We left Marfa going northwest on US-17 across the softly undulating prairie and through the occasional canyon, whose high walls would appear out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. We passed through a number of small towns, some of which we had had seen the previous afternoon on a day trip. One was called Balmorhea, which sounded enough like some sort of gastrointestinal illness to make us nervous about the fact that we were going there to swim in a chlorine-free public spring full of algae, catfish, and hundreds of strangers. Another was called Fort Davis, which appeared to be an authentic high desert hamlet until we noticed the upscale hotels and faux-rustic storefronts that we had learned were the telltale sign of a town that was playing to an audience. Not that I necessarily blame it; all too often, the faux-rustic storefronts in these highway villages were the only ones without boards in the windows.
Pecos, by contrast, had either given up on gussying itself up for passers-through or had never bothered to try. It was a hot, flat wasteland that smelled of cooked asphalt and motor oil. This would have been less unappealing if our hard-ridden chariot had not been overdue for an oil change, a task we delegated to a trustable old garage owner named Eddie, who had an completely incomprehensible accent and five portraits of John Wayne in his waiting room. While we waited for Eddie to finish up his previous charge, we went down the road to grab lunch at a place whose name, “Abi’s Kitchen,” was announced in a crude mural on its side wall.
The interior of Abi’s smelled like a nursing home, and managed to be just as drab despite its colorful sponge-pattern paint job. I ordered a runny bean-and-cheese burrito and a glistening mountain of fries that prompted my heart to start palpitating S.O.S. in Morse Code. Still, my hunger got the better of my prudence, and I finished the entire plate. Within minutes, my chest and back ached like I had been worked over with a tire iron. After paying, I lurched over to a nearby gas station mart for a dessert of Extra Strength Tums.
This experience is not atypical. Our diet thus far on the trip has involved a dual quest for balance—between frugality and nutrition; local variety and, well, nutrition. The initial Southern swing has been especially punishing on our digestive tracts, which, over the years, had been coddled into pusillanimity with soy, organics, and other forms of casually administered nutrition. In the South, especially the rural regions, food is fried and usually breaded—unless we’re talking burgers, in which case a wad of beef roughly the size of an infant is grilled until soggy with standing pools of grease and then balanced between white-flour buns. As a vegetarian, my menu has for the most part been limited to grilled cheese and French fries, for better or worse.
If it is early enough, I could at least get some protein in my body by ordering eggs. Such was the case at a restaurant in northern Alabama called Dee’s. Located on an otherwise condemned strip mall, Dee’s was the first diner that I ever needed to show I.D. in order to enter; a city ordinance forbade people under 19 years old from entering because it was a smoking establishment. With several rows of pool tables and a jukebox in the back, it could easily have passed for a bar, aside from the signs announcing its 3 p.m. daily closing time. The cooks did not seem especially pleased when we entered. “Ah don’ feel good,” muttered a mole-eyed gentleman with no fewer than four chins as he rousted himself to prepare our food. One can imagine how contagious his sentiment was. I owed Ben $10 from a tractor pull the previous night, and since I only had a few bills in my wallet I proposed that I pay for both our meals on my debit card. I asked whether they accepted debit in the same breath as I asked whether they were still serving breakfast. This, it turned out, was a mistake. The waitress paused hard before reluctantly taking my debit card. “No breakfis,” she said in a tone that precluded any further negotiations. Just like that, I was doomed once again to grilled cheese. “At least it has calcium,” Rachel offered, although even of this I could not be certain; the melted substance between the two buttery triangles of bread was a suspiciously lively shade of orange, and I suspected it might one of those synthetic products distributors were legally obligated to call “cheez,” lest it be confused with the actual thing.
In spite of these qualms, we have continued to endure such fare on a semi-regular basis. After all, our purpose in this journey is to experience America, and part of that experience involves adjusting to the nutritional vacuum that encompasses a large proportion of the country. However, we found out early on that participating fully in the American dining experience was inhibiting our ability to experience other aspects of America by dulling our senses and dampening our enthusiasm for exploration, learning, and activity in general. Therefore, we settled on a compromise: For roughly half our meals, we would opt for local restaurants; for the other half, we would eat at Subway.
The mere viability of this plan is a testament to the sandwich chain’s remarkable ubiquity. In a country notorious for being the fattest in the world, it is no less than stunning that Subway—a brand that promotes calorie-counting—has become the nation’s most prevalent fast-food restaurant. Franchises have cropped up everywhere: In gas stations and Wal-Marts, in strip malls and alongside desert highways. There is a saying that we have heard applied to nearly every town and city we have been that says if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. Along America’s interstates a similar rule applies: If you don’t like the food, wait five miles—there’s bound to be a Subway just up the road.
As I recall, the point at which this phenomenon began to pick up momentum was when Jared Fogle, the morbidly-obese-recluse-turned-svelte-spokesman, went on TV and held up his old pants to reveal the how repulsively wide he was before he was transformed by Subway’s magic sandwiches. Since, the brand’s popularity has skyrocketed, leaving observers to wonder whether America’s insecurity will prove ultimately more powerful than its appetite.
Posted from Deer Lodge Road, Cottonwood, Arizona.
