We travelled in half-time through the Ohio valley in the rain. We'd come through the vertical neon compression of space that is Breezewood, PA, crossed the river, and dove into a part of the country that visually portrays resignation as well as anyplace I've known. Handpainted warnings of damnation and strip joints in roadside shacks, narrow houses that fell randomly into place from an old Walker Evans photograph, cemeteries between highway offramps. We pulled over at a truck stop with restrooms that smelled like tic-tacs and had a hand drier that screamed loud as jets, where sullen-faced and crosseyed people stared and stood in a cloud around the cashier.
