rally these guys once they all scatter.”

He forces a laugh.

I switch over to the review menu and start to scroll through. I see a few landscape shots, a few pictures Bill must have taken before he hailed me down, but the pictures of the family aren’t there.

“Didn’t take, Bill,” I tell him, “Am I using this thing right?”

When I look up I see he’s consoling Mary, who seems to have started crying. The kids look uncomfortable, the youngest on the verge of tears herself.

“Try one more, if you would,” Bill says, hardly looking away from his wife, “Make sure you hit the button all the way down. Take a few of them.”

I raise the camera again but they don’t seem to notice. I take a few, try a couple different settings. The flash goes off, probably unnecessary in the new morning light. Whatever act the family was trying to pull, whatever guise of calm that Bill had held together, it starts to come apart at the seams. He tries to hold them together, but the family falls apart around him.

I have their camera in my hand. I scroll through the pictures again and quickly realize that there are now additional landscapes, pictures I’m taking in which the family refuses to appear. I feel embarrassed, suddenly, like I’ve been let in on some secret.

“Bill, I… I think your camera’s broken, man,” I tell him, trying to hand the thing off without looking the man in the eye.

He doesn’t take it.

“That old thing…” he says, suddenly quieter, “That old thing’s been giving me some trouble on this trip. Tell yah what, joker,” he says, chuckling sadly, “How’d you feel about taking a picture on that fancy phone of yours and then sending it my way later? I wouldn’t want… wouldn’t want to forget this.”

“Sure,” I say, and I set the camera down on the barrier.

I feel a moment of relief when I pull up my camera and see the terrified family there in front of me. The embarrassment and concern from before begins to thaw.

“Smile, guys,” I tell them and they try, but as soon as the phone freezes the screen to confirm, the family blinks out of the frame.

They wait, expectantly.

“Bill,” I sigh, “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“What do you mean it’s not going to work, joker?” he says, and I sense, for the first time, an angry undercurrent, “You’ve just got to take the picture.”

“Maybe try taking your own picture,” I say, backing up, “Maybe set a timer or something.”

“What?” he asks, “Is it too much to ask a stranger for a favor now?” His voice is rising and he steps toward me. “Is it too much to ask for a helping hand?”

“Nothing like that,” I say, lowering my head and raising my hands, “Nothing like that at all, Bill.”

The sun is peeking up over the barrier now. Bill moves and it shines over his shoulder and into my eyes. I lower my sunglasses with one hand and I turn my back on him.

“Fuck you!” he yells, “Get in the car Mary, kids, let’s go!”

I do not turn back to look at them and I walk, calmly, back to the highway.

It’s taken some time to get used to this part, reader, the part that necessitates leaving.

“Fucking assholes!”

A car door slams.

Maybe there’s a way to help people like that, but I haven’t figured it out. In my experience, the only thing to do with stuck folk is to walk away. Otherwise you end up stuck there with them.

An engine roars to life.

I pause for a few minutes as soon as I’m out of sight of the look-out and I wait to see if I’m wrong. Could be I am an asshole here. Wouldn’t be the first time. I wait and look over the picture I tried to take of them, a picture of the sunrise and a cement barrier.

The engine idles for a moment and then shuts off. There are no more sounds.

I take Shitholes out and start to walk again. This region is looking pretty clear and it hasn’t seen much of the Stranger’s meddling. He never says much when I call.

I happen past the description of the turn-off and stop. There is a picture of the place, a familiar picture of the sunrise and a cement barrier.

Credit to the author.

-traveler

There are two things absent from the modern casino: the deep smell of institutionalized smoking and the pinball-clicking of old slots, replaced with their silent, electronic successors. The smoking I can do without, I suppose, though I do get whimsical in any old diner that has neglected to replace their carpets. The lost noise presents a problem.

‘There is a strange prize to be had at ‘The Spinning Wheels Casino & Bar,’ strange and closely kept. At the time of this writing, the author has fruitlessly lost money and time in its study and found only the following:

The casino’s namesakes, ‘The Spinning Wheels,’ make up an enormous, if not slightly degraded structure at the center of the building. Built like a massive, exposed slot machine, the four spinning wheels are easily 20’ across and a yard thick. The whole contraption is sunk into the ground so that a quarter of the wheels disappear into the floor. Prominently featured advertisements for the casino show a man from behind, kneeling at the machine as though at some ancient god, his arms thrown up in joy or despair.

It is not an uncommon sight.

‘The Spinning Wheels’ offer no explanation for the vague symbols they display (a tree, the moon, an inverted horse) but it’s commonly held that the only winning combination is a four-of-a-kind of the open door. Located on the far left side of the far left wheel is the crease of a subtle hatch that happens to line up with the floor when it lands on the legendary symbol, lending credence to the claim. Partial winners are allowed to enter but quickly return to report the passage is blocked by the non-winning spins. Jackpot winners exist only in rumors.’

