There is no need to dwell on the exterior cliche of an injured soldier, the propaganda is superficial. Civilians have only plastic green men, heavy dusty movie set costumes, and Army-of-One heroes to populate stereotypes. Keep your images larger than life, no use touching up a paint-by-number. Mine was banal, foolish, and 19; enough said.

One fence is the fraternity itself, the next is brain injury. No other way to understand but be there. A Solid-American-Made-Dashboard cracked my forehead at 45mph.
Crumpling into the footwell,
unaware that the flatbed's rear bumper
was smashing thru the passenger windshield above me
the frame stopped just shy of decapitating my luckily unoccupied seat.
Our vehicle's monstrous hood had attempted to murderously bury us under,
but the axle stopped momentum's fate and ended the carnage under dark iron.
Shards of my identity joined the slow, pulverized, airborn chaos.
Back, Deep, Gone.

Unconsciousness is the brain's frantic attempt to re-wire neurons, jury rig broken connections, the doctor's desperate attempt to re-attach, stand back and say, good enough. Essential systems limply functioned, but unessential ones were ditched. Years later a military doctor diagnosed an eventual triage: Hypothalimus disconnected from the Pituitary Gland, Executive Function damaged, long pathways for emotional regulation interrupted.

I woke up still kinda bleeding, crusty blood in my hair, a line of frankenstein stitches wandering across my forehead.   My sense of self had literally dissolved into morning dust floating in a sterile hospital sunbeam.  My name was down the hall, words and the desire to speak were on a different floor.  Life became me and also a separate me under constant renovation, a wrecking ball on one half, scaffolding and raw 2x4's the other.

Waking up in the hospital, I realized I needed help to get the blood cleaned up.   A nurse came in, largely glared at me in disregard, and quickly left… for an hour.   She returned and brusquely dropped a useless ace comb and gauze on the blanket over my feet and abandoned me again.  This was my introduction to the shame of a VA hospital.  I minced my way to the bathroom, objectively examined my face in the mirror with shocking stitches above one swollen eye.  Gingerly rinsing my hair, the water ran pink in white porcelain.  I remembered the sound in my skull between my ears when a doctor scraped a metal tool across my skull, cleaning debris before stitching.  I recalled that in the ER I was asking Is he ok, repeating it like a broken record, knowing I should stop but I couldn’t.  There was also perhaps a joke about an Excedrin headache.

It was morning, and since there was no such thing as time or purpose or feelings anymore, I wandered to the hall with my only companion, the IV pole. One side was a wall of windows, and I was, what, 10 or 12 stories up from the streets of a much larger city than where I crashed.  The hall was warm and sunny.  I wheeled my companion to a blocky square vinyl chair to sit next to a pay phone.  I didn’t have any thoughts at all, or care about it.   After about an hour my first name floated up from the void, then with some effort my last name.  It took the rest of the morning to remember I had a brother.  After lunch we resumed our post, and I spent the afternoon in concentration piecing together his phone number.  God had pushed the reset button.

Thirty years ago the doctors didn't understand head injuries; they only recognized the physical symptoms. At first there was good reason to be permanently admitted to the hospital.  My blood pressure was unstable, sometimes so low that drawing blood for tests caused my veins to collapse even with baby needles.  My thyroid had shut down completely, only jump-started again with six months of Synthroid.  I had to learn to live with crashing blood sugar and fluctuating appetite.  For years afterwards, any stress would cause arrhythmias, my heart filling and skipping out of sync, blood pressure popping my skull.  Will the clock stop this time?  

There is always at least one momentous event in every person’s life that becomes punctuation, before and after.  The other side of Before the accident truly was a different me.  I have a vague recollection of who that person may have been, and occasionally get reminders.   Before, I was getting recruiting letters from Ivy League colleges and MIT, a high school senior at sixteen.  After, I couldn’t balance a checkbook or even care about a savings account in the first place.  Before, I had aced the military entrance exam only missing one question, even including the speed math section.  They told me I could chose any rating I wanted, so I chose Air Traffic Control.  Twenty years later, I thumbed through old high school yearbooks at a reunion.   I saw a picture of me in the Shakespeare Club, not recalling what that could have been about.   On finding a picture of me in the Ski Club I thought, Wow, I guess I know how to ski.   A yellowed small-town newspaper article noted I was one of two National Merit Scholars; and in another there’s a mention of a part in the High School Musical.  

This side of After, I kept mixing right with left, was dyslexic with numbers, and occasionally stuttered with word soup.  Focus became separated from willpower, concentration was like herding cats.  The world had become intense.

(chapter 1 continues in memoir)

By Stephen E. Yocum

In 1974, from out of Kabul,
The bouncing open back of
An old flat bed truck,
Eating dust and Diesel fumes,
Two alone we journeyed.

A round the world exploration
Of adventure and discovery.
Of lands and cultures,
people never before encountered.
Naive Ecotourists, before there
Was such a thing, called by a silly name.

The land there about, dry and dusty,
Sparse vegetations, Inhospitable to all,
Featureless and drab beyond comprehension.
Harsh lands breed harsh unforgiving people,
Matching their dire extreme surroundings.
This being one of those places.

I was on an adventure,
More so than she with me,
A rocky marriage at best,
Stressed further by months of travel.
I seeking the raw, the real,
She wanting first class comforts,
Like the “Good Life as seen on TV”.
A rough open flatbed truck, eating dust,
Not even close to fitting that description.

We were going to a small distant town,
Where I might see a game as old,
As that culture, of those Afghan plains,
A game, no truly more of a passion,
A long held national obsession,
Not so much played,
As combated, a war on horseback,
Brutal, ****** and thrilling.

Under noonday sun, yet chill of weather,
An hour out, four mounted horsemen
Appeared over a low hillock horizon,
Their horses in gallop, snorting, prancing,
High stepping, bounding, on a mission,
Kicking up a cloud of yellow/red dust,
The riders making straight for us.

These were the days before the AK-47,
Before the Russian invasion of ‘97.
The tribal Afghan men back then toted old,
Long Barreled, flint lock looking weapons
Often adorned with ribbon or paint,
Looking at first glance merely ornamental,
Not quite dismissing their lethal intent.

I had seen a sheep shot by one of
These old rifles, the entry spot was
The size of an American Half Dollar,
The exit hole the size of a tennis ball exploded.

As they approached, at my direction,
She withdrew further back towards the
Cab of the truck, beside a wooden crate.
I still sat, legs dangling over the tailgate,
One hand holding onto the wood slatted
Vertical, side rail of the bed.
The other hand on the hilt of my 8 inch Buck Knife.
That given the impending situation, would have
Done me as much good as my ******* into the face,
Of a very strong hurricane wind,
Doing me and us more harm than good.
All the while, still watching the horsemen,
As they rapidly approached ever closer.

