The world was a thick green smear streaked across either side of the jeep, set against the sort of ultramarine canvas that Renaissance masters would have killed for. A sun-bleached ribbon of asphalt undulated in front of me, and my eyes were heavier than they should have been for the speed I was driving. Stayed up too late last night, I thought, but what can you do when entire seasons of Cops are playing themselves out right outside your motel door? Jamie's music wasn't helping matters. Some heavy Jamaican dub stuff. Good, but not morning music. It didn't bother her. She was curled up again, wearing a black and white sixties-style dress, white headband, and the ragged cloth slippers from Chinatown that seemed attached to her feet whenever she felt like wearing shoes. Eyes closed. I'd thrown on a slim-cut black suit I bought a few years earlier and managed to keep in fairly good shape, which was more than could be said for my shoes, which had been impressive at one point a few years ago. I've heard that a man's desired wardrobe can finally be reconciled with his income at age thirty-five, and as I still had several years to go, I was doing the best with what I had. For some reason, we both felt the need to look sharp when we rolled into Winchester, what with our primary target being such a formal affair and all.


Said primary target made itself known shortly, as the hills leveled out into flat farmland that was in the full swing of being fertile and making for a decent fall harvest. Corn and soy beans mostly, from what I could tell, and I couldn't tell much. I grew up in Kentucky farm country, but my grandfather had stuck to horses and tobacco. Beyond the basics, I'd never been much for correctly identifying crops. Any field of tall stalks was corn, and any field of squat green plants was soy bean.


Morning mist was still clinging stubbornly to the ground when we pulled into the parking lot. Jamie rubbed the tiredness out of her eyes, which grew wide as soon as she realized what she was looking at.

"Did I lie?" I asked her as I pulled into a parking spot adjacent to the bottom row of chipped white concrete teeth that were part of the lower jaw of a gaping T Rex mouth that served as the entrance to White Post, Virginia's Dinosaur Land. To our right were two more dinosaurs, one a brontosaurus, the other one of those two-legged beasts that, because no one knows exactly what it is, simply gets called an allosaurus. They were frozen in mid-menace of an Amoco gas station sign. To our left, just visible on the crest of a hill, was a giant octopus locked in mortal combat with a prehistoric shark. In front of us was a sign:

20' Kong! 60' Shark! 90' Octopus! Christmas Shop!


"Just like prehistoric times," Jamie said as she slid out the door, adjusting her dress's hemline slightly as it gathered around her thigh. I held her hand as she stepped gingerly over the row of dinosaur teeth and into the maw of the beast. Christmas bells tinkled lightly as I opened the door for her, and the smell of cinnamon rolled out in waves.

"I never knew being swallowed by a dinosaur would be so pleasant," Jamie said.

The room inside was an expansive open area lit by sickly fluorescent tube lighting. One of them, situated over a wall of motley colored rubber dinosaur figures piled high in bushel baskets, was flickering stubbornly, unwilling to completely commit itself to full lighting, as fluorescent tubes are sometimes wont to do. A heavyset man with close-cropped white hair was jabbing it angrily with a broom handle.


"You're just gonna break it doing that," a woman said from behind a square fortress of glass display cases filled with pewter figures of dinosaurs and, for some reason, Hanna-Barberra cartoon characters. She was the man's match in age and weight, with a fluffed white bouffant hairdo perched precariously on top of her head.

"Sometimes you just gotta give 'em a good whack. Stirs up the molecules and makes 'em light up," the man responded as he tapped the tube with the broom.

The room was roughly sectioned off into three distinct flavors. We'd stepped through the door and into a dinosaur emporium full of outrageously painted prehistoric beasts and racks of dinosaur-themed children's books and "scientific exploration" kits. Another group of people was here, parents with two young boys who had discovered a stash of authentic prehistoric plastic ninja swords and were busy striking Power Rangers poses.


The middle section was dedicated to all things Christmas, and here in June, a pint-sized animatronic Santa was shaking his hips with an audible whirring of gears while a tinny recording of "Jinglebell Rock" crackled out of a cheap speaker built into the base. He was surrounded by glittering red and green garland and fake foliage sprayed with that "frost in a can." The far third of the room was apparently dedicated entirely to shellaqued slices of wood adorned with paintings of beautiful American Indian women whose hair was being swept back by the wind to form the image of a white wolf. There were also some paintings consisting of various configurations of American flags, eagles, and Harley Davidson motorcycles, also on lacquered cross-sections of wood.

"I'm gonna give that Santa a good whack if he don't shut up," the man added.

The woman made an admonishing "tsk" sound. "Don't say things like that. He is a saint, you know, Saint Nicholas, and you shouldn't threaten saints."

"Ahh, he's the saint of pains in my butt," the man said, which caused him to break into a fit of wheezing laughter as he abandoned his pinata treatment of the fluorescent light and turned to us. "How you folks doing?"

"Good," I said. "We came in here because I heard there were some singing Santa I figures I could try out."

"Shht," the man breathed in that way people do when they don't want to commit fully to simply saying "shit," especially when children are around. He brandished the broom handle. "Now don't make me use this on you, too!" Another fit of wheezing laughter erupted after his threat.