There are few places more accommodating than a casino. Free drinks, free snacks, friendly smiles and a general come-as-you-are atmosphere. Playing carefully, a person can spend a day in the comfortable air-conditioned embrace of ‘The Spinning Wheels’ for less than the cost of a gas station sandwich. It’s not worth it to the casino to track everyone because the casino, on average, will win. Unlike a gas station, the casino can take everything from you and give you nothing back. More than can: it’s trying to. It will.

Accordingly, I do my best to be wary despite a sense of relief that washes over me with the crisp, clean air. Then I listen for the clicking of the old slots and hear nothing. I wonder if the stranger has been here and what he found. And then the lights dim, flicker, and return. A high electronic hum fills the air and, on its tails, a mad clattering from deeper within the casino. There is a smell like ozone, though nobody else seems to notice or mind.

Further inside I spot the machine. It’s as Shitholes described but larger and far more neglected than I had imagined. Powered down they would have the faded charm of an old amusement park but, forced into activity, ‘The Spinning Wheels’ move like a lame horse. A thick cord drops from the ceiling and disappears into the body of the thing. The first wheel shudders to a stop as I enter- landing squarely on the open door.

There is a hush about the room as the other wheels continue to spin. The second begins to slow and manages several pained revolutions before landing on a crude eye. The woman at the lever is already crestfallen and the small crowd that gathered begins to disperse. I watch as she speaks to an employee stationed nearby and, together, they approach the left side of the massive machine. There I see the hatch, hardly large enough for a person to crawl through. As she disappears inside, the two remaining wheels settle on a lightning storm and finally a second open door.

The woman emerges again, before long, and a man steps up to the lever. She, the losing player, re-joins the short line to play and I step in behind her. We both watch as the man pulls the lever and ‘The Spinning Wheels’ creak reluctantly back to life.

“What’s in the wheel?” I ask, but the woman doesn’t respond. She’s busy watching the machine, her face expectant and her skin sheened over with nervous sweat.

The first wheel locks on the inverted horse and I expect her to relax but, quite the opposite, she pulls a small notebook from bag and begins to scribble. I can just make out that it’s a journal of sorts, that the inside is structured and coded. She waits for the second wheel, which stops on the broken candlestick, and notes this as well. The man two places ahead of us in line, who I had assumed was texting, also seems to be recording the wheel.

The third wheel displays the open door and I see the woman make a quick, obvious check.

“Ma’am,” I begin again, “Ma’am,” I say, tapping her shoulder.

She turns, annoyed, as the fourth wheel lands on a splayed hand.

“What was inside the wheel when you went in?”

“It’s hollow,” she says, “And blocked by the others.”

“And how far have you gotten?”

“One wheel in,” she glares.

The line moves forward slowly and play after play ends with an anti-climax, the first wheel never spinning the door. A man that joins behind me is a little chattier, he explains that there are theories about the wheels’ patterns, about the length of time or the number of plays between a jackpot.

“The Wheels have been spinning at least one door per play for the last week,” he says, “A buddy of my dad’s says it was the same thing 20 years ago, just before a win.”

He says this as the second wheel confirms him.

“How many times have you played?”

“Just three tonight,” he says, “Can’t afford more than that.”

“How much does the thing cost?”

The thing costs one hundred dollars a spin.

I immediately remove myself from line and join the small, transient crowd that watches. The woman from before plays again and carefully records the loss in her book. She runs her hand across the back of the thing as she passes and doesn’t re-join the line. She leaves the casino.

I grab a drink.

Making rounds over the next couple hours, I see the group near the wheels grow smaller and, eventually, build again. Play is consistent throughout the day. At $100 every minute or so, I watch several dozen people feed ‘The Spinning Wheels’ at least $24,000, an absurd amount. The first wheel refuses the open door to all.

Around six I pull a hundred from the machine near the teller and I walk around for a while, my hand in my pocket, trying to remind myself that it’s a substantial bill, that money is often tight. It’s a soft, old thing. I wonder if it’s new to the casino or if it spends its days in and out of the machines. Finally, when the line is short, I re-join the people at ‘The Spinning Wheels.’ There are three people ahead of me.

The mountain. The splayed hand. The shoe. The open door.

The inverted horse. The open door. The crude eye. The splayed hand.

The broken candle. The waving monkey. The open door. The open door.

I approach the attendant and hand him my money. He feeds it into the machine and then tries to flatten it out when it’s rejected several times. Each rejection is another chance to get the money back, but I don’t speak up and eventually it glides into the reader and remains. I pull the lever and immediately smell the ozone sigh of ‘The Spinning Wheels.’ The handle buzzes under my fingers.