Ignoring our dust, they reined in less than
Fifteen feet from our rear bumper,
(If there had indeed been a bumper.)
Horses wild eyes rolling, saliva snorting
From their mouths and nostrils,
Lather of sweat coating sleek bodies.
Looking more akin to fierce Dragons than Equines.

Their dusty riders looked like mounted warriors,
Escaped from out of a Hollywood movie,
Full bearded, hard men, with Scars on their faces,
Their serious dust laden red eyes burning like fire.
Jaws firm set, faces otherwise devoid of expression.
Dressed in traditional head to toe garb,
A style unchanged in hundreds of years,
Large curved Knives in wide leather belts,
Two, sporting hefty British holstered revolvers.
All four with long rifles in one hand,
Horse reins in the other.

Just like that, there we all were face to face,
I could not avoid their eyes, locking mine on
The bigger man near the center,
Hiding as best I could, my concern, no my fear,
With a neutral expression, neither smile nor sneer,
That might give me away. Yet the hair on the back
Of my neck did tingle, throat too dry and constricted
To speak should it even be required.  

The bigger man into whose eyes I stared,
As if I had issued some challenged invitation,
With but a single practiced move of his,
Right arm and hand,
(Horse reins held in the other),
Quickly shouldered his menacing weapon,
And sighted down its long barrel, right at my head.

Perhaps it was only a few seconds,
Yet it seemed an eternity,
That gun’s bore looked immense,
Like the gapping open mouth,
Of some great ballistic cannon.
For a moment I ceased breathing.
It felt as if my heart stopped beating.
I could not but sit there waiting,
There was no escaping.

That throw back to a fiftieth century man,
Held the power, of Life or sudden death,
In his hand, my life on the tip of his trigger finger,
He and I both instantly understood this.

It was clear in that one moment,
That to him, this was nothing new,
Or even of the slightest importance.
A thing to which he was plainly indifferent.

Down that bore, was a place in which lurked,
A lethal bullet with my name written upon it,
I felt trapped, like screaming, but remained silent,
Eyes open, and then why I will never know,
Still looking at him I narrowed my eyes and smiled.

As perhaps a reply on the man’s harsh face,
There appeared an ever so slightest grin.
Then he hefted his weapon back down under,
His arm and silently smiled and laughed,
In my direction.

I could not help but notice that one of his
Upper front teeth was of bright gold, while the
One next to the gold, was completely missing.

He nodded just once his head, to me a message,
All said with no words actually spoken,
“Today traveler,
I could have killed you,
Taken your woman.
Out here no one would know,
No one would have cared,
Not even the truck driver.
You are in my homeland,
I control it and you,
Today I choose not to **** you,
Tomorrow I might feel different.”

Then he and his unsmiling companions,
****** their straining unyielding horses,
to their left, galloping away in an obscuring
cloud, of yellow and reddish dust billowing.

While adrenaline turned my arms and
Legs to jelly, and shortly thereafter,
My stomach to sudden fits of
Wrenching regurgitation.

When in a few years I first heard,
That the Russians had invaded
That harsh unforgiving land,
I told a friend,
“Those fool Russians,
Have grabbed a fearsome,
Tiger by the tail, and that beast
Might just devourer them,
And not the other way around.”
It came to pass, I was not far off,
In my knowledgeable easy prediction.

The lesson I learned that day?
No matter who you think you are,
Or where you might come from,
What Nations impressive seal,
That your Passport reveals,
When you travel far and wide,
Trespass in another man’s back yard,
You best beware, of all the possibilities.

Upon our return trip the next day,
We took a bus of public conveyance,
Imagining perhaps there would be,
More safety in a convergence of numbers.

Footnote:

Over the centuries many invaders
Have attempted to subdue the wild
Land of the Afghans’ and nearly all failed.
A land and a people offering absolutely,
No forgiveness, not even to themselves.

Rudyard Kipling wrote of the British Empires brief
Excursions into that land, offering some sage advice;
“When you’re wounded and left on the Afghanistan’s
Plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to
Your God like a soldier.”

All present and would be conquers take note,
This remains Wise advice.  No one truly conquers there,
They just visit and bleed and then eventually go away,
Tails tucked between their knees. If indeed they still
Have one.

I’d get a call over the walkie-talkie, write down what parts were needed, find them in the parts’ warehouse tent, load ’em up, and deliver them to the job site. It was pretty easygoing. In between orders I’d just sit in the air-conditioned truck, listening to Howard Stern and napping here and there. When I could. After a month, they hired another guy to be my partner. He was a computer programming geek, married with kids, and he had these stupid cartoon tattoos all over his arms. Japanese anime **** and Hanna-Barbara characters. The guy really got on my nerves, one of those know-it-all nerds.
Our boss was the biggest Native I’d ever seen. Looked like a Navajo Andre the Giant, only he had a big, black, handlebar mustache. Which as surprising, because, I was under the impression Navajo’s couldn’t grow ****** hair. He stood at nearly 6’6” with long skinny legs, a barrel chest covered in silver and turquoise jewelry. When he got angry, his eyes went wild, like fire raging out of control. Like the time I got the flatbed truck stuck on an embankment and the back axle snapped off. “******* JUNIOR!” he shouted. My old man was one of the foremen there, so everyone just called me Junior. Oh yes, my boss, Darren, was a scary guy to say the least. So me and my delivery partner were making a run to the jobsite one day, the radio blaring “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, just getting into the fast final part of the song. The good part. Right in the middle of the guitar solo, my partner changed the station to Nickleback, of all things. I quickly switched it back to the Skynyrd.
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t change it in the middle of “Free Bird,” I said.
My partner rolled his eyes and switched it back to Nicklecrap.
“Come on, get with the times, man. This is the new ****.”
“Yeah, **** is right.”
I switched it back AGAIN, but the song was ending.
“You made me miss the song, ya’ ******’ *****.’
“Why don’t ya’ just cry about it then?”
“*******.”
We delivered the parts and parked the truck back inside the parts’ warehouse tent. With no calls coming in over the radio, we cranked the a/c and dozed off to Howard Stern talking about an “**** ring toss” game they were going to play. I woke up an hour later to Darren’s angry voice coming in over the radio. “Where the **** are you guys? *******, we got parts that gotta go out. I’m headed to the tent …”
I looked over to my partner, snoring away in the driver’s seat. For a second, I contemplated waking him up. Then I remembered the Lynard Skynyrd/Nickleback incident, and I left him sleeping in the truck. I walked out of the tent, to the Port-John to take a squirt. When I returned to the tent, Darren was staring at my partner, who was still asleep in the truck. Darren’s eyes were big and crazy; he was furious. He turned to me.
“What the ****, Junior?”
“I’ve been trying to get him up, but he just won’t budge. I’m having to do all this work myself!”
“******* …” Darren said, with a heavy sigh, before pounding on the driver’s side window.
“Andy! Wake the **** up, *******! Junior’s carrying all the weight here!”
Andy did wake up. He glared at me, and I smiled back with a ****-eating grin.
You don’t ever interrupt The Free Bird. I don't care what your name is.

