Mudshow

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Ryan’s cheeks were still wet with tears, and his head felt as if it were about to split open and let his brains drool out, but at least he had finally managed to quit laughing and calm down. He had been afraid that he was slipping into actual hysteria, but if that had been the case, he had beaten it.

He lit a cigarette, and rested his arm out of the open window of the truck and looked around. The air was thick, humid, and alive with the buzzing of cicadas. He looked up at the heat shimmering off the asphalt on the levee road, and although he wasn’t looking forward to it, he knew what he would have to do, and steeled himself toward the task.
He climbed out of the driver’s seat of the truck and rolled up the window.

When did all this weird shit begin? He wondered vaguely. He made sure he had his wallet, cigarettes, lighter, and both sets of keys. He began to giggle again, and fought it back down. He locked the truck, wishing he had a cellular phone. Wishing was futile of course, but Hell, it couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like he was throwing a hundred bucks into a wishing well. It was just thinking …

He started walking up the dirt road, between the cottonwood trees, and then out across the wooden bridge, over the slimy looking water of the slough, and the soup of lily pads and Delta grass in what looked like chocolate milk. Something stirred up a wake in the muddy water, probably a catfish. He climbed the gravel road up the hill, under the fierce punishment of the morning sun, and under the weight of one of the worst hangovers in his long experience with hangovers.

The weird shit had started years ago, he knew that much. Way before he ever went to Utah. He made it to the top of the levee and looked up and down the paved road. There were no cars in sight. He was about six miles north of Knight’s Landing, and didn’t think he had the energy to walk it. He’d have to hitch it. He’d just wait for someone to come along. His mind bumped along, and his thoughts went back to all the weird shit. It had begun even before he got to Sacramento. Hell, it must have begun back in the ’90 ‘s. Back in San Jose. Back in the old house with June.

He heard a vehicle coming, from the north, from the right direction, headed toward Knight’s Landing. The Luck was running again. The vehicle came around the bend in the road about a quarter mile up. He stuck out his thumb and waited, thinking about all the weird shit. Thinking about all that had led to that moment. Thinking about the old house on Second Street. Thinking about June …

To Be Continued …

Testing the waters

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Confusion reigns, as the darkness winks and slithers and shimmers all around. The Uptown boys are singing battle songs as the Undertaker puts on a pot of coffee…

A blind old man Shuffles past the cat food factory, and Benny-Next-Door damn near cut off his own foot while he was choppin’ firewood.

Meanwhile, we crouch in our encampments, hiding behind any walls that can be built. We test the waters constantly, and we wring our hands, and we pace, and we mutter and grimace in nervous anticipation.

Here I am, a man of disarray, humble obedience, and sudden reaction, sifting through grit during a storm, shoveling garbage in the middle of the night, hiding from harmless insects, and calmly smoking a cigarette as the house burns down around me.

Seedy …

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      An old man in a seedy little bar once told me that he had two rules which he lived by. He said ‘Know what you’re doing, and know what you’ve done.’ I thought this wise at the time, and tried to adopt it as my own credo, but after one too many violations, ended up abandoning it. I took the easy way of simply wading through the murky waters and being surprised to see how things played out. Would my footing hold? Would I be consumed by eels and leaches? Would I drown? Well, so far so good. Things weren’t always easy, though. Natural, perhaps, but almost never easy. Especially back in the late 1990’s. It seemed that things were always dirty, and damp, and cold. The days were long and the nights were hard, as the delusions hovered near the surface, and the ice cubes in the glass rattled like a freight train full of bones rolling by…

I Ain’t Got Nobody

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“A week?” Terry said, smiling a toothless smile. Then he started to chuckle. And then the chuckle grew into a laugh. “A week? Hell, City Boy, I don’t get back to the Salt Lake yard but every six or eight weeks, dependin’ on the workload! And the bottom line is, I ain’t done with you until I decide you’re fit to go out on your own, and sign off on your final road test. But plenty of time for all that. Your ass is mine for a while.” He slapped his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’ll make a trucker out of you, don’t you worry… Well, I’m going in the back to get me some shut-eye. Gimme’ a holler if you have any problems. But try real hard not to have any problems.”

He went back into the bunk, closing the curtain behind him.

‘Six or eight weeks,’ Ryan thought. ‘Good God, what have I stepped into?’