Deer die in the woods, alone, and their bodies rot. They leave skeletons behind, their antlered heads distinctive in certain forests. People do strange things with these skulls, mounting on walls chief among them.

That’s beside the point.

I keep the antlered deer head in mind as I look for a skull in an acre of bones, the first of many pieces I’ll need.

‘A wasteland of rust, ‘Trish’s Ride Away’ is nothing more than a monetized junkyard. For an entry fee of $100, Trish will allow you to peruse the acres of wasted automotive parts she buys in bulk and to stay as long as you don’t make a nuisance of yourself. A book in the small shack at the front gate has pictures of the twenty or so odd people that have ridden out of the ‘Ride Away’ on vehicles they have salvaged, cleaned, and assembled. This is the best option.

Trish’s liberal time allowance has inadvertently led to the ‘Ride Away’ becoming a tent city, too far from any concerned municipality to warrant shutting down. The ‘Ride Away’ denizens can be both cagey and helpful, long cut-off from outside society by the metallic disruption of cellular signals and their borderline-superstitious fear of having to re-pay the entry fee. Goods from the nearby gas station will garner favors and ease a visitor’s passage.

The difference between ‘hidden’ and ‘lost’ is subtle, reader, and many lose themselves in Trish’s maze. Remember the worth of a hundred dollars and do not stay longer than necessary.’

I haven’t said much about my past, have I? I’ve kept my eye on the future and I describe the present only in the ways it hinders me. Well, I was a mechanic for a while, or, I should say, I was the stupid kid that works in a mechanic’s shop. I learned the basics there.

And I am tired of walking, of hitchhiking, and of waking up in strange diners with deep, rumbling headaches.

“Oh, look,” a voice says, “A window shopper.”

It’s not immediately clear who is speaking.

“What are you looking for?”

“A bike frame,” I tell her, speaking in the direction of the voice, “Something usable.”

“And then?”

“And then the rest of the bike.”

“Got a place to stay?”

“I’m getting tired of talking to myself,” I tell her, “What do you want?”

A woman’s body rises from the backseat of a truck. Her eyes narrow.

“What do you got?”

Ruby is 20 and she tells me she has been living in ‘Trish’s’ for some five years. She tells me she runs an inn for short-term visitors like myself but when I ask to see a room she says there aren’t any vacancies.

“Checkout’s at two,” she says, “Ask again after that.”

For a pack of gum she lets me store my backpack in the trunk of a car. She keeps the key and many others on a chain around her neck. We haggle absurdly for a while until she agrees to show me a few frames for the cheese-and-meat jerky packs I pulled off the clearance shelf.

“Cheese,” she says, “Is like gold here. A can of spray stuff will set you up for a while.”

I shrug and rub my sore jaw. My face is swollen, still, but Ruby doesn’t mention it. She leads me toward the center of the property, where she says she has contacts.

“Don’t know shit about cars myself,” she mutters.

Had I known that…

We speak to several people, each living in a carved-out hovel of old car parts and each with wildly different answers. Many ask for payment but Ruby shuts them up. If anybody is getting what I brought in, it will be her. Ruby, despite my misgivings, takes the average of our motley advice and draws me a map.

“You’re not coming?” I ask.

“I’ve got a business to run,” she says, “Should I hold a room for you?”

I consider the author’s warning and prod the empty place where my molar once was.

“Sure.”

I have a frame by nightfall, its handlebar head twisting loosely in the gray light. I, and a man I bribe with chips, haul it back to Ruby’s and set it near my room: the deeply buried carcass of a VW bus.

“The yard out front is yours as long as you’re renting,” Ruby says, handing me another key from her chain, “Folks around here respect that but keep an eye out for tourists. I gave you the ‘Bug Suite,’ no extra charge. Water-proofed it myself.”

“Thanks…” I tell her.

“I’m holed up just down the way if you need anything,” she says.

Ruby is buying time for something, her gangly silhouette hesitating at my door.

“Do you need me to pay now?”

“You seem good for it,” she says, “Think you’ll stay long?”

“As long as it takes to get this thing going.”

“It’s not great here,” she warns me.

“Oh?”

“I’m kicking guys like you out of my place all the time. You find a project, burn out, run out of things to barter. You end up sleeping under some random hood and asking for handouts. People adjust to this kind of living and then get stuck here.”

