GrayRoad.html

The Long Gray Road

By Sue Esty AKA Windsinger
Windsinger@AOL.com

DATE: 12/21/02
AUTHOR: Sue Esty AKA Windsinger
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: G
CLASSIFICATION: Story
SPOILERS: The first and last episodes of season 9
KEYWORDS: Angst
SUMMARY: It's Christmas of Season 9 and where is Mulder? From the
series finale we know New Mexico but Œsearching for the truth‚
does not necessarily mean staying in one place. Survival for
Mulder cannot mean staying in one place.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.
DISCLAIMER: No, the X-Files and the characters of Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully do not belong to me, I would have treated them better.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The work was started the winter of winter as a
response to a challenge based on a song but my PC ate that piece
of fiction and the song so this stands alone. The lyrics here are
mine. My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue'
with the newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger. My
work can also be found on Tamra's excellent Connections site
http://X-Files.bytewright.com/Rev.html.

The Long Gray Road (1/1)

December 22, 2002

"Oeufs on his back with legs!" Jenny called back into the
kitchen.

Sam, the acne-scarred college kid sweating over the grill,
grinned. He was new enough to still find the colorful language
amusing and it eased Jenny's boredom to have to come up with new
words to describe the same old thing even if the game had
resulted in some interesting combinations appearing from the
grill.

Above her an old cowboy-turned-trucker tune began to play. After
all, shuffling cows along the trail wasn't so much different
than hauling the equivalent of beef in an eighteen-wheeler.
Somehow it seemed all the more poignant in the holiday season.
<The gray road rumbles / under my wheels / Do ya ever wond‚r,
darlin'/ how empty that feels> The old road warriors loved it,
the ones of her generation, the ones with gray hair and
hemorrhoids.

Jenny gave change to the headman of a quartet of state snowplow
operators for four Daily Specials and coffee. Most of these were
city guys; they wouldn't have gotten the heart of the song. Most
of them were within two hours of home and had the snowplows that
were needed this time of year to get there. Instinctively, she
looked up as the jingle bells Sam had strung above the cafe door
rang wildly. At the same time a blast of snow-driven wind rolled
into the room sending the cheap Wallmart ornaments on the
plastic tree dancing precariously. The bent figure that shuffled
in was so heavily hunched against the storm that for a moment
Jenny wasn't sure whether he was one of her regulars or not. His
back was to her for a moment while he struggled with the old
door so that it would close and stay closed. He had his knitted
cap off by the time he turned around. Courteously, he shook
clumps of melting snow from cap and ragged coat onto the mat.
Not a regular, but far from a stranger. She smiled as she caught
his eye but there was only fatigue in the shadowed hazel depths.
He had looked her way as a matter of courtesy only. Depositing
the wet cap and coat on the hook beside an empty booth, he
dropped down onto the cracked, red plastic bench.

"A special with extras of everything," Jenny called over her
shoulder to Sam. No cute language this time. Her hands were
already reaching for the coffee pot and a mug.

The new arrival didn't look up when the mug appeared before him
but his long fingers had wrapped themselves around it before she
even began to pour. They needed the warmth no doubt. You can
have the temperature in your cab jacked up to Miami levels and
the cold of a day like this will still settle into your bones.

"That's decaf," she told him sternly. "By the way those hands
are shaking I'd say that you've had far too much of the high
octane stuff."

The slightest of crooked smiles touched his lips. He raised his
eyes this time. "Yes, mom." His voice had a disused quality as
if he had not talked to another human being for days.

"So what you hauling this time?"

He had to think about that.

<Oh, the gray road's a curse / Oh, the gray road is long. / It's
only where I have to live / not where I belong.>

"Electronics. San Diego is all I know."

"Kinda late in the year for retail."

He shrugged.

"And how many miles have you done since you slept?"

"Jenny..."

"Book, where'd you leave from?"

"Chicago," he admitted grumpily.

"When?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Book, you're sick, or suicidal, or maybe both."

