Auvey Adventure #1

Hello Darling.

     This is your first true Auvey Adventure. I recently sent you to a place that is my family's home, and has been for years. I love that side of my family. They are good people all the way through. I know the gas station is the Sharon Express now, but it will always be the Sharon Supermarket. I didn't tell you this, but that's the place I had my first (and last) Monster Energy.

     Now we are on to a new adventure, but it is in the same area. I know how I get there, but this is a place your GPS is able to take you. It's called the Starlite Cafe. It's in Alexander County. Here's the address:

3490 NC Highway 16 South

Taylorsville, NC 28681
 

     The woman who runs the cafe just opened a second one in Catawba, but it's just not as good. Nothing is ever as good as the original, because the original is real.

     My parents and I have eaten here a lot. If the booth by the vending machine is open, sit there. If it isn't that's okay. They play good country music, so feel free to hum along. That's what I do. Daddy looks at me funny when I start to dance. Sit yourself down and order some sweet tea. I hope it's alright if I order dinner for you; I know what's good. Get yourself a Wicked Willy Burger; I promise you'll love it. No, don't even look at the menu. Just trust me. Now, either get the waffle fries (my personal favorite) or the beer battered onion rings. Both are gloriously unhealthy and terribly delicious. Hell, get both if you're up to it. But save room for dessert.)

     Now take a look a round. This place is family owned. Those kinds of restaurants make the best food, hands down. If you're in the corner booth, good. If not, look that way. See the vending machine? It still sells drinks in a glass bottle. I've always thought glass bottle soda tasted better, not to mention the nostalgia I feel when I hold a glass Cheerwine bottle. Though they may be small & rarely found, there are still good things that exist in this world. And good people, too, like the people who run this place. In the corner booth beside that machine, I watched my grandma smile & laugh while she told us how she met her first husband- my dad's father, the grandfather I never had the honor of meeting.

     Your food should be out soon, so enjoy it. Delicious, isn't it? I knew you would love it. Remember I told you to order dessert. So ask the waitress for pecan cobbler- yes, cobbler. I'm not much of one for pecans, but the look on my grandma's face when she took her first bite was priceless. Everyone says it's amazing. So indulge yourself. If unfortunately they don't have cobber that day, I always get something chocolaty. Their cream pies are quite tasty.

     You're free to go at your leisure, but do me a favor. Tip your waitress as generously as you can. A lot of these waitresses are working two, three, or four jobs to get through school or raise a family. They're good, hardworking people- they deserve it.

Now get yourself back to the house, feeling full and content. And remember... I love you. Always.

-Auverin <3

~=`+`=~

 

 



     Highway 64 is born from the foothills. The road snakes it's way over hills and offers views across vast fields and picturesque homes set against the rolling forests and valleys, the mountains providing the perfect back drop in the distance. The foliage along this road is especially green from what I assume is the rich farm soil and the smell of the woods pierced all the way to the back of my skull as I drove with the windows down.

     My back was killing me after having driven over nine hundred miles in the last four days. The distance had taken its toll on my body and the lack of sleep wasn't helping either. My body did not agree with my brain when the latter tried to convince the former that a five-hour drive followed by a four-hour nap and then a full day of work with two two-hour drives is a complete cakewalk. My body must think my brain is an asshole. Keeping me awake was a tall can of Java Monster, a bad habit left over from my days in the Navy, and the local country music station. My GPS chirped away as I rode towards the destination given to me by sun-and-stars and I was doing my best to appreciate the countryside while fighting the building nauseousness in my gut. I had skipped lunched and breakfast that day, the only thing I had in my stomach was a piece of toffee I consumed during the horrid hour and a half long meeting I had driven two hours to attend and the watered down coffee Monster piss brewing in my guts.

     To be honest, if I hadn't been looking for the place I never would have found it. I knew my GPS was prone to lead me astray and that I really had no idea what I was looking for so it was fitting that at the moment I actually started reading signs I actually blew right past the restaurant. The name of the place is Cindy's Starlite Lounge, keeping with the theme, of course, of my darling lover giving me misleading titles to my destination. After using a church parking lot to turn around I made it back to the diner. It is a small structure of pale brick, the lettered sign by the road proclaiming it as the "home of the Wild Willy Burger!" which I was destined to encounter as part of my adventure.