“I know,” I tell her, “I read it in a book before I came.”

“A book?”

I show her Shitholes, the nice, newer copy. I flip to the entry and see her smile, curiously, in the flickering overhead light. She sits softly on my ‘bed.’

“Well I’ll be…” she says, pointing at the accompanying photo of a non-descript pile of junk, “That’s my place. You know this guy?”

“Maybe.”

Ruby’s body odor has filled the hollow bus. I shift uncomfortably and roll down a window. I grate my teeth as she squirms around on my blankets, browsing the glossy pages of my book. I cough and yawn and side-eye her in turns.

“Seems like a bit of an asshole.”

The bus’ radio clicks with quiet, staticky laughter.

Heh, heh, heh…

-traveler

‘Between the months of December and February, ‘Black Lake,’ famous for its many drownings, becomes a seasonal ice skating hub. Families and couples come together at the lake with the assurance that it would be truly unlikely for anyone to drown while it is frozen solid and that the year’s unrecovered bodies have probably washed downstream, that they are not simply preserved underneath the skates.

True locals, those living in close proximity to ‘Black Lake,’ will be conspicuously absent from the cheerful winter scene. Found nearby in restaurants and taverns, they will tell you ‘Black Lake’ is not a good place any time of the year, that winter does not end the site’s uncanny maliciousness, only limits it to maiming instead.’

I rise to my hands and knees, a pool of blood beneath my face. A child screams and skates away. My weak arm collapses under me and splays out again, leaving a red streak across the ice. The world jolts and spins.

A man skates over. His abrupt stop peppers me with ice shavings. He says something, says it again when I don’t respond.

“You okay, man?”

I cough.

“You okay?”

“I… will be.”

He helps me to my feet, catches me before I slip again. He and a friend guide me to the edge. I hear them talking about calling an ambulance. I tell them I’ll be fine. They continue talking, quieter now so that I won’t interrupt.

I’ll have to return the skates before I go.

I look up at ‘Black Lake’ again. They are using snow to wipe away my blood. The sign, encouraging swimmers to beware, is frosted over.

‘Black Lake’ is a bad place.

I spit a gob of blood between my legs. Something rattles and comes loose.

I spit again, feeling little.

Speakers crackle: “The rink is open for free-skating once again, folks. Careful out there, it’s slippery!”

The gathered skaters hesitate, but slowly the rink fills. Their skates carve circles into the ice.

I sift through the snow for my tooth.

My tongue mercilessly prods its absence.

-traveler

‘‘The Orville Reenactment Society’ has been in residence at ‘Fort Elmer’ for as long as anybody in Orville can remember. They are local celebrities and the driving force behind tourism to the area. They perform every Friday and Saturday, rain or shine, and have a special matinee on Sundays (after church). Though popular, tickets will not sell out.

‘The Miracle of Orville’ is not a show to be missed. It draws heavily from the writings of the town founder, a very strange man named Fellowship Orville who claims a great hand came from the ground as he approached the site of the future fort. It pointed to the sky, and then to him, and then it retreated into the earth. Orville has embraced this origin with terrifyingly open arms.’

Thus far, in my stay, nobody in Orville has mentioned the bizarre folktale. They seem to let the town speak for itself, through murals, through massive, many-fingered statues, and through their high school football team ‘The Orville Hands.’ Knowing the town’s history, a smart person might think they are being purposeful in their silence, that their seeming normalcy is more sinister façade than genuine passivity.

And I am a smart person.

Though I was once more sure of that.

The… author… of Autumn by the Wayside sort of sets up this kind of thinking, doesn’t he? By entering a place into the book, a self-described collection of ‘shitholes,’ the author primes the reader for negativity. If I had come to Orville on my own and been asked to describe the… historically-informed culture there I think (no, I’m sure) I would have leaned toward harmlessly eccentric and not at all toward sinister.

Now, in buying gum, I notice an attendant grinning behind me. Before, a knowing nod from an old man. Previous even to that, as I entered town, the wide-eyed stare of short-haired child. It did not smile or frown but it did seem… bad.

Vaguely bad.