The librarian walks around.
I look to my right and see a classmate watching videos on youtube about boards of canada, if she looks to her right there's a girl looking at her cellphone, the video has bicycles.
The people in the main hall can be heard all the way on the other side of the library.
I took no pictures today even though I brought my analog photocameras, there is no visual recording of this day.
I look to my left and see a large flatbed scanner, it says EPSON in big capitals and in smaller capitals it says "GT-20000".
The artworks behind the window looking into the hallway look partly improvised and partly thought out.
The reflection of a grey sky can be seen when looking up.
I think it should rain but the clouds seem reluctant to do so.
I will try to write a song today.
The brown artwork is a tree with roots.
I think that is a bit much.
The clicking subsides.
The librarian remains silent, with a sporadic amount of mouse-clicks to break up the quiet atmosphere.
I don't know what the song should be about, in fact I would like it to be about nothing which is something not easily done.
The silvery-blue artwork is made of old plastic bottles.
I liked it, it was great though I am not a fan of the cgi blood used in some scenes.
I can forgive them for it.
I am anton, I am a man in my late twenties.
The large television in the library is turned off.
The noise in the background is noticable.
The door of the toilet is opened and a girl with heavy dark make up steps trough and makes her way back to her work.
The scarf is plaid, red.
I rode my bicycle to my university, the road was broken up and I had to be creative in my driving.
I remember that my classmate records the traces of people trough frottage, it's interesting.
The fingers of students on keyboards seem to tickle my eardrums, they are a bit intrusive.
I will stay in school for dinner.
The white artwork is skeletal and weblike at the same time.
The words are on the wall and on the glass window.
I visited my personal coach who helps me in school, we discussed my plans for the weeks.
The amount of sentences should equal 26.
The noise of typing shortly intensifies.
The words released onto youtube spell titles of songs. 14
I am wondering what to do next.
I am wearing Adidas shoes, they were considered cool when my ex's uncle gave them to me as a present; I felt reluctant to take them.
I visit a university where I study arts.
The head of the author is filled with chaotic thoughts.
I think my classmate has a funny way of typing, she seems to be talking to a friend on facebook and I am not creepy at all.
The internet seems slow.
I think about the amount of documents that must have been scanned on the machine, there are scratches on it.
The voices can be recognized.
I saw monkey heads.
The cables of the computer hang against my feet and are slightly irritating.
The girl next to me changed between videos.
I signed up for a few courses, my academy requires it's students to do so.
I eat and drink at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The library is lukewarm.
I notice that my fingers already hurt from typing, or maybe from sending text messages from my phone.
The radiator makes a low rumbling noise.
I record stories and poems on casette tapes, they find their way into simple installations.
The garbage bin is empty.
I watched the first episode of Ash VS Evil this morning.
I am warm, I am wearing a leather jacket and a fleece vest over a brown t-shirt.

carrying Kalashnikovs on their backs,
the rebel mules have panic in their eyes
and resting at the back?
fear filled pupils that dilate
with every corpse seen vacating itself
of tissue and blood,
smell the perfume of gun barrels
and those lonely enough to be culled,
picked off by a trained eye
and a government lie and
a man laid down in an apartment block out of sight up high.

civilian fathers laying spread on the back of a flatbed,
cinderblock walls that offer no protection but that of protecting the dead,
sharpen another knife for another internet viral video of another guy without a head
and finally, cat walk model rebels wearing beaded shrapnel necklaces, gorgeous and chrome red.

and they’ll try give them away around,
a daily sound of the everyday
so they can have a price that they can pay
for the ordinary,
for the sane,
for America’s definition of the lame.

Bruce the Spruce was a Christmas tree;
     he lived on Christmas Farm.
Each night he dreamed that he could bring
     cheer into someones home.

He stretched his branches every day
     and squeezed his needles tight,
so he could be a perfect tree
     for holding Christmas lights.

Every year at Christmas time
     Bruce did as he was taught.
He showed all of his Christmas charm,
     hoping he would be bought.

The people came from miles around
     to buy their Christmas Trees.
They pulled and tugged at branches
     and gave the twigs a squeeze.

They looked for trees just the right size,
     with needles that would stay,
trees that gave a Christmas smell
     to brighten Christmas day.

Bruce was a perfect Christmas tree;
     the children seemed to love him.
But Bruce was small and other trees
     still towered high above him.

The years went by and Bruce the Spruce
     eventually grew tall.
His branches spread and held their form;
     they didn't droop at all.

But there were many Christmas Trees
     that grew on Christmas Farm
and no one ever seemed to pick out Bruce,
     with all his charm.

Bruce grew so sad as years went by;
     it seemed he'd grown too tall.
It seemed that he would never be
     a Christmas tree at all.

When the new families came each year
     to buy trees for their home,
they never looked at Bruce the Spruce;
     he stood there all alone.

Bruce never forgot Christmas;
     it brightened all his dreams.
Yet, in the light of each new day,
     he lost his Christmas schemes.

One day a truck came to the farm;
     men came with saws and rope.
They came to cut the tallest tree;
     Bruce finally lost all hope.

"My time has come; Ive grown too old,"
     his arms trembled in fear.
"I'm only good for firewood now;
     I've seen my final year."

They cut him down and tied him to
     the flatbed truck they brought.
They drove away, while Bruce the Spruce
     lie weeping on the truck.

Bruce closed his eyes and fell asleep;
     he dreamed of silent nights,
of children's smiling faces,
     of gifts and colored lights.

When Bruce awoke He couldn't hold
     back all of his delight.
Bruce couldn't believe what he saw;
     his branches all had lights.

His arms were filled with tinsel.
     Children were gathered round.
Everyone was cheering
     and laughing on the ground.

Bruce looked around in ecstasy;
     he couldn't help but stare.
Bruce had become the Christmas tree
     that now adorned Times Square.

We had a really fat bird in the morgue last week;
We had to put two tables together
Just to accommodate her bloated mass
And the funeral director said
She'd need a specially reinforced coffin
And a flatbed truck instead of a hearse.

