Hillsville, Va.
Someday, around 8:20 on a Saturday night in November, you might pull into a BP with a Hillsville address that’s actually closer to...Woodgrove? Woodside? Woodlawn, it’s closer to Woodlawn. Whatever. You’re in Carroll County, on Carrollton Pike. The difference between a pike and a turnpike, if there is one, is lost on me. Regardless.
Someday around 8:15 on a Saturday night near the Virginia-North Carolina line you might decide to get off of Interstate 77 North. You would turn off at exit 14 and take a left. You go down the pike a third of a mile and take another left, across the street from where the name Airport Road dies and just becomes…
Farmers Market Drive. It’s all State Road 743. That’s the turn you want to take. There’s an Amaco and a Pizza Inn to the left and a McDonald’s and the BP, glorious BP, to the right. Well-lit. Golden arches just behind it. Single bathroom, no key. Slot machines with empty barstools.
That’s the gas station you want.
Pump before you go inside. Let everyone else take their turn. Yes, everyone else – this isn’t somewhere you go alone, because who wants to go up 77 at night by themselves? It’s a dreadful highway even during the daytime. Not so much the Virginia portion as the Carolina portion, you’d take the view out to Fancy Gap over the constant Express Lane signs any day. That’s beside the point.
Once someone else comes back to the car, you should tell them to watch the car. You’ll rush inside, half-dressed. They’re not judging you at the BP. It’s dark, you’ve been on the road for hours, and what should they care? No one at 52 Farmers Market Drive – that’s the BP, if you got lost somewhere between Hillsville and Woodlawn – is judging.
Man, a Happy Meal sounds tempting. Fries and a Coke and a simpler time. Anything to cure a headache.
When you get to the door for one of the two single bathrooms in the BP (your choice which), the room will be occupied. You knocked first, of course. It’ll be one of your friends – they’ll laugh when they come out. Go in.
Reflections look different in a BP mirror at 8:26 on a Saturday night when you’re coming home from a festival in another state. You’ve still got at least an hour on the road to go, and had to reschedule a meeting because you’re later than you thought that you would be.
Take your piss. Wash your hands. Open the swollen door, walk back past the slot machines. Get back in the car, where your friends are staring at you, waiting. Forget the golden arches.
Emelia Delaporte is an English student at Virginia Tech and long-time visitor of Floyd County. On campus, she runs the Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine, and writes about local color and regional travel for the student newspaper, Collegiate Times. Most of her weekends include some exploration of the New River Valley and beyond.