     Now, I didn't know what to expect from this place. It looked clean enough, no rowdy rednecks out front throwing beer bottles or fighting dogs in the parking lot, no confederate flags in the windows or otherwise menacing looking characters the movies would expect you to encounter in a backwoods, small town dive like the one I was currently walking up to. When I passed through the doors I almost expected a bar with a group of two to three "regulars" giving me judgemental looks of the kind the old hobbit gives Gandalf as he rides into the Shire for the first time. Alas, there was no such bar or grimacing hairy old men. I stood there for a second and looked at my hand-written Auvey Adventure to make sure I wasn't missing any crucial steps until a waitress approached me to see what I wanted.

     "Uh... lunch?" I said.

     "Oh! You were standing there with that paper I thought you were here to pick something up!" she said in a sweet southern drawl.

     "No ma'am, I'm just following orders!" I replied. I could tell this confused her but she shook it off like a champ.

     "Well, just have a seat wherever you like and I'll be right with you," she said with a smile.
     The booth by the vending machines was taken by an old man in a trucker hat, whom I will refer to as Jim for the rest of this story because even if that wasn't his name he was very much a Jim, so I opted to sit in the booth closest to the door in case a hootenanny broke out and I needed to make a run for it.

     The only other people in the place were an an elderly white couple and a middle aged black couple, I was too far away from them to tell what they were munching on but all faces involved were displaying contentment to satisfaction. I relaxed and my back was grateful as it was starting to throb. The cushy booth was a nice reprieve from my truck's unforgiving man throne.

     The waitress approached me and I ordered sweet tea, the Wild Willy Burger (which my traitorous, asshole brain convinced me was pronounced like Wiley Coyote which she had no problem calling me out on) and the waffle fries without looking at the menu. Once my lady comes back to town for a spell I reckon we may pass by this way again so I decided to hold off on the onion rings.

     This is where I sat for an awful long time, there was only two waitresses on duty and probably one cook so the wait was expected. I zoned out for a bit and thought about Auverin sitting in the booth by the vending machine with her family, laughing, dancing, telling stories and otherwise enjoying each other's company. It's a strange concept, actually. Things have not always been smooth between her and her parents, especially where I became involved. There's an ongoing tongue-in-cheek conversation as to whether or not she was adopted she has so little in common with her parents. It sucks being the one who's never given a chance, in my case. Still, it's not impossible, especially when her grandparents are involved; the stories Auverin tells involving them are always the happiest family-themed tales she spins. I saw her grandma smiling and Auverin's attentive blue eyes following her grandmother's words. I saw them laughing at the punch lines and enjoying their food. I saw good memories that I was living in vicariously through the letter in my pocket. It was at this point that I realized Jim was staring at me as I had apparently been staring at him while I my wonderful imagination took off down Giddy Rainbow Lane. I gave him a wave and he gave me a grimace and I turned my attention to the TV in the corner

     She was right, the music was good. I had never seen the video to Zac Brown's "The Wind" before and if you haven't it's an animated masterpiece directed by Mike Judge that tells the story of a Robotic Redneck. It's amazing. Blake Shelton and Lee Brice did their thing along with a few other good acts and I nodded along and taped my foot.

     Then it came. The goal. The reason why I was here. The Wild Willy Burger. This thing was a slab of beef covered in coleslaw, mustard, grilled onions, and ihavenofuckingclue what else. The waitress had seemed concerned when I confirmed I wished to go "all the way" with the toppings but lawd, had I any idea what I was asking for I may have hesitated. The burger towered over the plate of seasoned waffle fries of which I had to consume a few to calm my pounding heart which I presume was trying desperately to flee from my chest after seeing what I was about to force it to endure.

     Mustering my reserves I hoisted this thing and bit down.

     Oh.

     My.

     Fuck.

     Grease poured from the meat and a riot of back porch flavors ransacked my world. I'm not saying it was the most particularly delicious burger I've ever had, but it was definitely the most interesting culinary experience I have endured in quite some time. I managed to stuff my face and shave a few years off my life expectancy at the same time and wash it all down with a pretty damn good glass of sweet tea.