"Is my regular room free?" he snapped, eyes flashing with
irritation despite his fatigue.

"If it isn't, I'll clear out whatever slackard is in it, but
only if you swear that you'll get some sleep."

"Don't go to any trouble on my account. I can crash anywhere," a
pause, "in my cab if I have to."

Jenny softened her tone. After fourteen or sixteen hours behind
the big wheel they all come in irritable and the last thing they
wanted to see was the inside of their cabs. "No, you don't. You
need an change of scenery, even if your eyes are shut."

He opened his mouth to argue but then thought better of whatever
he was going to say. "I guess I could," was what finally came
out. "Thanks."

Jenny headed back to the counter with the nagging impression
that she had touched something even more sad about this man than
normal and sadness was about all she had gotten from him in the
-- what had it been? -- eight times that he had crossed her
threshold. He never stayed more than one night except during one
trip, and only then because he had had the flu.

Sam arrived with the man's dinner -- mounds of whipped potatoes
and a good helping of tender stewed pot roast, carrots and
onions -- one of The Wayside's better efforts.

The weary eyes brightened as the plate appeared on the table.

"You're going to make me fat."

"Not a chance in hell of that. You've even lost more since I
last saw you."

The smile was gone. "It's been a bad couple of months."

"With you they all seem to be."

A shrug. From the past Jenny had learned that there was no way
that this out-of-place roadway warrior was ever going to talk
about the monkey on his back, not ever.

"Do I have a package?"

"Sure do, big one. Christmas presents or same sort of thing?"

His face shadowed at being reminded of the holiday. "Same sort
of thing."

"Shall I get it now or are you going to lay over?" His
hesitation was all she needed. "You're stayin'. Sleep late. You
have the run of the laundry from ten till twelve, AND I got an
early Christmas present -- a hot tub. I'll turn up the water
heater. It's around back, look under the old parachute." His
eyes looked up at her comment, crinkled with amusement. "Yeah, I
know, it's hardly cold long enough in New Mexico to make it
worth while. Sam and the boys must have won it in a crap game,
but it has its uses." She let her own eyes suggest the obvious
to which the crinkles at the sides of his eyes deepened. "Hey,
I'm not that old. Anyway, you may get frostbite on your nose but
I'll guarantee that it will cook the rest of you which is what
you seem to need."

She was rewarded with a genuine smile this time. "Guess I'm not
being given a choice about staying."

"No you aren't," and she let it go at that. Jenny felt just a
little light-headed as she headed back to her post by the cash
register. The rare brilliance of inner man went down like a shot
of good wine.

Business was brisk for the rest of the evening. Shift change
time for the road crews will do that. Truckers trickled in in a
constant stream but in their hurry to be home, none stayed long.
Jenny was busy but not overly so. The Wayside had been able to
afford a second waitress for lunch and evenings since the state
decided to fund the cut through Parson's bluff. It was the
Saturday before Christmas, however, so the crowd, though good-
natured, was more boisterous than usual. All in all Jenny
somehow ended up in the kitchen with Sam, cooking and later
cleaning. With relief she was finally able to wave good-night to
the college student from the back porch. Half asleep she locked
the door and turned off the lights. It was only with the
overhead flourescents off that a colorful dim gleam from the
dining room became obvious. The waitresses should have closed
down out there.

Entering the silent room, she was heading for the Christmas tree
to turn off its meager string of lights when she saw him.

Sometime not so long after she had left him, Book -- her
occasional customer and sometimes border with that even less
frequent smile -- had leaned back against the corner of his
booth and fallen asleep. The time was pretty easy to estimate
because he had eaten less than a third of the meal Sam had
dished up for him.

With a sigh, she wrapped the plate in foil and stowed it in
employee frig in the office. Now what to do with the man? The
tiny room he usually slept in when he passed through was next to
her own in the old farmhouse across the back yard. All too often
she had heard his restless tossing and turning and occasional
incoherent murmurings so she was reluctant to disturb this deep
and desperately needed - if uncomfortable - sleep. Another sigh
and she retrieved one of the extra quilts from the house, tucked
it around his shoulders, and took herself to bed.