Dinosaur Land first opened the jaws out front in 1968, peppering the back roads of Virginia with enticing billboards screaming, "Spectacular!" and "Unbelievable but True!" There was no way a family station wagon was getting past the place without a pit stop to marvel at the assembled behemoths and pick up some quality dinosaur toys or dreamcatchers in the souvenir shop. After all, what does the soft green beauty of the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains have over a garishly painted assembly of monsters gathered behind an Amoco? Roadside attractions like Dinosaur Land are largely memories, brief spots on "Remember When" specials that air on the Travel and Discovery Channels but have otherwise disappeared from much of the American landscape. Dinosaur themed parks, however, seem to have faired better. Somehow, dedicating yourself to extinct animals is a good way to keep your business from becoming extinct itself, though unfortunately it didn't seem to save Agar's World of Kong, opened in Arkansas by B-movie mainstay John Agar.

Agar would be at home in White Post, though. Not my first thought upon purchasing our tickets and pushing or way through the turnstile and into Dinosaur Land proper, but the thought did eventually occur to me. Jamie had her arm hooked in mine as we stepped through a rickety porch door and came face to face with a menacing, horror-faced fiberglass tree, the ominous open mouth of which was the only gateway through which one could pass to access the wealth of treasures beyond.


"I'm walking into a lot of mouths today," Jamie said as we ducked our heads and stepped into the tree's waiting opening. "I really didn't think I'd ever be in a situation where I'd say something like that." Her grip on my forearm tightened slightly. "But I'm glad that I am." And then she let go of me, and for a moment I felt like a dinghy that had been cut suddenly from its mooring line and sucked out into the sea without any control. Her hand was on her camera, though, and I knew there was no winning against it.

Inside the tree was a small, damp room made smaller by the presence of a skulking giant caveman statue that bore a striking resemblance to the caveman that used to chase Shaggy and Scooby around from time to time. We took turns posing with him until the two kids from the souvenir shop burst through the tree's opening and stopped suddenly, apparently startled to discover two other people lingering about in the gut of a howling haunted tree. They recovered quickly, however, and immediately directed their attention toward the fiberglass caveman. We moved on, and as we exited I could hear a raucous explosion of laughter and one of the kids, struggling between his giggles,' saying, "I punched the caveman in his wiener!" Beyond the tree, Dinosaur Land opened into a wide, wooded lot crisscrossed by gravel footpaths. From behind a distant thicket of trees, we could hear the high rumble of a lawnmower.

"Hmm, Thrak's out on his John Deere today," Jamie said. "I hope when we see it, it's a stone cart with baby alligators strapped to the bottom."


The kids rocketed by us, dragging their parents in tow. The father was staring intently at the viewscreen of a camcorder, doing that slow pan that seems like a good idea when you're doing it, but it always too slow or too fast when you actually get around to watching your video back home. The kids stopped beneath the dangling feet of a somewhat lumpy, brown pterodactyl suspended from a low-hanging tree branch.

"Sweetie, do your thing!" the mother shouted out as the father swiveled the camcorder around to focus on his children. One of them began flailing and jerking about in what I eventually deciphered to be some sort of imitation of Michael Jackson's dancing style while the mother laughed and clapped. The other child grabbed her fifteen seconds of fame by slapping her brother on top of the head and screaming, "Dinosaur poop!"


Jamie and I had lunch at the park's picnic spot, nestled in a quaint spot just below the crotch of a T Rex that was ripping a huge gory hunk of meat from the throat of a hapless brontosaurus. The remainder of the park was populated by a variety of prehistoric beasts, including my old favorite, the ankylosaurus, plus the giant cobra, giant mantis, giant sloth, and towering statue of King Kong with one hand extended so that you could sit in his palm and have your picture taken, provided you didn't mind sitting in a pool of cold, brackish water. At one point, the Kong statue had been pestered by a biplane suspended from a tree branch, but the plane had long since disappeared, presumably stolen by the proverbial "hooligans," or possibly "young punks." I vowed then and there that if I ever struck it rich, I'd purchase a new fiberglass biplane and donate it to Dinosaur Land. At the same time, I suppose it was nice for Kong to finally get a break from the incessant machine gun fire he'd otherwise have to endure.

These are the moral dilemmas that keep me up at night.


After wrapping our tour of Dinosaur Land and walking out of the souvenir shop with a bag full of little rubber dinosaurs, we headed over to see the white post for which the small town of White Post was named. The post was put in place sometime around 1750 by none other than George Washington himself, ostensibly as a marker to signify the way to the estate of one Lord Fairfax. I assume what Washington was really pointing out was that our colonial forefathers should stop in for a peak at the lime green dimitredon on display at Ye Oldde Lande of Dynosars and Dragyns," but my history is fuzzy on this account.

We were sitting at a hotel bar, somewhere in downtown Winchester, still dressed in our Dinosaur Land finery. I was drinking bourbon, and Jamie was poking at a lime with the stirring straw of her gin and tonic.

"You seem quiet for a man who had lunch underneath a T Rex ripping a bloody hunk of flesh out of a brontosaurus."