With a ticket I bought at the grocery store, I enter Fort Elmer and am greeted, immediately, by in-character ushers.

“Clarence!” a woman cries, seeing me step through the turnstile (which didn’t see widespread use until the early 1900s) “We’ve got our first visitor of the evening!”

“A visitor!”  a man shouts from another room, “At this hour? Who is it?”

“A stranger!” the woman says, coming close now in order to make a show of eyeing me over, “By the looks of it… a vagabond!”

“By god, be rid of him!”

I speak before the woman can continue.

“I’m supposed to rent a locker for this,” I say, heaving my bag, “Which way…”

“The armory is just down that hall,” the woman replies, whispering now so as not to disturb the fictionally grumpy Clarence elsewhere in the building, “And don’t mind my husband, you’re welcome to join the others in the courtyard for tonight’s gathering.”

I breathe an inward sigh of relief when I see that the kid running the locker rental is plain-clothes- no banter about ‘funny money’ or theatrical biting of coins. Relieved of some weight, I step past another group of visitors (delighted by the host’s bafflement at their jacket zippers) and into the restroom. It has been some time since I really, closely looked at myself and, if I’m beginning to look like a vagabond, it’s probably past due.

I stare into the mirror and shudder.

She was not wrong.

I’m washing my face in the sink when I hear the too-friendly jingle of a belt from the stall behind. In the reflection, I spot two feet in dirty socks and loose, tarry sandals. Worn jeans pile up around scabby, white ankles and a pale, hanging gut is just visible beneath the door.

And, between the door, a weepy eye.

One circle nested in another.

My hand reaches, reflexively, for the pocket over my heart, for the comb case and for the comb.

The thing in the stall wheezes with some unseen effort. Its foot twists in vulgar clenches.

I turn off the water, stare up at myself again.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Spit into the sink.

I reach for the comb and-

A toilet flushes and a man walks out of the stall at the other end of the room. He’s still buttoning his replica trousers as he makes eye contact with me in the mirror. He hesitates, clears his throat.

“My, what a strange facility this is!”

I leave without saying anything and find my seat on the bleachers in the center of the fort. I sit next to the quietest looking family and the parents nod cheerfully. I sweat, silently, beneath my clothes.

The reenactment begins.

It is quiet until a man staggers into the field, his clothes dirty and torn. A dim spotlight follows his progress. Fellowship Orville stumbles, falls to his knees, and collapses. It is quiet, again, for a time.

The ground trembles but I hardly notice.

-traveler

Something is molding in this bookstore. Maybe everything is. I pull a book from the wall and flip to the middle. I smell the book, a deep huff.

Mildew.

No book is safe.

And nothing is in order.

There are people who like this sort of place. This is the sort of store we imagine when somebody tells us they once stumbled upon a first edition copy of their favorite book, tucked between two dictionaries under a stack of magazines. It’s the sort of store where you imagine two people falling in love- a cute book-nerd strikes up a cautious conversation with the wry, hipster cashier. Actually, when I imagine it, I’m the cashier. A life of retail work will do that to you.

Now, is there a travel section?

‘‘Book Ends’ is literature’s graveyard, a cemetery for words. Just as you do not seek your warm, living relatives among the headstones, you should not waste time trying to find a specific book here. It cannot be found. Ask, and you will invariably learn that the last copy has been sold, that the back-order is processing, that there is a copy, yes, but where… hmm. Must be a mistake in the inventory.

‘The inventory’ the man claims, while clearly pulling up an empty computer file. ‘Hmm…’ he says again, as though giving special care to your piece. He will shuffle books around behind the desk and you will notice these books have shifted many times, as though this is a daily charade. He will, eventually, offer a small, exasperated shrug and a small, meaningless apology. This man owns the store and his name is Alfred and he is the source of this business’ shitholery.’

In matching black sweats and thin, crooked glasses, the man behind the counter is no hipster. He looks at me with watery eyes and scratches his dark, ill-shaven goatee.

“No proper travel section, I’m afraid,” he says, after a moment, “Where’ya headed? Maybe I can find you something here.”

He boots up the computer, which whirs and wheezes with the sudden exertion, and he taps idly on the mouse as if to communicate a mild impatience with the machine.