The first wheel lands on the open door and my stomach sinks. The crowd below seems to hold its breath.

The second wheel clicks to a stop on the open door as well. I see the woman from earlier in the day, she’s returned with money in hand. She writes nothing and she glares at me.

A third open door. The attendant is passive. From his vantage point I’m not sure he can even see the spins. He doesn’t seem to notice the tense crowd or the nearness of the jackpot. My heart beats wildly and my hands feel weighty at my sides.

A fourth open door.

A discrete mechanism bursts to life, spraying my face with dust and sharp, metallic confetti. I cough and cover my eyes, hardly able to see. The attendant guides me, watery-eyed, to the left of the great machine. He mistakes my blindness for emotion, and pats my back several times.

“What’s through there?” I ask, as my eyes clear on the hatch.

“That’s for winners to know.”

There is a little black knob in front of me. I reach out and see, scraped carefully into the paint of the door:

“When God closes a window…”

“No,” I say.

“What?”

“Can I transfer my winnings?”

“The jackpot of ‘The Spinning Wheels’ is not easily…”

“Just to her,” I say, pointing, red-eyed and itchy, to the woman from earlier.

She can’t hear what I’m saying and she looks concerned.

“You want to let her enter instead?”

“Yes.”

“Ma’am,” the attendant calls, “Could you step forward?”

She does and I see she’s shaking, holding the little diary in both her hands and up against her chest.

“This man wants you to go in instead,” the attendant says, his mild surprise having melted back into passivity.

She looks at me and I think I see the same concern in her face that I felt, spinning the jackpot.

“Do you want to go in?” I ask.

She pauses for a minute and then says:

“Yes.”

“Then be my guest.”

It’s difficult to see past her as she opens the door and crawls inside. The hatch slides closed almost as soon as she’s through, but I catch a glimpse of the massive hollowed inside. The walls of the first wheel are scribbled with the names of those who have entered before.

I expect more ceremony, but the attendant suggests I re-join the line and he takes his station at the lever again. Before a few minutes have passed, the wheels are spinning and the line grows with renewed vigor.

“A few years back the wheels spun two jackpots in the same hour,” I hear someone say, “Time’s ripe for it.”

The woman does not return and the wheels clatter endlessly.

-traveler

‘‘Sulphur Springs’ was undoubtedly founded based on the relatively simple and familiar formula:

UNPLEASANT + NATURAL = HEALTHY

Well known among the locals and around websites that offer the local experience, ‘Sulfur Springs’ is only really advertised by its distinct smell, which wafts through the forested surroundings and should, by all accounts, turn any intelligent creature on its heels. An unexpecting hiker might arrive at the trailhead thinking they misplaced a boiled egg in their pack but, nearer the springs, would be forced to assume the egg had swelled, rotted, and burst.

Still, there is a strong belief among some that ‘Sulphur Springs’ is a hidden tonic, that the wretched waters can strengthen the weak and cure the sickly. Tucked into a scenic alcove and bubbling at a mild 81 degrees Fahrenheit, it is nevertheless an acquired taste. Those who acquire it are evangelical and very, very few.’

A dip in ‘Sulphur Springs’ is the act of a desperate man, a man searching for a vitality he once, but no longer has. Even in town, where the smell of it lingers like thick but distant flatulence, I realize that, if there was any truth to the miracle of spring water, we’d all already smell like shit. The woman at the store, the woman who hands me a receipt for the swim trunks I purchase, the woman who may have lived near ‘Sulphur Springs’ all her life- she turns her nose up at me.

The smell of desperation repulses her.

-traveler

The old house has been gutted, its walls scraped bare, its innards strewn about the yard to rot. The door hangs off its hinges, cobwebs wriggle and tear like ragged gums. Even the rats have abandoned the old house, even the spiders. The old house is without life.

‘‘The Old House Bakery’ is a pleasant place to stop for coffee, a place for well-baked bread and quiet conversations. They serve an array of hot beverages and a rotating selection of cakes and pastries. Given a day’s notice, they are happy to accept special orders and offer reasonable quotes over the phone.

Located in a county rampant with methamphetamine abuse and petty crime, it is easy to overlook the darkened circle on a crime map, the circle that deepens red just as it closes in around ‘The Old House.’ There are murders, here, more murders in the half mile radius around the bakery than anywhere else in the state. As such, it may be prudent to ask whether ‘The Old House Bakery,’ which has seen no crime directly on its premises, is a haven or the bait of some sinister trap.’

The floor of the old house remembers a kitchen, the faded imprints of an oven, an industrial freezer. There are long, deep scrapes in the wood where chairs and tables once slid, oil stains on the ceiling and the gray apparitions of old hands on the glass. Cool air rushes in the back door and, finding it empty, rushes out the front again, pausing only to whip around the unzipped flaps of my jacket.