By the way, I think I should debunk
That legend about fat chicks appreciating it more;
She just lay there, like all of the others,
No sign of gratitude what-so-*******-ever.

the little tree
took root from
an acorn nut.

the years passed,
she watched the loggers
come and go.

taking her friends
and family off
on the big beds
of the timber trucks.

year after year,
season after season,
there she stood,
winter, fall, spring, and summer,
one slow grow.

first she was short,
barely a spurt,
then she branched out,
and up and up and up.

the trees stood
all around her,
so serious,
oh so silent company.

however,
never a mean word nor
loud shout was ever heard.

never any other music
but for that of the birds,
and the wind and the sun
and
the creatures walking the
woodland floor,
those traveling through to
far distant exotic lands.

at least she never heard
“girl, you are some fat tree.”
or was the target of any joke,
“when you sit around the house,
you sit AROUND the house.”

nor any
“you gotta do something with them leaves,
they are looking like a rat’s nest.
Oh i see, it IS a squirrel’s nest.”

or for a stray bump or large hideous growth
no one ever said,
“you better go get that removed,
that's one ugly lump!"

years and years passed,
her soul inside,
couldn’t be heard,
not a word.

then one day,
the fellows came through,
looking and measuring,
measuring and looking,
out came the chainsaw.

eyes alighting on she,
on all of her
tall, majestic beauty.
with swift, quick work
she fell,
down,
to the earth.

loaded on the flatbed,
chains wrapped securely around,
engine roared to life,
and she took off,
racing into the darkening night.

she knew tears did fall
as forests thinned
and were laid bare,
but all she could think,
all she could say,
was
“so long suckers!
i’ll see you on broadway one day!”

and so it became true,
her dream of yore,
it was finally in,
Radio City Music Hall,
she landed as the floor.

night after night
to her lasting delight
tap dancers tapped
making her sing
bringing out the music
in she
so previously
imprisoned inside,
for so long.

sanded and polished
varnished and cleaned,
her secret inner beauty
finally brought to life,
finally brought into the light.

she beamed and sighed,
every time a new star
stepped on to her,
to her extreme delight.

any day or night,
when every eye of
the house,
every one of the audience
was riveted on she.

oh what a thrill
when the Radio City Rockettes
did finally come out,
for only for she
could they dance
so straight,
so evenly.

Sometimes i look
at the woods laid bare.
my heart drops low
so sad i feel,
a tear spills out.

then i recall,
the tale of this tree,
the little acorn nut,
how a trip to
a city,
made her so
lastingly
happy &
so  very
pretty!

When I was young and needed wheels
my father helped me buy my first.
He worked then in a funeral home
and got a great deal on a hearse.
When first he handed me the keys
I thought there must be some mistake;
A Station Wagon for the dead-
Most dates would do a double take.

True, it had low mileage,
but a ghastly MPG.
It was very roomy in the back
where the coffins used to be.
I thought it would be hard to park,
and in that, I wasn't wrong.
Dad said the horn was customized-
when pressed it played "the Munsters" song.

Its capacious bay proved useful
when transporting beer and wine.
It even helped me to get "lucky".
a "Goth" girl thought it fine.
Pale white skin with tats and piercings'
those memories still can thrill.
Though I found it disconcerting
that she liked to lie so still.

These days I drive a Prius
in an effort to be "Green"
I work out and eat "healthy"
as I'm no longer quite so keen
to be caught lying in the back
of a flatbed limousine .

Remember Wyoming?
Those two days find their way to me, and it always seems so vibrant.
How it hurt to breathe with the constant cigarette smoke in our mouths,
and how hard it was to light one in the windy cough of the night.
I remember us and the others drinking some tea,
and seeing myself in its ingredients.
I remember looking in the splintered mirror for half an hour,
exploring the wonderful fluke of my face.
I remember feeling every ***** of you in the prickly light of night.
The desert howled at us and we howled back, not caring if our sounds would slap the others in the face.

When we stumbled back in afterwards, the space was silent.
Someone took something and they heard their own voice,
but they didn’t like that echoing clatter.
Their hands were over their ears; they writhed on the floor like their skin was a size too small.
It was then I realized that our cabin had no windows or doors, but just gaping indigo gashes,
and I felt so defenseless against the angry emptiness of those American wastes.

Eventually his body slacked, indicating that he was stuck in himself once again.
We stayed inside for the rest of the night, keeping our eyes away from the spaces in the walls.
We huddled together, me and you, on the concrete floor, and tried to keep the fire going.
I remember someone through in that Aldous Huxley novel, and I thought it was a waste.
I, for one, always liked the ending, with the feet rotating like Columbia Mall’s carousel.
But I’m sure you’d beg to differ. 

The next morning we and the others shook ourselves awake, and shambled our way into the Dodge.
I sat in the flatbed, and as we hollered down the highway,
I watched a single cloud slip across the sky at the same rate we were driving,
and lied on my side for those 8 hours; the cloud looked like a tired blur.
But when we arrived outside Omaha, and everyone and you jumped out to ****,
I realized that the cloud I thought was still must’ve flew about seven hundred miles.
It could’ve fooled me.
And then you kissed me on the cheek and took a Camel out of my pocket,
skipping into the soda shop like a child, two days younger.

Heading back to where I'd started
Thirty years since I'd been gone
I can still remember leaving
Didn't think I'd be gone this long

Playing legions and house parties
On to clubs and smoky bars
Things have changed while I've been missing
Had more wives than I've had cars

Heading Home...I think it's time
That little town, sticks in my mind
Heading Home...my heart is talking
It tells my brain that it is time

Did some tv and four movies
Put out albums and cds
Played in places long forgotten
Here at home and overseas

Played on flatbed trucks in rainstorms
Played in shopping malls as well
Played some shows in Arizona
Man, that place is hot as hell

Time to get on home and settle
do some tours but work at home
Time to be a grandpa proper
Unlike the dad who was on the road

Got a ranch out in Alberta
George Canyon lives not far from me
Maybe we can get together
And I can do one more cd

Heading Home to where my heart is
Been gone so long, time slipped away
Home is where my folks are buried
Home is where I'm gonna stay

I remember the day we left Southern California,
Dad hurried as fast as he could
While he loaded the moving truck.
Seven hours later
We arrived in a town I couldn't pronounce
To this day I'm not sure if either of us can say it right...

I remember our new house
It arrived several hours after we did on the back of a flatbed truck
I remember the front door swinging open and slamming shut
As the truck rolled over the curb and across the yard
The house was long like a shotgun
And left us bruised

I can remember the time I ran away.
Do you remember what Dad said to me?
"If you don't want to be a part of this family,
You can sleep in the garage!"
That night I wet the bed [sleeping bag]
I remember waking up feeling cold and
Hiding myself so he couldn't see

Can you remember the days when Uncle Al rolled his tobacco
And Aunt Beulah snipped roses in diagonals?
You loved being in their flower boutique
More than I did; You hated the smoke though
But now you can't quit

Do you remember when Chris came home
Covered in blood and tried not to cry?
I do; you were to young
He said they did it because he was 'different'
I remember feeling scared.
If he could bleed like that
Anyone could, especially you

I remember that time we rode our bikes
To go fishing in the pond but never found it
We swam in the river instead and hid in the reeds
I can still smell the lilac flowers that peppered the bank.
I remember thinking how water always runs downhill
But never understood how close we were

I remember when the house burnt down.
I can smell the smoke and feel the heat
You warned me, but I didn't believe you
I just wanted to finish watching TV
I believed you when we stood on the street and watched as
Our long white house burned at one end
Like one of Al's cigarettes

I remember when Dad rebuilt the house
We never saw him
It looked the same on the outside
But the inside was different
Then he got sick
He looked the same on the outside
But his insides were deficient

I remember the back porch
Do you remember when we walked all the way
From the back porch to the highway?
It seemed so far away
We watched the cars as they passed us
I remember wishing so badly that I could go with them
Even if that meant
Leaving you behind

I'm going to pour me a drink
and wait for the Dark Night
to lace his boots

That old bushwhacker has 7 wives
2 trucks with good tires
1 with a flatbed for hauling

In the morning I know
I'll find crumbs on my table
and mud on the floor

And that pint by my bed
that's mostly full right now
will be a big swig short

Nothing is going right
these days except that low-
down you know who I mean
and he's moving right fast.