“I’m actually looking for a specific book,” I tell him, “Autumn by the Wayside: A Guide to…”

“Oh,” he says, “Got a rack of’em over there.”

The man seems bored, suddenly. He holds the power button down with the soft determination reserved for one lover strangling another. The PC’s chittering work ends abruptly.

I turn and see he’s right- there, on a spinning wire shelf near the entrance to the store, is a literal rack of Shitholes. I remember that the cover was once glossy and colored, smooth as a placid lake. My heart, which, until now, had been quietly mumbling to itself in my chest, pushes out one, giddy pump, pauses, and then pushes out another.

I nod, calmly, to Alfred.

The copies on the rack look thin, their pages compact and un-creased, my name clear. I pull the book from my back pocket and wave it at Alfred.

“I brought this in,” I tell him and his eyebrows raise. He wonders why I would think he might mistake the garbage in my hand for something he would try to sell.

“That,” he says with his eyes, “Is below even me.”

I wonder if he’s realized these books immortalize him?

I pull a copy from the rack and feel its weight, the stiffness of the spine. I set my book on a shelf and Alfred coughs politely as it flares out the crinkled pages. Is he afraid of some contagion?

I hold my breath and open the back cover to the author’s bio. The picture has been vandalized with a markered moustache and glasses. Somebody has scribbled something underneath, something unreadable. I pull another from the shelf and find the same thing- this one has buck teeth and a top hat. I squint past the additions and try to see my face there. It does look similar.

Doesn’t it?

“Somebody wrote in all these books,” I call over my shoulder to Alfred.

“The author wrote in all those books,” he says back, “That’s why they’re marked up.”

“The author…?”

“Real asshole,” Alfred says, “Came through a month ago and asked if I wanted to host a signing. Showed up late, drank all my coffee, and didn’t sell a single book. You should see what he wrote about me in there. If I had realized…”

By now I’m several books deep and there’s not a single picture of the author that hasn’t been modified beyond sure recognition. My hands shake nervously.

“This is my name,” I tell Alfred, my voice shaking too, “I was trying to find a clear picture… did he… did the author look like me?”

Alfred glances up from the book he’s been reading. He looks me over.

“Passing resemblance,” he sniffs, “I think he was taller.”

“Look,” I tell him, jotting down my name in one of the copies, “It’s the same signature.”

He looks between them for a few seconds.

“It’s basically the same, I mean,” I tell him, “He, I… He was using a marker and this is just a pen.”

“You’re going to buy that, I suppose.”

“Yeah, sure. Look, do you have any unsigned copies? Anything that hasn’t been drawn over?”

Alfred presses the button on his computer and I go back to the rack to look myself. Several of the books have been altered the same way, the more I go through the more prevalent the pattern: nested circles, white and black, over the author’s face.

The all-seeing eye.

“What’s this?” I ask Alfred, “The guy did this a lot.”

“Looks like googly eyes.”

“But they’re both looking ahead.”

Alfred sighs and I see I’m walking the precarious line between zealous customer and dangerous weirdo.

“I’ll buy the copy I wrote in,” I tell him, “And if you can find an unsigned copy I’ll buy that. Can I take a picture of the googly eyes?”

He looks at me suspiciously.

“The author’s a recluse,” I tell him, “But I’ve been trying to follow his work and…”

“Got one,” Alfred says, shuffling a few books around behind the counter.

Eventually he pulls another copy up and, maddeningly, flips to the back page himself. He looks between the book and myself and I try to remember the picture. I try to remember how the author looked.

“Smile,” Alfred says, “Big smile.”

I smile.

“Nope,” he says, handing me the book, “You’ve still got all your teeth.”

My smile fades.

-traveler

‘The Turning Table’ is the most recent in a number of businesses that have moved into the bizarre single-story revolving space off US-51. Prior tenants include ‘Dinner with a Twist,’ ‘The Revolving Roti,’ and ‘Pizza in the Round.’ Reviews of each are low to moderate. It goes without saying that the quality ‘spinning’ is not enough to make a successful restaurant.

I arrive in the parking lot and am signaled, by wait-staff inside, that the entrance is currently around back.

