dmseay

She could never let go of me…,he said…nursing a beer…,no matter how I tried just couldn’t shake her…clung to me…like some puppy with its mom…everytime I turned ’round she’d be there…waitin’ to see what I was gonna do next…,he leaned forward on the bar…looked up at the baseball game…Tigers ahead 3-2…

And I just got tired of it…,his friend listened…,just got tired if her bein’ ’round…,they both nodded their heads…,wanted to take off in some kinda spaceship…head to the moon…or…I don’t know…maybe Mars…,he pushed dollar bills across the bar…,it’s the strangest thing…one minute you love someone and then you don’t…human nature I guess…,picked up an empty box of Marlboros and tossed them down…started counting quarters in his pocket…

I know this…once you leave there’s no turnin’ back…pride won’t letcha…you get this feelin’ in your bones that it’s the right thing to do…so…you leave her…leave her for good…don’t even tell her you’re takin’ off…just one day be gone…no traces…no forwarding address…gone…

That what you did…

That’s what I did…

He’s not right…that boy over at the end of the bar…somethin’ wrong with him…

Think so…

Yeah…he keeps lookin’ over here…drinkin’ and lookin’ over here…

At us…

Yep…like he’s lookin’ for a fight…start some trouble…

I could take care of him…

Oh…I’m not worried…but…he keeps lookin’…like he wants somethin’…

Sure he’s not starin’ at that blonde behind us…

Different type of stare…and he’s aimin’ his eyes right at us…

Go ask him what he wants…

I’m sizin’ him up…

Maybe you’re lookin’ for a fight…

Maybe…maybe…

He’s not starin’ at us…I can see his eyes…he’s just drunk and gazin’ the room…

I could’ve swore…

Nope…now don’t go startin’ nothin’…think you’re paranoid…’sides…he’s a big son of a bitch…don’t write a check your ass can’t cover…

You said you could take him…

I could…just don’t want to…drink your beer…quit eyein’ him…just quit now…hear…

I hear ya…I hear ya…

He kept havin’ these dreams…these crazy dreams ’bout somebody chasin’ him through towns…cities…cross America…chasin’ him out on highways and gravel roads…down back alleys…always on the run…

And he didn’t have a car or a truck…not on motor bike or bicycle…just his own two feet…kept runnin’ from this thing that he couldn’t get away from…thoughts in his mind…

The man kept tryin’ to get rid of these thoughts…thoughts of suicide…thoughts of maybe doin’ harm to himself…that’s what he was runnin’ from…and in his dreams these thoughts did a number on him…one day he’d be in a small town tryin’ to make it a home…then off on a Greyhound leavin’ again for some city…or some mountain range out West…

In these dreams he’d been everywhere…New York…Boston…Boise…out on some ranch in Montana…down South in Mississippi…laying on a beach down by Biloxi in the middle of the night with machines combin’ the sand…wakin’ him up just in time to avoid gettin’ run over…just another thing chasin’ him…

Sometimes throughout the night he’d just be snorin’ away under covers with his head sweatin’ into a pillow…a wetness from top to bottom..like he was overheatin’ or somethin’…he’d toss and turn…make noises…talk out loud…carry on complete conversations with himself…talk ’bout one day hittin’ the road…quittin’ his job down at the gas station…gettin’ rid of everything in his life…everything…

These dreams…wild dreams…they’d get the best of him one day…they’d get the best of him…eventually a man gets to the point where he don’t wanna dream no more…he just wants to sleep in peace…in peace…

Here’s to sleepin’ in peace…

He kept after ya didn’t he…chased ya all over this country…made ya run…what’s it like to be followed…never bein’ able to settle down anywhere…just keep on runnin’…never found you though did he…took off everywhere…New York…Chicago…Nashville…where ya goin’ next…I wonder about ya…maybe ya should head out West…get lost in Denver or Alberqurquee…maybe go out to Portland…heard they got a bunch of weirdos out there…ya could fall right into place…my question is…why’d ya leave him…had a good job…bringin’ home money…wanted a family…and ya just took off…strippin’ and whorin’ the whole time…don’t ya feel ashamed…he’s gonna find ya one of these days…come close a couple of times already…St. Louis…Cleveland…he’ll getcha…just wait and see…and when he does there’ll be questions to answer…he’s gonna demand answers…I talked to him boutcha ‘fore he left…said he had this emptiness inside him…said he couldn’t let go of ya…like you were some kinda curse…some kinda dream he couldn’t wake up from…ya know what that’s like…to want somethin’ so bad you’ll give up your whole life just to find it…

Like freedom…

Is that what this is ’bout…freedom…

Yep…

Hell honey…ain’t nobody free…

He lived like a vampire…up all night till sunrise…talking to himself ’bout nothing particular…just liked to hear his own voice…kept him company…

And he’d sleep during the day…had wild dreams of women and lilacs in Spring…visions of being with a wife…a blonde…brunette…some redhead with straight teeth and a pretty smile…dreamt ’bout em all…couldn’t get enough of those dreams…drowned out his reality…loneliness…

Nights spent listening to trains go by…a cop car cruising down the street with sirens blarin’…the man down the hall talking on his cell phone…callin’ friends from far away…askin’ how the weather was in California…talkin’ ’bout the president…how a man in his position can’t get a break…