It was after three a.m. when Jenny heard soft sounds from the
yard. She wasn't alarmed; it was probably just the deer or
possibly raccoons or a pronghorn. The Wayside's regulars had
also learned to make themselves at home and some trucker may
have just come in late and was making his way to the bunkhouse.
The long, low building made the third side to the triangle's
yard, the cafe taking up one side and the farmhouse the other.
Still, she rose and pulled aside the slats of the dusty venetian
blinds.

The storm had passed. The wind was barely sufficient to rustle
the old, rusted windchimes that hung from the gnarled
cottonwood. The sky was winter star bright. The new, unbroken
snow glowed as only new snow can. After a few moments she made
out a movement. Not an animal, unless one counted the two legged
variety. Someone was making use of the hot tub. She found this a
little surprising; she didn't make the offer to just anyone.

The figure was just emerging, tall and lean. No beer belly on
this old boy. The figure stepped out into the field of snow that
blanketed the yard. She caught a glimpse of pale, long legs
below the coat he held closed with one hand. For a long time he
simply stood, his head thrown back as he contemplated the stars.
At her window Jenny stood as well, fascinated at how he could be
remain outside as long as he was wearing little more than boots,
his coat and, she assumed, underwear.

Suddenly, he swayed, the bundle of clothes he carried dropped,
and he fell onto his knees, hands in the snow. Jenny started,
the drowsiness that remained in her vanishing in an instant. She
needed to go; Book might be ill because, of course, she had
known almost from the beginning who it was. She also knew from
the rigidity of his posture that he wasn't ill. He had raised up
though still on his knees to stare again at the stars. For a few
more seconds he remained that way, head thrown back. Then his
arms came around to clutch his stomach and he bent till his head
could have touched the snow. Even from the distance between them
she could see his shoulders shaking.

She did not go to him, but neither could she pull away from the
window. She told herself that she would go if he stayed too long
as he was nearly naked in that snow. Eventually he did get to
his feet, wiping his eyes for a moment with the back of his hand
like a little boy. Retrieving his bundle and shaking off the
wet, he willed his body towards the farmhouse. Hastily, Jenny
released the blind slats she had held apart and stepped back
from the window though she had not turned on any light so he
never could have known she was there. Moments later there came
the creak of the old storm door and seconds after that scuffing
steps in the hall and then softer sounds of movement in the tiny
room that shared one wall with hers. She imagined that room now,
little more than a closet, just like the three others that the
Wayside rented to those customers that it felt could be trusted
to behave civilly in the house. That was what had caught Jenny's
attention first about Book, the very civil way he had asked how
far he would have to go to find more private accommodations
after he saw the communal conditions of the bunk-lined
bunkhouse. Dirty and with at least a week of beard, his
appearance had not caught her eye but his voice had. Fine liquor
sliding over thorns.

It was enough. She had offered him one of their 'guest' rooms
that night. Most of the independent haulers bulked at the extra
cost but not this one.

It all comes around to trust, she had told herself. She did not
know much about this man then and not much more now. That sorrow
as he knelt in the snow... Painful as that had been to watch,
she had glimpsed that total sadness in him before. When he had
turned from his first look at the tiny bare room with its narrow
twin bed to thank her, Jenny had been able to see into his eyes
for the first time. She had never known that loneliness could be
such a palpable thing.

Cold, she went back to bed. It took a while lying still under
the blankets to not feel that cold anymore. Waiting, she heard
the springs protest softly from the next room. They continued to
complain, for what seemed forever as her boarder turned and
turned. He'd never warm that way. She would get him more
blankets in the morning.

Listening to that restless music, Jenny slept.