It was 1972 and my dad was sick.  Well maybe not sick in the usual sense of the word, but his hip was.  He was in Boston, it was mid-winter, and he was an orthopedic patient in the Robert Bent Brigham Hospital.

He had been selected as an early recipient of what was called back then a ‘partial hip replacement.’  It was called partial, because they only replaced the arthritic hip ball, leaving the original (and degenerative) socket in place.  Needless to say these procedures didn’t work long term, but for those unable to walk and in pain, they were all that was available at the time.

I was in State College Pennsylvania when the call came in from my mother, telling me my dad was in the hospital. He was in so much pain they had to rush him to Boston by ambulance and schedule surgery just two days from now. I was living in the small rural town of Houserville Pa. about five miles West of State College and there was at least eight inches of fresh snow on the ground outside. It was 439 miles from State College to Boston. Based on my mothers phone call, if I wanted to see my Dad before his surgery, I had less than a full day to get there.

It was now 5:30 p.m. on Monday night and my father’s operation was scheduled for first thing (7:00 a.m.) Wednesday morning.  That meant that if I wanted to see him before he went to the O.R., I really needed to get there sometime before visiting hours were over Tuesday night.  My mother had said they were going to take him to pre-op at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, and we wouldn’t have a chance to see him before he went down.

My only mode of transportation sat covered outside in the snow on my small front porch.  It was a six-month old 1971 750 Honda Motorcycle that I had bought new the previous September.  Because of the snowy winter conditions in the Nittany Mountains, I hadn’t ridden it since late November.  I hadn’t even tried to start it since the day before Christmas Eve when I moved it off the stone driveway and rode it up under our semi-enclosed front porch.

My roommate Steve and I lived in a converted garage that was owned by a Penn State University professor and his wife.  They lived in the big house next door and had built this garage when they were graduate students over twenty years ago. They had lived upstairs where our bedrooms now were, while storing their old 1947 Studebaker Sedan in the garage below.  It wasn’t until 1963 that they built the big house and moved out of the garage before putting it up for rent.

The ‘garage’ had no insulation, leaked like a sieve, and was heated with a cast iron stove that we kept running with anything we could find to throw in it.  We had run out of our winter ‘allotment’ of coal last week, and neither of us could afford to buy more.  We had spent the last two days scavenging down by the creek and bringing back old dead (and wet) wood to try and keep from freezing, and to keep the pipes inside from freezing too.

After hanging up the phone, I explained to Steve what my mother had just told me. He said: You need to get to Boston, and you need to leave now.  Steve had a 1965 Dodge Dart with a slant six motor that was sitting outside on the left side of the stone drive.  He said “you’re welcome to take it, but I think the alternator is shot.  Even if we get it jump-started, I don’t think it will make it more than ten or fifteen miles.”

It was then that we weighed my other options.  I could hitchhike, but with the distance and weather, it was very ‘iffy’ that I would get there on time.  I could take the Greyhound (Bus), but the next one didn’t leave until 3:00 tomorrow afternoon.  It wouldn’t arrive in Boston until 11:20 at night.  Too late to see my dad!

We both stared for a long time at the Motorcycle. It looked so peaceful sitting there under its grey and black cover.  Without saying a word to each other we grabbed both ends of the cover and lifted it off the bike.  I then walked down the drive to the road to check the surface for ice and snow.  It had snow on both sides but had been recently plowed. There was a small **** of snow still down the middle, but the surface to both sides looked clear and almost snow free.

      I Knew That Almost Was Never Quite Good Enough

I walked back inside the house and saw Steve sitting there with an empty ‘Maxwell House Tin’ in his hands. This is where Steve kept his cash hidden, and he took out what was in there and handed it all to me. “ You can pay me back next week when you get paid by Paul Bunyan.”  Paul Bunyan was the Pizza Shop on ****** Avenue that I delivered for at night, and I was due to be paid again in just four more days. I thanked Steve and walked up the ten old wooden and rickety stairs to our bedrooms.  

The walls were still finished in rough plywood sheathing that had never been painted or otherwise finished.  I packed the one leather bag that my Mother had given me for Christmas last year, put on my Sears long underwear, threw in my Dopp Kit and headed back downstairs. I also said a silent prayer for having friends … really good friends.

                 When I Got Downstairs, Steve Was Gone

Sensing I might need a ‘moment’ to finally decide, Steve had
started to walk down to highway # 64 and then hitchhike into town.  He was the photo-editor of the Penn State Yearbook, and Monday nights were when they had their meetings to get the book out.  The staff had only ninety more days to finish what looked to me to be an almost ‘impossible’ task.

As tough as his project was, tonight I was facing a likely impossible assignment of my own. Interstate #80 had just opened, and it offered an alternative to the old local road, Rt # 322.  The entrance to Rt. # 80 was ten miles away in Bellefonte Pennsylvania, and I knew those first ten miles could possibly be the worst of the trip.  I called my sister at home, and she said the weather forecast had said snow in the mountains (where I was), and then cold temperatures throughout the rest of the Northeast corridor.  Cold temperatures would mean a high of no more than 38 degrees all through the Pocono’s and across the Delaware Water Gap into New Jersey. Then low forty-degree temperatures the rest of the way.

I put two pairs of Levi’s Jeans on over my long-johns. I then put on my Frye boots with three pairs of socks, pulled my warmest fisherman’s knit wool sweater over my head and finished with my vintage World War Two leather bomber jacket to brace against the cold.  I had an early version of a full coverage helmet, a Bell Star, to protect my head and ears.  Without that helmet to keep out the cold, I knew I wouldn’t have had any chance of making the seven and a half hour ride.  To finish, I had a lightly tanned pair of deerskin leather gloves with gauntlets that went half way up my forearms. Normally this would have been ‘overkill’ for a ride to school or into town,

                                   But Not Tonight

I strapped my leather bag on the chrome luggage rack on the rear, threw my leg over the seat, and put the key into the ignition.  This was the first ‘electric start’ motorcycle I had ever owned, and I said a quick prayer to St Christopher that it would start. As I turned the key I couldn’t help but think about my father lying there in that hospital bed over four hundred miles away.  As I turned the key to the right, I heard the bike crank over four times and then fire to life as if I had just ridden it the day before.  As much as I wanted to be with my dad, I would be less than truthful if I didn’t confess that somewhere deep inside me, I was secretly hoping that the bike wouldn’t start.

