I am shaken from my daydream by the severe decibel leap of a Pepsi commercial in my hotel room. It's already 9:00 — time to call the bar to see if the staff are in yet. No answer, and no answering machine. I watch TV for a while — the last half of Drew Barrymore's "Charlie's Angels" movie, and then, it's 10:00. Surely the staff will be there by now. I call again. No answer, no machine. I watch more TV and call on the half-hour. Saturday Night Live comes on. No answer, no machine. Saturday Night Live ends. By now, it's 12:00 midnight, so there's no chance that the staff has not arrived. So I give up on getting directions and set out with my gas station Laramie map and headlights. I make it through the subfreezing temps to my car, and it does eventually start. There are very few cars on the snowy main road (it's a very small town!), so it's not that big a problem that I'm going so slow and checking for street signs and address numbers.

I drive up and down the length of Custer Street, but there's nothing anywhere that resembles a gay bar — surely I would see the crowd long before the street address! I cross the main road to the other side of Custer and park my car to rest and get my bearings. And then I look up and see that the large, flat building that I've passed several times has a sign on it, "DRINKIN' -N- DANCIN': Package Liquor" and then, on the side of the building around the corner, "Fireside Bar & Lounge: Drinkin & Dancin, DJ's, Live Music, Package Liquor" It's silent. Pitch black. "Well. I... guess they're closed for the winter break."

Disappointed and a bit dazed, I make my way back to my hotel room to plot my next step. So I won't be meeting any leads at the bar. In the morning I'll head out to see if I can find the general location of Shepard's ordeal — the split-rail fence on Snowy Mountain Road. Maybe there's a shrine or something — there's got to something marking the site of this historical horror, right?

In the morning I study my map for directions to Snowy Mountain Road. Only problem is, it's not on the map. Nor is it on the map I picked up in the lobby of the hotel. There's a 'Snowy Range Road', but it's way in West Laramie, on the other side of town from the Sherman Hills neighborhood where it's supposed to be. I drive around in search of a more detailed map. This being Sunday morning, almost everything is closed. There's a place that looks like a gas station shoppette, and it's got a big "Yes! We're OPEN" sign in the window, just under the odd, "SF — Smoker Friendly" sign. I enter and look around but don't see any maps, just lots and lots of cigarettes. I ask the young woman at the counter if she knew where I could find a map. After some thinking, she says, "Um, you could try the Chamber of Commerce — it's just up the road." I thank her but as I leave, I distinctly hear her mutter to another customer in the store, "Some people." I have no idea what in the world that is all about. Has she noticed the California plates on my car? Am I just one more straggling outsider bent on bringing further infamy and condemnation on their fine town? Was she not even talking about me?

I study my two maps from inside my car. Actually, this one map is quite detailed, and it seems to clearly show every street in the Sherman Hills neighborhood mentioned in the Geocities article. Could they have actually renamed the road to avoid pesky would-be investigative journalist outsiders like me? Is it just too far out to be on this map?

I do try the Chamber of Commerce, but they're closed. I can see I'm just not going to get anywhere on this trip. I drive back to the Fireside Lounge and take snapshots of the signs for later scanning. Then there's not much else to do but get back on I-80 heading west.

As soon as I'm back on the freeway, I consider my total failure at finding anything worth writing about, and somehow, it doesn't really bother me. What really more is there to say about the ignorant, homophobic culture that spawned the two murderers of this innocent person? "The Laramie Project" is a critically acclaimed theater production and now, an HBO movie. I haven't seen it but certainly look forward to it first chance I get. I'm sure it's a great work, and there is much to be learned from watching it. So why can't I square that with my lack of distress about the non-results of this non-fact-finding trip? Maybe I'm just rationalizing away my utter failure to uncover anything of value, but at least until the point where my car slips on the ice and I end up safely but frighteningly careening off the road for 50 yards, my mind soaks comfortably in the self-assured notion that the particulars of evil, in and of themselves, are simply not that interesting.