But…it was the days he loved the most…asleep under covers…dreaming of women…being a man of the house…all fears put aside for hours with eyes shut…closed off to reality…his reality…

The reality of loneliness…

he listened to the radio while drivin’ ‘cross Texas…rock stations…country…news talk…kept flippin’ back and forth…heard everything from Free Bird to Stand By Your Man…listened to people callin’ in from all over America…askin’ questions and makin’ statements ’bout the end of times comin’ soon…speculations on Israel and America takin’ on the world…said they read it in the Bible…

and he’d turn on an oldies station…The Commodores playin’ a song from the past…She’s a brick…house…just lettin’ it all hang out…a smile came to his face…nodded his head to the beat…thought of all the girls from his past…women he’d met in truck stops…bars…midnight cafes…a hitchhiker he picked up outside of Tulsa…all long gone…long gone…

thoughts came to his mind…thinkin’ he was gettin’ old now…this could be his last hoorah…last time he drove ‘cross Texas…kids wantin’ him to get rid of the truck…tellin’ him he’s a danger out on the road…could kill somebody…could kill himself…he didn’t listen…was gonna be goddamned if they took the keys away from him…

this pickup was the last thing he had…made him feel free…more free than he ever did…

West Texas was comin’ to a close…New Mexico and red clay now faced him…did he dare…did he dare…just keep on drivin’…just keep on drivin’…

The parking lot was filled with all types of automobiles…vans…pickup trucks…a Mustang…two flat-tops with bobcats sittin’ up on ’em…a Wrangler Jeep…

He gave ’em all a good look…he particularly liked the black Dodge pickup…wished he could just get inside and drive down the road like he used to…back when things were goin’ his way…’fore he drank it all away…seems to run in the family…

His daddy was a drinker…a hard core man who came home with a case of Falstaff every night…drink ’em down then started for the whiskey…wind up passed out in the LazyBoy…snorin’ till mornin’ came…then he’d get up…go to work…do it all over again…

Those were the days…when he had that truck…drove ’round with a bottle up under his seat…tossin’ beer cans out the window on Friday nights…pickin’ up his girl and takin’ her out for awhile…till she got too drunk to say no…she liked tequila…never mind the lime…

And he walked the parkin’ lot all day long now…askin’ people for change…a buck or two…smellin’ like Rumplemintz…lookin’ like shit…time passes and you have no idea of what you’ve done…life’s funny that way…

It sure is funny…

in his younger days there was a belief in god…a naive belief that somthing, or, someone created the world inwhich he lived…a world of a mom and a dad…brothers and a sister…best friends to go down to the swimmin’ pool with on hot summer days in August…afternoon naps…smells comin’ in the windows of lilac and sycamore…petals from dogwood trees blowin’ on the grass that was freshly cut…a dollar for chores well done…

and he thought if he was good than he’d go to heaven when he died…a beautiful place with golden streets and mansions on hills where families lived as one for the rest of their days… singin’ out praises to the lord on high who sat on his thrown takin’ in worship from peasants who praised his very bein’…his goodness…his holiness…

consequently…he also believed that if he was bad then firey pits of Hell awaited him…burnin’ forever with other sinners…whores of Babylon…wicked men who stole and killed in the name of false gods…worshipin’ money…those with a lustful nature towards the same sex…fornicators…men and women who at night screamed out obscenities from the alley where needles lay behind garbage cans…the sins of darkness always bein’ seen in broad daylight…god’s eye in the sky burnin’ brightly…

there was a fear inside of him…although the love of Jesus had saved his soul years ago there was a fear…a fear that he was not good enough to enter the pearly gates…preacher man sayin’ that only a few would be allowed in paradise…all would be judged and many would fail…there was no grace…this was a southern way…

so…he grew older…became a man who no longer believed in a god…or sin…no longer bought the theory of good and bad…the saved and unsaved…heaven or hell…he just thought we existed on this earth until we no longer were allowed to by the breakin’ down of the human body…a gunshot in the middle of the night…one drug too many taken…an old Mustang wrecked out on highway 30…and then you were gone…dust to dust and ashes to ashes…nothin’ left…and that spirit dreamed of when he was a kid…vanished into thin air…

oh ye of little faith…do you not believe…can you hold on to hope just a little longer…can you not see the light…,No…I cannot he said…,and with that he toasted to nothin’…a popped open can of beer toastin’ to nothin’…how southern…

he would turn on the television just to have noise in the room…made him feel less lonely…sometimes he’d watch pictures on the set…news programs…old westerns…The Andy Griffith Show…these kept him company…

and he would think of old days…days gone past when youth made him wander…driving out to Texas at the drop of a hat…heading into New Mexico with walls of red clay on both sides of the highway…no one’s seen a prettier sight…

but, now he was motionless…stayed in his room all day with the tv blaring…felt no need to leave anymore…just wanted to keep to himself…try to keep memories alive…remembering women from long ago…out in the Indiana dunes making love as night fell over Lake Michigan…kids being kids…he’d often smile when these images came into his mind…how could one not…

past is the past is the past is the past…say it a million times…and ask yourself…what was gained…