I wait for something to happen and, when the waiting gets too long, I piss in a room that was probably a bathroom once.

It is, while pissing, that I spot a silhouette in the trees outside, far enough away to be a shadow cast by the setting sun but standing at odds with the wind. Through the frosted glass of the once-bathroom it could be the size and shape of a person or, just as easily, the size and shape of some broken stump. When I check again from the once-kitchen there is nothing.

Just like that, as night begins to thicken, the thing that haunts the old house begins to haunt me. It taps on the windows and scratches at the walls. It pulls the front door from its remaining hinge and places it high up in a tree outside when I’m not looking. For a long period, for nearly three hours, it walks slowly back and forth across the roof. It seems to know what room I inhabit no matter my means of hiding.

I consider leaving many times but I remember the deep red circle around the old house and I stay put through the night.

Even after the thing leaves an old pair of empty boots on the porch.

Even after it covers the windows in mud so that it’s impossible to see outside.

Even after it begins to send crumpled sheets of paper through the old house on its airstream, a novel in wet, black symbols.

I leave cautiously long after the sun has risen and I step out of the door and off the porch and I’m so worried about the thing that I trip and fall on my fucking face in the dust and dirt.

There is something buried in front of the old house, an old iron knife exposed by the wind, caught up in the curled laces of my boots. It pulls from the ground, dull and heavy with rust.

Distracted by my find, I might have missed the thing that has emerged from the trees. There may be a person there, or something shaped like a person, but all I see of that hunched form is a great mass of rotting leaves and ancient pelts. It pays me no attention as it shambles past and struggles up the stairs to the old house. It disappears inside and, after a moment, I hear the wrenching of wood.

The old house shudders and lets out a great, dusty sigh.

I take a minute to replace the knife in the ground, considering the very slim chance that whatever kept the thing outside the old house might work in reverse to keep it in.

I leave the old house with my hands rusted red.

-traveler

There is, at my feet, a great river of wax, emanating heat and a mixed perfume. It flows with the regal patience of molten rock, slow, careful, and heavy. I stand away from the thing, aware that the soft wax coast, thickened and scabby, might break through into the loose liquid underneath. Streaked and deep red, the undulations of the wax river evoke the same induced hypnosis as a smoldering fire. In that flow, I am lost, for a time.

‘At some point the world seemed to agree on a certain definition of a ‘wax museum.’ We agreed that it is not enough to describe the history of wax or the processes involved in its creation. It is necessary, at least to display wax statues. It is encouraged to include celebrities among the statues displayed. If these likenesses are not convincing, then they must be unconvincing enough to mock. If they are simply mediocre then the business will fail.

Because of our high standards there is no place quite like ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum.’ It disregards the historical narrative regarding wax museums and presents something altogether different and perhaps truer to what they, in the author’s opinion should be. Keep your mind open and your breath shallow and ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ will be an experience less-shitty than most.’

There is no railing, no careful attendant to guide my tour. As such I could, and do, spend the better part of an hour simply watching the great wax flow. Light purples emerge after half an hour, deepening, eventually, into blue and layering the coast. The complex housing this marvel is massive and stuffy, the air is slick, oily.

After nearly an hour I struggle to draw breath. I cough through a narrowed windpipe, cough squirming, molded strings of wax and phlegm. A flexi-layer of my esophagus dislodges, smelling like cranberries and nutmeg. My breathing improves but I understand it’s time to move on.

Further into the complex, upriver, as it were, there is a great wax waterfall and a molten rainbow lake. The sign there insists that the bubbling center is fed by a natural spring, a wax spring. A map highlights various American wax fields, details the machines necessary to tap them. There is nobody nearby to question about this. I scoff and look around the empty room, sure that none of the information makes any sense but unable to convey my disbelief.

Fuck if I know where wax comes from.

I start to cough again. My skin and clothes shine with a layer of the stuff.

Through a revolving door the air clears and I’m treated to a corridor of glass cases. Inside are the extinguished smatterings of old candles:

‘Hung at the Old North Church to Warn Paul Revere of the British (1775)’

‘Pooled at the Base of the Original Menorah (??)

‘Recovered from a Jack o’ Lantern, Salem, Massachusetts (1963)’

‘Burned on Michael Jackson’s 30^th Birthday Cake (1988)’

There is no clear order to the cases and no overarching theme. These are pop-culture candles at best, mostly pilfered from celebrity situations or vivid, commonly taught historical moments. Each lends itself to an impressed widening of the eyes, a knowing nod of the head, but not much else. Not much else at all.

It would be impossible for an amateur to verify any of what ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ presents as truth.

I wonder if the stranger has been here and, generally, where he is now. I wonder if, after suffering these wracking coughs, he would choose to burn the place.

It’s a place that would lend itself to burning.

-traveler