I was an experienced motorcyclist and now 23 years old. I had ridden since I was sixteen and knew that there were a few ‘inviolable’ rules that all riders shared.  Rule number one was never ride after drinking.  Rule number two was never ride on a night like tonight — a night when visibility was awful and the road surface in many places might be worse. I again thought of my father as I backed the bike off the porch, turned it around to face the side street we lived on, dropped it into first gear, and left.  I could hear Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ playing from the house across the street.  It was rented to students too, and the window over the kitchen was open wide — even on a night like this.

                  Oh, Those Carefree Days Of College Bliss

As I traveled down the mile long side street that we lived on, I saw the sign for state road #64 on my right.  It was less than 100 feet away and just visible in the cloudy mountain air.  I was now praying not for things to get better, but please God, don’t let them get any worse.  As I made the left turn onto #64 I saw the sign ‘Interstate 80 – Ten Miles,’ and by now I was in third gear and going about twenty five miles an hour.  In the conditions I was riding in on this Monday night, it felt like at least double that.

I had only ever been East on Rt #80 once before, always preferring the scenery and twisty curves of Rt #322.  Tonight, challenging roads and distracting scenery were the last thing that I wanted.  I was hoping for only one thing, and that was that PennDot, (The Pennsylvania Department Of Transportation), had done their job plowing the Interstate and that the 150 mile stretch of road from Bellefonte to the Delaware Water Gap was open and clear.  

As I approached the entrance ramp to Rt #80 East in Bellefonte, it was so far; so good.  If God does protect both drunks and fools, I was willing to be considered worse than both tonight, if he would get me safely to Boston without a crash.

The first twenty miles east on Interstate #80 were like a blur wrapped inside a time warp.  It was the worst combination
of deteriorating road conditions, glare from oncoming headlights, and spray and salt that was being kicked up from the vehicles in front of me.  Then it got worse — It started to snow again!

                                             More Snow!

What else could happen now I wondered to myself as I passed the exit for Milton on Rt #80.  It had been two hours since leaving the State College area, and at this pace I wouldn’t get to Boston until five or six in the morning. I was tucked in behind a large ‘Jones Motor Freight Peterbilt,’ and we were making steady but slow progress at about thirty miles per hour.  I stayed just far enough behind the truck so that the spray from his back tires wouldn’t hit me straight on.  It did however keep the road directly in front of me covered with a fresh and newly deposited sheet of snow, compliments of his eight rear wheels which were throwing snow in every direction, but mostly straight back at me.

I didn’t have to use the brakes in this situation, which was a real plus as far as stability and traction were concerned.  We made it almost to the Berwick exit when I noticed something strange.  Motorists coming from the other direction were rolling their windows down and shouting something at the drivers going my way.  With my helmet on, and the noise from the truck in front of me drowning everything else out, I couldn’t make out what they were trying to say.  I could tell they were serious though, by the way they leaned out their windows and shouted up at the driver in the truck I was following.

Then I saw it.  Up ahead in the distance it looked like a parade was happening in the middle of the highway. There were multi-colored flashing lights everywhere.  Traffic started to slow down until it was at a crawl, and then finally stopped.  A state police car came up the apron going the wrong way on our side and told everyone in our long line that a semi-truck had ‘jack-knifed’, and flipped over on its side, and it was now totally blocking the East bound lanes.  

The exit for Berwick was only two hundred yards ahead, and if you got over onto the apron you could make it off the highway.  Off the highway to what I wondered, but I knew I couldn’t sit out here in the cold and snow with my engine idling. It would eventually overheat (being air-cooled) even at these low temperatures which could cause mechanical problems that I’d never get fixed in time to see my dad.

I pulled over onto the apron and rode slowly up the high ramp to the right, and followed the sign at the top to Berwick.  The access road off the ramp was much worse than the highway had been, and I slipped and slid all the way into town.  I took one last look back at the menagerie of lights from the medivac ambulances and tow trucks that were now all over the scene below.  The lights were all red and blue and gold, and in a strange twisted and beautiful way, it reminded me of the ride to church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

                  Christmas Eve With My Mom And My Dad

In Berwick, the only thing I saw that was open was the Bulldog Lounge.  It was on the same side of the street that I was on and had a big VFW sign hanging under its front window.  I could see warm lights glowing inside and music was drifting through the brick façade and out onto the sidewalk. I stopped in front of the rural Pennsylvania tavern and parked the bike on its kickstand, unhooked my leather bag from the luggage carrier and walked in the front door.

Once inside, there was a bar directly ahead of me with a tall, sandy haired woman serving drinks.  “What can I get you,” she said as I approached the bar, but she couldn’t understand my answer.  My mouth and face were so frozen from the cold and the wind that my speech was slurred, and I’m sure it seemed like I was already drunk when I hadn’t even had a drink.  She asked again, and I was able to get the word ‘coffee’ out so she could understand it. She turned around behind her to where the remnants from what was served earlier that day were still overcooking in the ***. She put the cup in front of me, and I took it with both hands and held it close against my face.

After ten minutes of thawing out I finally took my first swallow.  It  tasted even worse than it looked, but I was glad to get it, and I then asked the bar lady where the restrooms were.  “Down that corridor to the right” she said, and I asked her if she would watch my bag until I got back.  Without saying a word, she just nodded her head. As I got to the end of the corridor, I noticed a big man in a blue coat with epaulets standing outside the men’s room door.  He had a menacing no-nonsense look on his face, and didn’t smile or nod as I walked by.  His large coat was open and as I looked at him again, I saw it – he was wearing a gun.
            
                                   He Was Wearing A Gun

As I went into the men’s room, I noticed it was dark, but there was a lot of noise and commotion coming from the far end.  I looked for the light switch and when I found it, I couldn’t believe what I saw next.  Someone was stuck in the window at the far end of the men’s room, with the lower half of their body sticking out on my side and the upper half dangling outside in the cold and the dark.  It looked like a man from where I stood, and he was making large struggling sounds as he either tried to push his way out or pull his way back in.  I wasn’t sure at this point which way he was trying to go. Something else was also strange, he had something tied or wrapped around the bottom of his legs.

It was at this point that I opened up the men’s room door again and yelled outside for help.  In an instant, the big man with the blue coat and gun ran almost right over me to the window and grabbed the mans two legs, and in one strong movement pulled him back in the window and halfway across the floor.  It was then that I could see that the man’s legs were shackled, and handcuffs were holding his arms tightly together in front of his body.  He had apparently asked to use the facility and then tried to escape once inside and alone.

The large guard said “Jimmy, I warned you about trying something like this.  I have half a mind now to make you hold it all the way back to New Hampshire.” He stood the young man up and went over and closed the window. He locked it with the hasp.  He then let the man use the toilet in the one stall, but stood right there with him until he was done.  By this time I was back inside and finishing my coffee.  The guard came in, seated his prisoner at a table by the wall, and then walked over and sat down next to me at the bar.