He didn't come into the diner for breakfast until late. If you
ignored the sunken, dark eyes, he looked -- in a word --
wonderful. The many days' growth of beard was gone and there was
color in his otherwise pale cheeks though Jenny suspected that
the color came from his early run and the shower that followed
and not from health. With his too-loose jeans he wore a rumpled,
though clean, blue plaid shirt. The edge of a black T-shirt
peaked above the collar. He was too good-looking by far for the
Wayside.

He had nearly finished the huge plate of eggs and home fries,
steak, biscuits and gravy when Jenny brought him the package. It
was larger than usual and filled both her arms though it was far
from being as heavy as it looked.

Mouth still full, he jumped to his feet. "I could have gotten
that."

"No trouble. Besides, I'm dying to know what's inside this
time."

He was working on the strapping tape with his steak knife as she
peered at the return address. "St. Cloud, Minnesota," she read.
"What has it been before -- Nashville, Tallahassee, Phoenix,
Carson City. You don't like the East?"

He gave her a shaky sort of smile. "Do you take this much
interest in all your customer's mail?"

"Most of you highwaymen have their mail sent to their homes, not
to an out-of-the-way hole in the middle of the high desert like
this one."

He didn't respond to that but a kind of bruised look came into
the eyes that were too dark already. That was when Jenny
withdrew her foot from my mouth and vowed to say nothing more on
the subject of homes. She had already concluded that he probably
didn't have one, or least not one where there was anyone waiting
for him with open arms. Incomprehensible to her, considering his
fine looks and gentle manner, but she would never ask. It was
not for her to prod that open wound. Better to distract them
both by dipping into the contents of the box.

As Jenny had expected, it contained half a library. There were
some paperbacks, but the bulk of the space was taken up with
sizeable plastic boxes of books on tape, all unabridged, and a
few smaller boxes of books on CD as well as twenty or more music
CDs.

This was clearly balm for a man who didn't want to be alone with
his own thoughts very long during those long, long hours behind
the wheel of his modest twelve-wheeler.

"Let's see what they sent this time," Book wondered as he
reached in to pull out a thick folder that must contain eighteen
tapes or more. "Ah, 'First Man in Rome', Colleen McCullough --"

"Who wrote the 'Thorn Birds'," Jenny reported to his obvious
surprise. "We're cowfolk, not illiterate. 'Pride and Prejudice'?
Jane Austin?"

He did seem a bit mystified. "I give the librarians an idea of
what I liked and told her to throw in some surprises."

"Well, you certainly have an assortment: Clive Baker, Stephen
King, Charles Dickens, Piers Anthony, Ben Bova, Robert Frost,
Robert Louis Stevenson, an Honor Harrington..." she recited
reaching ever deeper into the box. "Here's a good one, Lois
McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigen series. Have you Œread‚ any
of these before?"

He looked up from where he had been shuffling through the CD
books. "Another one? Good, I like those. What's this? Navada
Barr?"

"Oh, I like her. Mysteries about a park ranger. A different park
for every book. Carlsbad Caverns is my favorite, then there's
Mesa Verde. The one you have in your hand takes place on Lake
Superior. She meets this FBI agent and they start getting
interested in each other. The FBI has jurisdiction on federal
park land."

She sensed a stiffening in his shoulders. "I know," he said his
face having lost all animation. He returned that one to the
bottom of the box.

"You don't care for the FBI? Don't worry, he's not around much.
Three books later he meets the heroine's sister and they get
married. I keep an eye out for each new installment. I hope that
she'll finally meet someone permanent but she hasn't yet. There
was this sheriff in Mississippi but I guess that didn't last."
All at once she realized that she was rambling on. "Sorry, I'm a
born Romantic. I'm happy when even my favorite literary
characters settle down. In Elizabeth Peters' series Ramses and
Nefret finally got married and I hear in Bujold's new book Miles
not only gets married but puts two children in the can. Sorry,
that's an obscure reference."

Catching herself again, she sheepishly looked up to find her
customer smiling ever so faintly in her direction.