"Sorry," I said. "You know how giant concrete dinosaurs cause me to get all contemplative."


She nodded and took a sip of her drink. "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" by the Carter Family was playing on an unseen jukebox somewhere, and the song of clinking plates and silverware tumbled down from the dining area situated in front of a line of big windows looking out onto the town's main street, which I only assume was called Main Street.

"You know," Jamie began as she resumed poking at the lime, "how little kids go through a phase where they insist that they're a dog or a cat, and all they'll do is bark or meow?"

I took a swig of bourbon. Knob Creek. Smooth. "I knew a kid who used to think he was a car. He'd shift gears every time we had to walk down the hallway to lunch at school."

"I never went through the cat and dog phase. You know what I was?"

"Besides cute?"


"That's a given, darling. No, I went through a phase where I thought I was a dinosaur. I'd roar and tuck my arms close to my sides to make those pitiful little T Rex arms."

"Why did they even have those things? I mean, can you image how much scarier it'd be if a T Rex had big, long muscular Hulk Hogan arms?"

"Anyway, I remember we were all out at the playground one time during school. Must have been kindergarten. I hope it was kindergarten. God, I hope this wasn't in high school or something. There was this group of girls pulling off some crazy jump rope tricks, and I remember crashing through them, roaring like mad, and I took a huge bite out of one girl's arm."

"Jesus," I said, nearly spitting out my mouthful of liquor. "As in, an actual chunk of flesh?"


"No, not that bad. But I drew some blood. They made me go to the principal, then to the guidance counselor. I had to go to these special sessions where some asshole talked to me about how I wasn't really a dinosaur and how it was wrong to eat people."

She took another sip of gin and tonic as I finished off my bourbon and signaled for another round. The bartender was an elderly man with a brightly polished bald head. The kind of guy you find tending bar at an old hotel or VFW Hall. He doesn't go in for fancy, fruity drinks or crazy concoctions, but when it comes to the standards, there's no better type of bartender in the world.

"So those girls were your friends afterwards, right?"

"They called me Bitey and Dino Girl. You know, they remembered that shit all the way through high school. One of them even started a rumor that I had some weird psychological condition that caused me to think I was a dinosaur, and that I'd had an episode while I was giving a guy a blow job and bit his dick off."


She finished her drink and started in on the second that had appeared with nary a sound. I was quiet, intently waging a battle inside myself over whether the situation called for tender consolation or a joke. I decided to try and walk that razor-thin path between two lakes of fire. When in doubt, make fun of myself.

"When I was in first grade," I began, "I once wore a t-shirt with an embroidered tennis shoe on the left breast pocket. From that day on, everyone called me Shoe Shirt Boy." She laughed lightly. "I mean, what a stupid thing to latch onto. Shoe Shirt Boy? What the hell? But if you want to talk physical violence, then maybe I can make you feel a little better, Bitey."

"Fuck you."


"Or at least that you've found like-minded company. When I was the same age you were when you were making a meal of your classmates, I was taking swimming lessons at this state park pool. Man, I was an awful kid. When my mom would take me there every morning, I'd scream and cry and hold on to the rail and refuse to get into the water until they practically had to throw me in. When the swimming lesson was over, I'd scream and cry and hold on to the ladder and refuse to get out of the pool. So we were there one day, just for swimming. I remember the vending machine there had those Boston Baked Beans. Burnt peanuts or something. Who the hell ate those things? You get 'em once and think they'll be like Red Hots or M&Ms, but they aren't. Anyway, we were at the pool, and I was doing fine, just splashing around in the shallow end with this Fisher Price house boat I had, when this girl swims up to me. Older girl, maybe twelve or thirteen."

"Even then," Jamie said.

"Yeah, screaming and crying and holding onto the guard rail impresses the older ladies. I still do it, you know. That and invite them back to my apartment to play Fisher Price. That's why I get so much action. So she swims up to me and is being very friendly, just wants to play with the little kid. Only, I'm not all that excited to be played with. I just want to be left alone with my house boat, but she's putting me on a raft and pulling around and generally being delightful but just...unwanted. So it comes time to leave, and my mom gets me out of the pool and as I'm standing there at the edge, the girl swims up to wave goodbye to me, and I take my Fisher Price houseboat and just, well, clock her upside the head with it, as hard as I could."

We sat and sipped our drinks in silence. The waiter had his back turned to us, but I could tell he was shaking his head and laughing.

"That's it," Jamie finally said. "We're terrible people."


Two more drinks apiece, and Jamie and I were doing our best to get back up to our room. The hotel had the ambiance of faded regality, something that was grand and ornate and opulent in the 1930s but had since fallen on hard times. The edges were frayed, worn through more than they should be. The fixtures were tarnished. But everything possessed a warmth into which you could simply sink and lose yourself. It appealed to me. We collapsed together onto the overstuffed queen-sized bed in our room. The windows were open and a warm summer breeze was being slung about by the slow-rotating ceiling fan. The sound of cars and voices below seemed distant, filtered through the gauze of summer heat and alcohol. I lay on my side, staring at Jamie staring back at me.

Later that night, we went walking after midnight. Just because it seemed to be the right thing to do.

Labels: Travel