“You really saved me a lot of trouble tonight, son” he said, “If he had gotten out that window, I doubt I’d have found him in the dark and the snow.  I’d have been here all night, and that’s ‘if’ I caught him again.  My *** would have been in a sling back at headquarters and I owe you a debt of thanks.”  You don’t owe me anything I said, I was just trying to help, and honestly didn’t know he was a prisoner when I first saw him suspended in the window. “Well just the same, you did me a big favor, and I’d like to try and return it if I could.”

He then asked me if I lived in Berwick, and I told him no, that I was traveling to Boston to see my father in the hospital and had to get off the highway on my motorcycle because of the wreck on Interstate #80.  “You’re on a what,” he asked me!  “A motorcycle” I said again, as his eyes got even wider than the epaulets on his shoulders.  “You’re either crazy or desperate, but I guess it’s none of my business.  How are you planning on getting to Boston tonight in all this snow?”  When I told him I wasn’t sure, he told me to wait at the bar.  He went to the pay phone and made a short phone call and was back in less than three minutes.  The prisoner sat at the table by the wall and just watched.

The large man came back over to the bar and said “my names Bob and I work for the U.S. Marshals Office.  I’m escorting this fugitive back to New Hampshire where he stole a car and was picked up in West Virginia at a large truck stop on Interstate #79.  Something about going to see his father whom he had never met who was dying on some Indian reservation in Oklahoma.  He’d have made it too, except he parked next to an unmarked state trooper who was having coffee, thought he looked suspicious, and then ran his plates.”

“I’m driving that big flatbed truck outside and transporting both him and the car he stole back to New Hampshire for processing and trial.  I’ve got enough room behind the car to put your bike on the trailer too.  If you’d like, I can get you as far as the Mass. Pike, and then you’ll only be about ninety minutes from Boston and should be there for breakfast. If you don’t mind ridin with ‘ole Jimmy’ here, I can get you most of the way to where you’re going. I don’t think you’ll make it all the way on that two-wheeler alone out on that highway tonight.

The Good Lord takes many forms and usually arrives when least expected.  Tonight he looked just like a U.S. Marshal, and he was even helping me push my bike up the ramp and onto the back of his flatbed.  He then even had the right straps to help me winch it down so it wouldn’t move as we then headed North through the blinding snow in the dark.  Bob knew a back way around the accident, and after a short detour on Pa. Routes #11 and #93, we were back on the Interstate and New England bound.

The three of us, Bob, Jimmy and I, spent the first hour of the ride in almost total silence.  Bob needed to stop for gas in Stroudsburg and asked me if I would accompany Jimmy to the men’s room inside.  His hands and feet were still ‘shackled,’ and I can still see the looks on the faces of the restaurant’s patrons as we walked past the register to the rest rooms off to the left.  Jimmy still never spoke a word, and we were back outside in less than five minutes.

Once back in the truck Bob said “Jesus, it’s cold out here tonight. You warm enough kid,” as he directed his comment to Jimmy.  I still had on my heavy leather bomber jacket, but Jimmy was wearing a light ‘Members Only’ cotton jacket that looked like it had seen much better days.  Jimmy didn’t respond.  I said: “Are you warm enough kid,” and Bob nudged Jimmy slightly with his right elbow.  Jimmy looked back at Bob and said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.”

Then Bob started to speak again.  “You know it’s a **** shame you got yourself into this mess.  In looking at your record, it’s clean, and this is your first offense.  What in God’s name possessed you to steal a car and try to make it all the way to Oklahoma in weather like this?”  Jimmy looked down at the floor for the longest time and then raised his head, looked at me first, and then over at Bob …

“My Mom got a letter last week saying that the man who is supposed to be my father was in the Choctaw Nation Indian Hospital in Talihina Oklahoma.  They also told her that he was dying of lung cancer and they didn’t expect him to last long.  His only wish before he died was to see the son that he abandoned right before he was shipped off to Seoul during the Korean War. I tried to borrow my uncle’s car, but he needed it for work.  We have neighbors down the street who have a car that just sits. They have a trailer in Florida for the winter, and I planned to have it back before anyone missed it.  The problem was that their son came over to check on the place, saw the car was missing, and reported it to the cops. I never meant to keep it, I just wanted to get down and back before anyone noticed.”

“Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Bob said!  Don’t you know they make buses for that.”  Jimmy says he never thought that far, and given the choice again that’s what he’d do.  Bob took one more long look at Jimmy and just slowly shook his head.  Then he said to both of us, “how old are you boys?”  I said 23, as Jimmy nodded his head acknowledging that he was the same age.  Bob then said, “I got bookends here, both goin in different directions,”

Jimmy then went on to say, “My mom my little sister and I live in a public housing project in Laconia.  I never knew my dad, but my grandma, when she was alive, said that he was a pretty good guy.  My mother would never talk about why he left, and I felt like this was my last chance to not only meet him but to find all that out before he passed.”  I glanced over at Bob and it looked like his eyes were welling up behind the thick glasses he wore.  Jimmy then said: “If I got to rethink this thing, I would have stayed in New Hampshire.  It just ‘seemed’ like the right thing to do at the time.

We rode for the next hour in silence.  Bob already knew my story, and I guess he didn’t think sharing it with Jimmy would make him feel any better.  The story of an upper middle class college kid on the way to see his dad in Boston would probably only serve to make what he was feeling now even worse.  The sign up ahead said ‘Hartford, 23 miles’. Bob said, “Kurt, this is where we drop you off.  If you cut northeast on Rt # 84, it will take you to the Mass.Pike.  From where you pick up the pike, you should then be no more than an hour or so from downtown Boston.

During those last 23 miles Bob spoke to Jimmy again.  I think he wanted me to hear it too. “Jimmy,” Bob said, “I’m gonna try and help you outta this mess.  I believe you’re basically a good kid and deserve a second chance.  Somebody helped me once a long time ago and it made all the difference in my life.”  Bob looked over at me and said. “Kurt, whatta you think?”  I said I agreed, and that I was sure that if given another chance, Jimmy would never do anything like this again.  Jimmy said nothing, as his head was again pointed down toward the floor.

“I’ll testify for you at your hearing,” Bob said, “and although I don’t know who the judge will be, in most cases they listen when a federal marshal speaks up on behalf of the suspect.  It doesn’t happen real often, and that’s why they listen when it does.

    More Than Geographical Borders Had Now Been Crossed,
             Human Borders Were Being Expanded Too!

We arrived in Hartford and Bob pulled the truck over. He slid down the ramp and attached it to the back of the flat wooden bed. Jimmy even tried to help as we backed the Honda down the ramp. They both stood there as I turned the key and the bike fired up on the first try.  Bob then said, “You got enough money to make it the rest of the way, kid,” I said that I did, and as I stuck out my hand to thank him he was already on his way back to the truck with his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder.

