What World Is This?

Recently I had to drive from California to Las Vegas. Since it was summer, I did not have to drive through Baker and the Mojave Desert, which was a total win. I got to go the scenic way.

This way included going through Dyer, NV, which is where Dolon from Cash and Gravity almost lives. When I realized the route was going to reunite me with the area that I wrote about, I was pretty excited.

I rolled through Dyer, and the one gas station had an RV that was blocking most of it. I had plenty of gas, so I just kept cruising. I had a ways to drive.

Somewhere along the way, I passed another gas station, but it was closed. This felt a little more ominous. I had plenty of fuel, but I would not make it to Vegas on a single tank.

I realized my next hope for gas was smack in the middle of the desert in beautiful Beatty, NV. You can maybe call Beatty a town. Beatty's town website proclaims it the "Gateway to Death Valley National Park" and then it asks how you heard of Beatty. Beatty has a four way intersection, a guy sometimes selling dented ammo cans for too much money, a bunch of ghost town structures, a Denny's, an actual high school, a couple of casinos, a place selling "fresh" jerky (what does that even mean?) and of course Eddie World Gasoline.

Eddie World Gasoline is not Eddy's World. It is Eddie World. On the shade structure of the gas pumps is an oval image of a boy's face. It's in black and white and has an old timey vibe.

While writing this, I looked up why it was called Eddie World. I thought the lack of a possessive in that name was weird, and I also have always found the cameo-eque photo/drawing of the bygone kid a bit creepy, like he died of consumption in one of the mining shacks.

While I looked into this, Wikipedia informed me that the Eddie World men's urinals have some sort of game attached to them. You apparently play it by peeing into the urinal. I immediately texted one of my male friends who has gone through Beatty a lot, demanding to know if this was true. He did not respond on my timeline (immediately... I'm working on developing patience) so I ran upstairs where my husband was taking a shower. (I'm not developing it right now).

"HEY," I said.

He took a second before responding. He had spent the entire day trying to change out the struts and control arms on my car only to realize, too late, they'd sent him a bad control arm, and some bolt got stripped, and the only way to fix it was to order another, and now we had a car down for a week while we waited for the parts. It was close to 100 degrees out, and my husband was covered in grease and looked like a coal miner.

"Yes?" he finally said.

"Is it true that in the urinals in Eddie World in Beatty you get to play a game by peeing?"

This was clearly not the question he thought I was going to ask.

"You mean the bathrooms in the back after you walk by all the candy?" he finally said.

"Yes."

"I was in there probably six years ago and there was no game in the urinals," he said.

This was not the real-time info I craved, but it was what I was going to get in that moment. I still don't know if the Eddie World urinals have a game associated with them. If you know, I want to know.

But back to the car ride. I needed to get to Eddie World to get gas. About an hour out from Beatty, the Amargosa Range mountains came into view, and I knew I was on the Eastern Edge of Death Valley National Park. This section of highway 95 drank up my gas like I had plenty to spare. It was flat, straight, and in one of the hottest places in the country.

I turned off my AC.

After forty minutes of sweating, I rolled past the 25 mph sign that let me know, I was entering Beatty, and my out-of-state plates were ripe for a speeding ticket. I crawled at 25 mph to the edge of town. Palm trees appeared and then, there it was, Eddie World. AND, the pumps had gas and people were refueling. I'd made it!

After getting gas, I went to the building. A cacophony of calls filled the air, and I realized the palm trees were attracting birds from all over. It was a literal oasis, and the birds were digging it.

While I only learned of the possible game in the men's bathroom upon writing this, the thing that I've always known about Eddie World is that, inside they have bulk candy, shelves of it. And, as my friend reminded me before my drive, you could, if you could find them, buy bags of just banana runts.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who love banana runts, and those who will vote against them, no matter the issue.

I went to the bathroom (as of this writing, the women's toilets do not have a game attached to them) and wandered down one of the rows of candy.

There, on one of the shelevs, were stacks of bulk banana runts.

I didn't touch the foul things, but I did document that they were still there, just waiting for a good home.

I left, banana runtless, but with 15 gallons of gas, and headed through what remained of Beatty. I did not see the man selling ammo cans, but I saw some of his wears. At the four-way junction, I had to back up and then drive around a semi trying to take a right into town. And then I was in the wilds between Beatty and Vegas.

I made it to Vegas just fine.

The desert is a weird place. And the people who make their homes in the desert are rarely boring. There is a world where selling gas and bulk banana runts is a legitimate buisness plan. That world is Eddie World, and really, it could only exist in the desert.

If you ever find yourself in a desert thinking it's a bunch of nothing, you're not looking close enough.