"Sorry. Working way out here in the middle of nowhere, there's
no one much I can share my interests with."

Though he didn't seem offended, he did begin abruptly to pack
the books away. "I have some laundry to do," and with that said
took his box and vanished.

A feeling of unease followed her for the rest of the day. It
wasn't hard to figure out that she had said or done something
that had made her new friend uncomfortable. At least she saw him
as a friend, whether her kind feelings were returned was
debatable.

She did get a smile out of him later. No one could help but
notice that Book liked to exercise, he couldn't have kept that
trim physique without it, and it being Chrismas break at the
local college she offered to drop him off at the natatorium
while she ran some errands. His face lit up at the suggestion.

"You don't mind?"

"It's my pleasure," and it was, especially when she returned in
time to see that eel-like form in its little scrap of red slide
out of the pool. Water streamed down those broad shoulders, flat
stomach and lean flanks. He could have charged admission. There
were plenty of people who thought that she shouldn't be having
such thoughts, she old enough to be his mother. Well, she wasn't
dead and when they day came that she couldn't appreciate a fine
piece of man flesh then she might as well be.

But someone didn't appreciate this particular piece of man
flesh. Jenny had decided months before that the problem had to
be a lover's quarrel. Well, it didn't matter what bull-headed
argument had the poor man tied in knots; the other side of that
relationship should have her head examined to let this one get
out of her sight.

At dinner Jenny made certain that Book's favorites were on the
menu. It gladdened the woman's heart to see him eat with
appetite. He had gotten all the way to the apple pie when she
realized that the song was playing again.

<Oh, the gray road's a curse/ oh, the gray road is long. / It's
only where I live / not where I belong.>

The words made her think of Book more than ever for if there was
ever a man out of place it was this one. Perhaps if he talked it
would help, and who better to tell your troubles to than a nice,
safe mature woman 'of a certain age'.

Through the first verse of the song he continued to eat and
study the map spread out before him. It was of the Western U.S.
He'd also brought a small stack of well-thumbed magazines to
which he kept referring. They were all from the same publication
and the word ŒGunman‚ seemed part of the title, which made no
sense to Jenny. There was nothing of the red-neck about Book. In
addition he was jotting down figures on a napkin after first
referring to the unlikely publication and highlighting a route
on the map. The wide sheet was already cris-crossed with at
least fifty out-of-the-way and circuitous routes in a rainbow of
colors. Most seemed to begin or end in New Mexico. Clearly, he
was looking for something and hadn't found it. So intent was he
that he clearly didn't hear the music. Jenny turned up the
volume and watched as a few moments later the dark head raised.

<Oh, you may be small / but there's fire in yer spine. / See
what a hole you've put/ in this tough hide of mine.>

His face darkened. Eyes full of betrayal and annoyance turned in
her direction. In the time it took to gather his materials from
the table he was gone. Even the napkin had disappeared into his
pocket.

From the radio, electric guitars and wailing fiddles and drums
pounded out the instrumental interlude.

His distress was so acute that she would have followed him then
and there if three customers had not been waiting in line to pay
their bills. It was a therefore a few minutes before she could
get away. She found him outside standing by the frozen farm
pond, staring at nothing but the newly risen moonlight on the
smooth blanket of white. The last lines of the song driftly
faintly over the snow.

"I'm sorry," Jenny apologized. "I didn't mean for you to be
upset." After a pause during which time he remained silent she
went on. "It just helps sometimes to know that you're not alone,
that other people feel lost, too." More silence. "I was married
once. He died in the Vietnam, some silly friendly fire thing."

The stern face softened visibly. "How long did you have
together?" he asked in a very soft voice.

"Fifteen years."

That was when Jenny realized how stupidly she had gotten it
wrong. She had assumed that a stormy breakup was the cause of
all this angst, but he could just as well be a widower and she
may have just rubbed considerable salt in what was clearly a
terrible open wound.