     As I sat in the aftermath, while my body proceeded to engage desperate damage controls, one last song caught my attention. It was "Lovin' You Is Fun" by Easton Corbin. I had never seen the video before but it immediately grabbed my attention. It wasn't anything special, just Easton and his lady friend dancing and being goofy in a mix of settings while he mostly played guitar and she danced and was bubbly. Yet I couldn't help thinking "that's us," as it flashed it's happy message to the diner. I was content.

     The song ended just as I got up. I threw almost all the cash in my wallet on the table for my waitress and went to check out. The waitress at the register was new but she saw me looking at the pecan cobbler sitting in the glass display case by the door and she got me a piece. I also grabbed a glass Cheerwine bottle and they would not let me leave without a Styrofoam to-go cup of sweet tea. How could I resist?

     I got back in the truck and sat for a minute, letting the food rest and my mind wander back to the reason I was here in the first place. I smiled and whispered a silent "I love you" to my baby as I cranked Raspy up and hit the road.

     The distance between us is a hard thing to bear but I can feel her with me. She's home.

Entry no.0

(this is the only one that won't be on paper)
The County Line.
I'll be writing the rest to you in letters.
 Fine. Auvey Adventure: Test Run.
Pay attention. Copy and paste this. Print it out. Whatever you need to do to remember.
Hop on 40 east, like you're coming to me.
Get off on the Sharon School Road exit and turn left. You'll pass a gas station and a bunch of residential stuff. Eventually you'll come to a place where the road forks. To the left is a sharp curve. To the right is a straight road that goes by Sharon elementary school.
 Take the left, around the curve.
Here, I will point out that my father went to sharon elementary when he was a kid.
Once you get around the curve, there's another gas station.
The Sharon Supermarket.
My grandma and grandpa ran that store for years.
They let people pay on credit too. Like I said, some people still owe my grandmother money.
Keep going.
You'll pass a white house on the right with a confederate flag flying or hung up somewhere.
The next house on the right, sitting on the hill, with the long driveway and blue shutters. That's my grandmother's house.
I spent nearly every summer in that pool or running around in her front yard.
Everything that's planted there, she planted herself.
My mother and father got married there.
hat's where my dad grew up.
As you go past (slow down and take a look. Screw the people behind you.), you'll see a big field beside the house. My grandma owns all that land.
I used to run all over it in my fourwheeler.
Past the tree break, there's a big tree that's ancient.
You'll know when you see it. It's the only one.
If you look to the right of that tree, there are targets. My dad and I spent a lot of afternoons shooting down there.
It's one of the few things we bonded over.
The next house you see is a brick house with a red roof and a pretty yard. That's where my aunt and my cousin live. You met them.
 I spent a lot of time over there too.
But until recently, our family was a sort of secret society that gathered in my aunt's house.
The man my grandma married after her husband died was a mean sonofabitch sometimes. My grandma always liked to give all of us money for christmas, but he didn't want her to do it. So every time we came to visit at christmas, she would come to my aunt's house and sneak us money and remind us that it was a secret.
 Between my grandma's house and my aunt's house, on the left, a woman named lois lives there. She's my grandma's younger sister.
Makes damn good biscuits.
But if you keep going, you'll eventually come to another fork in the road. To the left is another sharp curve, to the right is a new road. County Line road. Go right.
It's a beautiful road to drive, especially at sunset. You can barely see the mountains over all the farmland.
If I had a bad day, or I just didn't want to go home, that was the road I would drive.
Windows down and good music. It always made me feel better.
So do just that. Find a damn good song and enjoy the ride. You'll feel better. You'll feel me, I hope.

~+~

The clouds had just begun to peel away from the sun as I pulled off on the Sharon School Road Exit. It had been raining all afternoon and the pavement was dark and moist looking in the fresh, post-precipitation kind of way. I took the left as instructed and crossed the bridge that went over the highway and began to drive down the road.

In my one hand was the steering wheel and in the other was the print out of my directions; I struggled to keep my Ranger on the road as I attempted to drive and memorize her words so I wouldn't have to endanger myself and fellow drivers like I was doing at that moment once I got into the thick of my journey. I know I could have pulled over and saved myself a heap of trouble, but dammit, I was on a mission.