The ride up #84 and then #90 East into Boston was cold but at least it was dry.  No snow had made it this far North.  My father’s operation would be successful, and I had been able to spend most of the night before the surgery with him in his hospital room.  He couldn’t believe that I had come so far, and through so much, just to be with him at that time. I told him about meeting Jimmy and Bob, and he said: “Son, that boys gonna do just fine.  Getting caught, and then being transferred by Bob, is the best thing that ever happened to him.”  

“I had something like that happen to me in Nebraska back in 1940, and without help my life may have taken an entirely different turn.  My options were, either go away for awhile, or join the United States Marine Corps — Thank God for the ‘Corps.”  My dad had run away from home during the depression at 13 and was headed down a very uncertain path until given that choice by someone who cared so very long ago.

“It only takes one person to make all the difference,” my dad said, and I’m so happy and grateful that you’re here with me tonight.

As they wheeled my dad into surgery the next morning, I couldn’t help but think about Jimmy, the kid who was my age and never got to see his dad before it was too late.

On that fated night, two young men ‘seemingly’ going in opposite directions had met in the driving snow. One was looking for a father he had only heard about but never knew.  The other trying to get to a father he knew so well and didn’t think he could live without.

          

      Jimmy Was Adopted That Night Through The Purity
                        Of His Misguided Intention …
                       As So Few Times In Life We Are!

wednesday 6/10/15 when going to my summer school post and made a right hand turn at the change of the light ( also in fl. you can make a right hand turn on the red ) i was slammed by a flatbed truck and forced me onto the sidewalk and hitting a concrete pole. the car was totaled and the driver sped off leaving a tire on the sidewalk up ahead , but we wasn't sure if it was from the cement mixer that he had or from his truck. any ways GOD and the ANGELS were watching over me and i walked away from that crash to the amazement of the police and the firemen medics who came because of a call from a passerby. i was taken to the hospital after they had gotten the info from me and then they called my wife and i called my daughter on the medics phone. ( mine locked from the impact and to my surprise not one airbag went off ) they did a MRI and just found some arthrithis in my neck , but i was allright. geico paid off the balance on my car and with the difference i put a down payment on a new car. ( KIA SPORTAGE 2014 ) new payments all over again but what the hell - i walked away from it. GOD IS GOOD i will continue writing my poetic stories and lyrics as long as GOD allows. BLESSINGS TO ALL MY READERS

Give me stars and bars and collard greens,
sweet lemonade and simple things,
Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Texas brisket and beans for dinner.

Deep fried okra, and cornbread,
Black Diamond melons on a flatbed,
don’t be stupid, but if you start,
we’ll just say, “well bless your heart.”

Always fixin’ to go do something,
usually fishing, or maybe hunting,
running ‘round our stomping grounds,
never know what can be found.

Jack and coke or Coors Light Beer
copper still, dripping out clear,
fried catfish on Saturday,
in the barn for a roll in the hay.

George Strait sings out The Chair,
while we enjoy fresh country air,
sitting on the truck tailgate,
holding her hand and feeling great.

The weight of the last cinderblock
took its toll,
that one final heave,
hoist and offload
handballing the lot
from broken pallets
to flatbed's top
no forklift or barrow in sight
under weather made heavy
by breezeless skies.
Body's done,
hand's numb,
mind's dumb,
arms quiver through,
back aches from over missuse.
Fingers so stiff,
with a pen I cant write.
My thumbs are grumpy
through which I type.
Feeling old hitting my wall
which I have yet to build
gives me something to do tomorrow
if I make it till tonight.

Cover Me (Slowly) + Agoraphobia by Deerhunter.

  I think we started to get the better of ourselves around midnight. At which point we'd been driving for the better part of the night, three hours? Something like that. Between the five of us, there were two couples, and Michael, that poor, third, or in this case, fifth wheeling *******. He was fortunate enough to be under the influence with the rest of us, barring Evan, our resident designated driver. As far as drugs went Evan held himself on our level, he was cool with whatever we were doing, but it wasn't his bag. He only really ever mentioned in passing why, but it had a lot to do with his mom, being how he was raised and all.

So like I was saying,  Kate, per usual, was sitting beside Evan in the front of his wearing, rusty green dodge pickup. Kate made a point to keep herself warm on our late night excursions, as far as I could tell, she was perpetually cold. For the eight -hundred he paid for it he probably got about two-grand worth of use out of it, he's had it for four, or I should now say five years now. Evan got the trunk on Kate's 16th Birthday, though, at that time they weren't together. Tonight is Kate's twenty-first birthday. Michael laid across the back bench seating of the truck, low enough that there was no way to tell anyone was back there unless you were looking right down from beside the window. He couldn't stand the seatbelt receptors jabbing into his back but Evan made more of a fuss if he stuffed them into the seat, so he put up with it, counting the rips and stitches in roofs material.

nearly noon oclock at night
phone screen poetry on a shared queen bed
the kitty woke me up this morning
his sweet little paws so gently said hello
a fistful of minutes and my toes touch the floor

i never understand the fridges of anothers home
but eggs are in the pan and pancake battered bowl
red room breakfast, black tea in the car
water on the ground sleeping soundly
cash back in the pocket
it was perfect pacin walkin
upstairs adventure with a basket of snacks
you called at just the right time for that strawberry milk pack

dorm couch poetry next to different angled conversations my world in rotation everything falling into place i dont know how to convey to you the magnitude but holy ******* **** i love my friends *******!

driving down the [] trail to ikea
cs backup in the backseat lackin sleep stacked up
parkin lot food keepin stats up
as the five hour campaign begins as it seems itll last us

why the ***** was it so hot in there

two weeks later and ive finally found a bathroom
(now i understand the scps and backrooms)
cleaning closed to women so its great that im a man or at least enough to take the handle still on brand but -
ive come to see things so unlike the way i have before a total norm to have the room with another human being it doesnt bother me at all in fact it feels natural sharing walls ive never been there on my own like that before -
such exhilaration from a stall inside a store and everything has changed,

Everything has Changed.

(fading bruises blue i never thought id heal in truth)
but actually outside of me every little thing has stayed the same -
and it is my lungs that have been shifted since the air that i am breathing is not different its just never like i used to

weird *** food court and a homework champ
bluetooth music with your mandatory lamp
hurtling down the aisles in a flatbed cart/
clambering the scaffolding
hampering the staff it seems
i say this dearly but you three quite sincerely
have a chokehold on my heart

ive never tried konjak jelly and ive never heard cherry wine but boy i cannot wait for these to be the first of a long string of things, immerse me in your lives submerged and intertwined i want to love you guys for a long long long ******* time

Three cars long
a passenger a box
and a flatbed

pulled

by a stocky
blocky locomotive


the caboose

has long since given
way to the ellipses

Whit Howland © 2020