Truckstop: A Lake Wobegon Story by Garrison Keillor

Truckstop is a Lake Wobegon story that ranks among many fans favorites.  It originally aired on A Prairie Home Companion in the mid '80's and has appeared on the More News from Lake Wobegon story collection and in the book Leaving Home.

     It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.  Florian and Myrtle Kresbach left for Minneapolis on Tuesday, a long haul for them.  They're no spring chickens, and it was cold and raining, and he hates to drive anyway.  His eyesight is poor and his '66 Chev only has 47,000 miles on her, just like new, and he's proud of it.  But Myrtle had to go down for a checkup.  She cant get one from Dr. DeHaven or the doctors in Saint Cloud because she's had checkups from them recently and they say she is all right.  She is pretty sure she might have cancer.  She reads "Questions and Answers on Cancer" in the paper and has seen symptoms there that sound familiar, so when she found a lump on the back of her head last week and noticed blood on her toothbrush, she called a clinic in Minneapolis, made an appointment, and off they went.  He put on his good carcoat and a clean Pioneer Seed Corn cap, Myrtle wore a red dress so she would be safe in Minneapolis traffic.  He got on Interstate 94 in Avon and headed south at forty miles an hour, hugging the right side, her cluthing her purse, peering out of her thick glasses, semis blasting past them, both of them upset and scared, her about brain tumors, him about semis. Normally she narrates a car trip, reading billboards, pointing out interesting sights, but not now.  When they got beyond the range of the "Rise 'N Shine" show, just as Bea and Bob were coming to the "Swap 'N Shop" feature, a show they've heard every morning for thirty years, they felt awful, and Florian said "If it was up to me, I'd just as soon turn around and go home."

      It was the wrong thing to say, with her in the mood she was in, and she was expecting him to say it and had worked up a speech in her mind in case he did.  "Well, of course.  I'm sure you would rather turn around.  You don't care.  You don't care on timy bit, and you never have, so I'm not surprised that you don't now.  You don't care if I live or die.  You'd probably just as soon I died right now.  That'd make you happy, wouldn't it?  You'd just clap your hands if I did.  Then you'd be free of me, wouldn't you ---then you'd be free to go off and do our dirty business, wouldn't you."

     Florian, with his '66 Chev with 47,003 miles on it, wouldn't strike most people as a candidate for playboy-hood, but it made sense to her---forty-eight years of marriage and she had finally figured him out, the rascal.  She wept.  She blew her nose.

     He said, "I would too care if you died."

     She said, "Oh yeah, how much?  You tell me."

     Florian isn't good at theoretical questions.  After a couple minutes she said, "Well, I guess that answers my question.  The answer is, you don't care a bit."

     It was his idea to stop at the truckstop, he thought coffee would calm him down, and they sat and drank a couple cups apiece, and then the pie looked good so they had some, banana cream and lemon meringue, and more coffee.  They sat by the window, not a word between them, watching the rain fall on the gas pumps.  They stood up and went and got in the car, then he decided to use the men's room.  While he was gone, she went to the ladies room.  And while she was gone, he got in behind the wheel, started up, checked the side mirror, and headed out on the freeway.  Who knows how this sort of thing happens, he just didn't notice, his mind was on other things, and Florian is a man who thinks slowly so he won't have to go back and think it over again.  He was still thinking about how much he'd miss her if she was gone, how awful de'd feel, how empty the house would be with him lying alone in bed at night, and all those things when you want to turn to someone and say, "You won't believe what happened to me," Or "Did you read this story in the newspaper about the elk in Oregon?" or "Boy, Johnny Carson is looking old, ain't he? And Ed too,"  and she wouldn't be there for him to point this out to---and he tuned to her to tell her how much he'd miss her and she wasn't there.  The seat was empty.  You could have knocked him over with a stick.

     He took his foot off the gas and coasted to a stop.  He hadn't noticed her crawl into the backseat, but he looked and she wasn't there.  She hadn't jumped---he would've noticed that.  (Wouldn't he?). It couldn't've been angels taking her away.  He thought of the truckstop.  He was a good ways from there, he knew that.  He must've gone twenty miles.  Then, when he made a U-turn, he noticed he wasn't on the freeway anymore.  There was no median strip.  He was on a Highway 14, whatever that was.

     He drove a few miles and came to a town named Bolivia.  He never knew there was a Bolivia, Minensota, but there it was.  Went into a Pure Oil station, an old man was reading a Donald Duck comic book.  Florian asked, "How far to the Interstate?"  He didn't look up from his comic.  A pickup came in, the bell dinged, the old man kept reading.  Florian went down the street into a cafe, Yaklich's Cafe, and asked the woman where the Interstate was.  She said, "Oh, that's nowheres around here."  "Well, it must be," he said, "I was just on it.  I came from there."

     "Oh," she says, "that's a good ten miles from here.:

      "Which way?"

      "East, I think."

      "Which way is East?"

     "What way you come in?"

     "That way!"

     "That way is northeast.  You wnt to go that way and then a little southeast when you get to the Y in the road.  Then keep to your left.  It's about two miles the other side of that old barn with Red Man on the side.  Red Man Chewing Tobacco.  On your left.  You'll see it."