See, this is the first of a series of adventures assigned to me by girlfriend who is away at university. I'm left here to work and save up to see her when I can. To fill those gaps of time when we are apart she has devised to leave me missions in the form of 'Auvey Adventures.' These tasks are her way of letting me know she's still around and to give me insight into her life, the one she had before me and before college.

These quests are to me as if the president himself handed me a self destructing letter that contained information with the tagline "THIS IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY" and "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION," "TOP SECRET," "TERRORISTS ARE BAD!"
"I won't let you down, Mr. President," I would say as I took letter.
But this is not the president. This is from my woman who is more real to me than the idea of our nation's leader in ever single way. So I simply smile to myself and continue down the road, inches away from driving off into a ditch and praying no one else on the road is as stupid as me.

I got to the fork and took a left. The gas station was on my right though it was not the Sharon Supermarket, it had been changed to the Sharon Express. I considered stopping to buy a drink but by the time the consideration reached my brain it had already given me the go-ahead to keep driving and that's what happened. Down the road I drove through country miles of twists and turns. I was on the verge of wondering if I had passed what I was supposed to be looking for when a faded confederate flag appeared over the next hill, waving gently from a steel poll next to an old garage.

Past that house, down the road, and up on hill beyond manicured lawns and flowered trees was the house in her description. It was a 'nice' house and I don't mean that lightly. Nice in every sense of the word. You can tell who lived there lived there and cared for what she had. I winked as I drove by, imagining what it would be like to meet her grandmother. Down the rolling field and almost hidden by the curve of the earth was the ancient oak standing alone in a sea of tan grass. The targets were almost hidden in the colors of the country setting but I saw them and remembered the story of this place. I could see her riding her four wheeler down the paths and up to the tree, see her climbing the branches and smiling at the land around her. Being a part of it.

I realized I had stopped in the middle of the road and there were people behind me. I shrugged and once more began to move. The other houses were there with their other stories but after that first one there was nothing else that had the impact I had felt. I was drinking watered down whiskey in a warm glass after you already had the experience of the first shot when it was still chilled on the bar.

I came to the fork for County Line Road and pulled over. I put on our song, took a right, and started to drive. To my right a group of horses had their heads over the fence and watched me pass. I waved to them but they didn't seem to care because they were horses. The road was about as country as they come without being made of dirt and gravel. Farmhouses and barns peeked from behind lonely trees. The treeline opened to vast expanses of vista views over cabbage and corn fields. I sang to the radio as I drove. There's a part in the song where always, without fail, I have to turn and see her. She knows this part too because she's always looking back. I turned my head and there she was, long red hair blowing in the wind being sucked through the rolled down window and that sweet smile upon her lips as we sang together.

"In a world, that gets lost in making plans, just be my woman, and I will be your man. Yeah..."

Then the words were gone and so was she but for just a fleeting second I felt her there with me. Heard her quiet voice. Remembered.

Then a strange thing happened. Cold set in. It seemed a betrayal that I should have to feel something like that after experiencing something so beautiful but these things don't pause to consider what you think you should be feeling. I remembered our story and not in a good way.The people involved, how I'm viewed by her parents, the darker side. I cringed. I didn't see the roads anymore or the sunset. I just saw the cold. The jealousy. The hurt.

But then like a wondering angel came a tap on the back of my brain.
And in a simple voice came one word. "Why?"
Why?
But...
I failed to produce a reason. I failed to produce a solid, legitimate reason why I should feel the way I did. There was no reason for me to feel that way. There never was I had struggled with that cold like a fish would struggle with a net for a long time and it had held me back from her. But why struggle with it? Why not cut through? I had the knife all along and the blade was that single word. Why? The answer is clear. That cold can go fuck itself. The past I resigned to leave as just that. I had my woman, I had every reason to live this life and be happy and she was waiting for me to see her seven days from now. Me. And I would be there. I would punch the gas pedal to the floor and tear the road up behind me and when I got to her I would wrap her in my arms sing those words that made us pause into her lips and that's why I am her man and she's my woman. It's that simple. We are ours.

When I came to I was back at Sharon Express. I didn't remember clearly how I got there but I do remember what I was feeling. Release. And it was good. This time I stopped and filled up my tank, even though it didn't need it. I got back into my truck with the windows down and started back towards the highway. And she was sitting next to me. Smiling.