The Toiyabe Cafe is dark and with the fragrance of the decay of burger meat and with that mold smell you only smell in dark corners of small town buildings. On the green wall and in the windowsills hang clown and buffoon dolls, and the bust of a pronghorn antelope. All seem to stare eerily, as if from beyond the grave conspiring for our fries. By the bathroom, the sign says:
Question: God, Why Didn't You Intervene at Columbine when all those children were murdered?
Answer: God: Because they don't allow me in the schools.
The owner of the Toiyabe Cafe interrupts us with questions while we read Mike's pamphlet. The owner's hair is mostly missing up front, but like a wild shag rug in the back. His skin is the color of the chicken you forgot was in the fridge. How come a man so lucky to live in the sun is so pale?
Maybe the myth of the wide open is wide-open spaces. The farther from civilization, the closer the houses, the tighter people cling. Here in Austin, where homes are like sardines cropped by a sea of sage, you see that country people are little different from city people, only with less data by which to judge the world - small country towns breed indoor people too.
Reading the pamphlet that Mike gave us is like reading any small town scribe legitimizing the lifestyle of his town ('When I left the rat race, I realized how little the rats missed me being in their race') but this part I read twice:
Central Nevada is the last place in America where freedom is truly free.
The theme of freedom inundates the human experience in central Nevada, and this pamphlet is just one small hint. But what happens when wide open country spaces feel the pressure of the world's growing population? Do the rules of freedom change as the world becomes more crowded?
I am thinking back to that breezy conversation with Steve, the window guy, about freedom. Little do we know that soon, Jane and I will get caught in the middle of a raging debate about the changing nature of freedom in Nevada. As we head west, we’ll land dead-center in a debate that is sparking violence and hatred and lawsuits. A debate that involves off-roaders, out-of-state environmentalists, a serpent who hisses in the wind, and a group of Indians, whose sacred spiritual lands have been taken from them.
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