‘Yes, whoever commissioned the structure that houses ‘The Revolving Roti’ was an idiot. Unlike traditional revolving restaurants, in which only the interior floor turns, the whole outside of ‘The Revolving Roti’ spins around the core, kitchen area. Even on a good day, this contributes to a number of technical problems including a building-wide shudder every 17 minutes, near constant breakdowns, and intermittent wheelchair access. A brightly painted protective barrier has been installed at the base following a crushing fatality some years ago. The pre-entry waiver does not exactly whet the appetite.

The food is what you would expect from a moderately priced Indian restaurant though the garlic naan stands out above the other options as exceptional.’

Diners watch as I push between the building and the close-growing shrubs on its side, waiting, perhaps, for another fatality. It isn’t a graceful passage but I’ve been walking a long time and would like to sit down. Inches away, ‘The Turning Table’ groans and squeaks, its gears complain in the darkness below. It stops for just a second as something deep within grinds painfully. I press myself into the bush and grimace. I look for support from a couple who have stopped mid-meal to look worriedly back at me. A high-pitched whine indicates a growing pressure from inside.

The machine below breaks from the jam suddenly and the restaurant lurches forward. The couple turns their attention to the woman’s soup, which has sloshed over onto the table.

I press forward.

The entrance is already trying to sneak around the other side by the time I reach the back end of the property. I squeeze my backpack through first and jump in after, just as the bushes overtake the door. A man turns from paying and sees the way is blocked and he rolls his eyes.

He sits in the waiting area while I take a table for one.

The fare is no longer Indian and the naan has gone the way of the previous owners. I order a grilled cheese and lean back in the booth, happy to be rid of the weight of my pack. An untrimmed branch scratches across the window outside, annoying several people around me. I tap the glass and close my eyes.

“Your coffee, sir.”

I shudder awake and see the waitress standing over me with a mug. She hesitates.

“Sorry,” I say, rubbing my eyes, “It’s been a long trip.”

She smiles and nods.

“You can just set the coffee on the table,” I say.

“Just a moment.”

She looks at her watch.

The restaurant grinds to a halt and she expertly counters the motion with her arm so that the coffee doesn’t spill. The sound is worse from the inside- a few customers look worried, others, exasperated and knowing.

The noise continues.

“Looks like we’re stuck, Emily!” someone calls from the kitchen and the waitress, Emily, huffs.

“Careful with this,” she says, handing me the coffee.

Emily and a few other waitstaff gather at a spot ten feet away and stomp a couple times. Eventually, as the noise grows more severe, they resort to little half-jumps. The restaurant starts without warning and, despite Emily’s, I spill my coffee on the table.

She brings me napkins.

The back of the menu has a little rundown of the building’s features and a diagram of the building itself. One arrow points out the ‘jolly rotator,’ another the ‘protect-o-wall.’ Somebody thought these labels were a good idea.

My vision blurs with another pulse of sleep. The slow, whirring movement of ‘The Turning Table’ is doing me in. I take a sip of what remains of my coffee- not bad- and I notice, for the first time, the familiar shape of the restaurant. Two circles, one inside the other, and arrows like rays.

The all-seeing eye.

I chuckle, sleepily, and the restaurant moans.

Halfway through a blink, I fall asleep again.

The quiet clatter of my sandwich on the table wakes me. Emily has already filled my mug and moved on to another customer.

My view is still blocked by shrubs, seemingly infinite amidst my off-and-on napping. Eating helps me stay awake, I was hungrier than I realized.

The restaurant halts again, much to the dismay of a man who had just been served a shake. It starts on its own after a few seconds.

I tap my phone and wonder about the stranger. I tap the menu and wonder about that man, Tom, and his description of the eye. I tap my copy of Shitholes and wonder how I might close the growing gap between myself and the book. ‘The Revolving Roti’ has been out of business for a year. The author’s path is growing cold.

The parking lot slowly rotates into view and a mother desperately tries to get kids out of an SUV before the entrance disappears again. They gesture angrily to the TV screens embedded in the seats ahead of them and she gestures angrily to the door. ‘The Turning Table’ seems to move a little faster suddenly, though it’s likely my imagination.

Assuming the author and I are moving in the same direction, we will only meet if he slows down or if I speed up. I stretch my legs under the table and I wonder just how much faster I have it in me to go.

I wonder about the legitimacy of shortcuts.

-traveler