     There was a funny look about her: her eyes bulged, and her lips were purplish.  Her directions weren't good either.  He drove that way and never saw the barn, so he turned around and came back and looked for the barn on the right side, but no barn, so he headed back to Bolivia, but Bolivia wasn't there anymore.  It was getting on toward noon.

     It was four o'clock before he ever found the truckstop.  He had a long time to think up something to tell Myrtle, but he still had no idea what to say.  But she wasn't there anyway.  The waitress said, "You mean the lady in the blue coat?"  Florian didn't remember what color Myrtle's coat was.  He wasn't sure exactly how to describe her except as real mad, probably.  "Ja, that's the lady in the blue coat," she said.  "Oh, she left here hours ago.  Her son come to get her."

     Florian sat and had a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie.  "Can you tell me the quickest way to get to Lake Wobegon from here?" he asked.  "Lake what?" she said.  "I never heard of it.  It can't be around here."

     But it was, not too far away, and once he got off the freeway he found his way straight home, although it was dark by then.  He stopped at the Sidetrack for a quick bump.  He felt he owed it to himself after all he'd been through and what with what he was about to go through.  "Where's the old lady?" asked Wally.  "Home, waiting for me," he said.

     He headed south and saw his house, and kept going.  Carl's pickup was in the driveway and he couldn't see facing the both of them.  He parked on the crossroad and sat, just beyond Roger Hedlund's farm, where he could watch his house.  It was dark except a light was on in the kitchen and one in the bathroom.  Roger's house was lit up.  What if Roger should see him and come out to investigate?  Out here in the country, a parked car stands out more than a little bit, you might as well be towing a searchlight behind you.  It's considered unusjal for a man to sit in his car in the evening on a crossroad an eighth of a mile from his own house, just sit there.  If Roger came out, Florian thought he'd explain that he was listening to the radio and it was a Lutheran show so the old lady wouldn't have it in the house---Roger was Lutheran, he'd like that.

     He ducked down as a car came slowly past, its headlights on high beam.  The preacher on the radio might be Lutheran, he didn't know.  It sure wasn't the Rosary.  The man was talking about sinners who had wandered away from the path, and it seemed to Florian to fit the situation.  "Broad is the road that leadeth to destruction, and narrow is the path of righteousness"--that seemed to be true too, from what he know of freeways.  The preacher mentioned forgiveness, but Florian wasn't sure about that.He wondered what this preacher would do if he dad forgotten his wife at a truckstop and gotten lost; the preacher knew a lot about forgiveness theoretically but what would he do in Florian's situation?  A woman sang, Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.  See by the portals he's waiting and watching.  Calling, O sinner come home."

     Florian felt weary.  Seventy-two is old to get yourself in such a ridiculous situation.  He waited as long as he could for Carl to leave, and then the coffee inside him reached the point of no return and he started up the engine.  Taking a leak in another man's field: he drew the line at that.  He turned on his headlights, and right when he did he saw Carl's headlights far away light up and the beams sung around across the yard and Carl headed back toward town.

     Florian coasted up his driveway with the headlights out.  He still did not have a speech ready.  He was afraid.  He also had to pee.  Outside, on the porch, he smelled supper:  breaded fish fillets.  He was surprised that the door was unlocked---they never have locked it but he thought she might if she thought he was coming.

     He hung up his coat in the mud room and looked around the corner.  She was at the stove, her back to him, stirring something in a pan.  He cleared his throat.  She turned.  She said, "Oh thank God."  She dropped the spoon on the floor and ran to him on her old legs and said, "Oh Daddy, I as so scared.  Oh Daddy, don't ever leave me again.  I'm sorry I said what I did.  I didn't mean it.  I didn't mean to make you so angry at me.  Don't leave me again like that."

     Tears came to his eyes.  To be so welcome---in his own home.  He was about to tell her that he hadn't left her, he'd forgotten her; then she said, "I love you, Daddy.  You know that."

     He was going to tell her, but he didn't.  It occurred to him that leaving her on account of passionate anger might be better than forgetting her because of being just plain dumb.  There wasn't time to think this through clearly.  He squeezed her and whispered, "I'm sorry.  I was wrong.  I promise you that I'll never do a dumb thing like that again."

     She felt good at supper and put on the radio; she turned it up whe she heard "The Saint Cloud Waltz."  Sometimes I dream of a mansion afar but ther's no place so lovely as right where we are, here on a planet that's almost a star, we dance to the Saint Cloud Waltz.  That night he lay awake incredulous.  That she thought he was capable of running away, like a John Barrymore or something.  Seventy-two years old, married forty-eight years, and she thought that maybe it hadn't worked out and he might fly the coop lik people do in songs?  Amazing woman.  He got up at six o'clock, made scrambled eggs and sausage and toast, and felt like a new guy.  She felt better too.  The lump on her head felt like all the other lumps and there was no blood on the toothbrush.  She said, "I wonder if I hadn't ought to call down there about that appointment."  "Oh," he said, "I think by now they must know you're all right."

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