"Stupid, stupid of me. Did you lose your wife?"

"Lose my wife?" There was a bitter irony in his voice. "You
could say that."

"She's dead?"

He said nothing for a long while but turned to head for his room
in the farmhouse. "No," was wrenched out of him before head
gotten quite out of earshot, "and it's up to me to keep it that
way."

He was gone the next day. Jenny shouldn't have been surprised.
The slight scuffing sounds on the other side of the wall from
her room during the night had been his packing his few
belongings. In the barn the Wayside kept some old lockers that
had been thrown out when High Mesa Middle School was remodeled.
The regulars kept personal items there to be sorted through
between trips. Jenny knew that Books had taken the one on the
far end as his own and had packed it fairly full and protected
it with a solid lock. Lock and contents were gone well before
morning.

December 20, 2009

At the Wayside it was a slow mid-week afternoon a week before
Christmas. Jenny had thought of Book already because a snowstorm
was scheduled that that evening. All this time and still the
ache was there. She didn't need to wait tables but she liked to.
When Sally had to answer an emergency phone call from her
babysitter, she took over the girl's one remaining table. At it
sat a strikingly beautiful red-headed woman and an uncommonly
handsome, dark-haired boy of about six. When Jenny brought the
woman her credit slip to sign she noticed that the boy had a
copy of the _ Lord of the Rings _ by his plate. Very advanced
for a child his age. He also had the biggest, brightest pair of
hazel eyes she had ever seen. The eyes triggered an impossible
explosion of recognition.

"You sure cleaned your plate," she mentioned to the boy while
the woman signed.

"It was great. Thanks."

The woman smiled up at her offspring. "We were told that if we
were ever in the area that we should stop and order the
meatloaf. I'm glad we did."

It was all Jenny could do to keep her voice from shaking.
"Sounds like an endorsement from one of my regulars."

"Well, he was once." An oddly shy expression crossed the woman's
lovely face. "I see your name tag; you're Jenny and you look
like your description. I'm glad I have the opportunity to thank
you. He said that you were kind to him during a dark time in his
life."

Jenny's mouth went dry. The ache squeezed at her heart. She
found herself sitting down and the woman bending over her,
professionally taking her pulse like any doctor.

"Are you alright?" she asked concerned. "Should I call someone."

"Is he here?" Jenny asked stupidly. Of course not, otherwise he
would have eaten with his family because the boy could not be
anything but his.

The woman's face grew very sad.

No oh God, no.

"Is he; Is he all right?"

"Oh, yes. I'd just that have to travel a lot in my work like in
so many modern marriages so we don't get to see each other as
much as we would like. Still, our work is important and a
sacrifice we're willing to make." She smiled over at the boy who
was sitting concerned but patiently at his place. Very mature
for his age. " Sam is just keeping me company on this trip, not
that he's much company," she chided gently. "Your nose has been
in that book since we left."

"You have to admit, it's a good book though," I said rising,
feeling much better.

"Yes, could be worse. Gets lost in other worlds sometimes
though, just like his father."

"You have other children?" I couldn't help but ask hungry for
any information.

A greater darkness on that beautiful face now. Not a 'yes' or
'no' but, "Sam is our second son." With that, as if suddenly
uncomfortable, the woman reached out for Jenny's hand to shake
it. "Thank you again, but we had better get on the road. We have
a long way to go tonight before we reach home. Are you sure that
you're all right?"

"Never better now."

As the woman turned to go, Jenny called out, "There's a storm
due. You be careful."

She turned back long enough to reply, "Oh, we've weathered worse
and come out safe on the other side. I imagine I'll get through
this one without any problems."

And then she was gone.

Jenny watched the car drive away. It was not a new car, not a
fancy or flashy car, but not a breakdown waiting to happen. How
she wished she could see him but then did she need to? In her
aging mind he would be ever young and clearly he had found a
life, maybe not a serene life, but at least a life other than
one spent endlessly following the long, gray road.

The End