If you were to leave my house right this second, step down the front porch and follow the walkway to the right, picket fences stained yellow from the spilling light of hundred of porches would guide you effortlessly down a street shaded with elm and oaks. You could go three blocks, or maybe its four, and come to a larger road where I would want you to make a right. In one block this street crosses a busier, four lane intersection called Live Oak. There is nothing alive on this street. An old Burger King, with plywood instead of windows, bears silent witness to the cacophony of filth and flesh and drugs passed in its empty parking lot.
I want you to cross this street and never look back. If you put your hand in your pocket, you'll find a pocket knife. It's on the right side. As you pass, go ahead and place your fingers on it, feel its cold steel blade, and fiddle with the possibilities the ever lurking danger brings your way with each shadowy stranger. Don't worry, we're not going to be here long.
That next street, make a left. You'll walk pass some derelict factory, caged in barbed razor wire protecting the nothingness it has become. Be careful. The sidewalks here are uneven and jagged from a hundred years of earth manipulations. Up ahead on the right, you'll see a bar, a tavern, with a sign illuminated that says "Cold Beer Pizza." Walk through the parking lot and through the large oak door. Step into the room and ignore the Run DMC bass skull fucked directly into your ear canal; you're not here for that. Look to your right. You'll see me sitting there: Johnny Cash shirt, driver cap, cargo shorts. You'll know its me because there is a glass of Woodford on the rocks, mixed with nothing.
Come and sit with me dear reader. I'm glad you made it. What should we talk about? I see no common bond here to discuss really, with the Blackhawks out, the Rangers losing in the American League, and the Mavericks lying in their hollowed out corpse of a season looking for warmth. I never cared for Tolstoy or War and Peace the way you did and found the whole affair rather boring and tepid. I don't care about the fish in Sea World and I don't donate to Amnesty International. So what, I ask, do you want to discuss?
I know. Let's talk about escape. But before this happens, there is a cute waitress in very short pink jean shorts coming my way right now, and there is something immediate and dire she and I must recount so forgive me and grant me your patience as another distilled rattles the ice inside my glass so I may continue.
Now. Escape.
I could regale you with intrepid and adventurous stories of war, dodging bullets in barren deserts far from home, the infernal March heading north into a sandstorm, a haboob that firmly convinced me hell is not made of flame but of the sand and earth of those who came before us, but there's no time for this. This is the past. I'm talking about escaping this life.
You see, I thought it's what I wanted and now I'm not so sure. Certainly, there are aspects of having a secure Job, having a House, and some Cablevision, and a Girlfriend, and I love them so, but I fear I'm having a very strange meltdown of sorts, a panic if you will grabbing my throat and choking me with fear.
There's talks of rings, and more Basset Hounds, futures, and children and I'm starting to think that I am not ready for all of that. Now, she and I have been together for several years now, and they are undoubtedly some of the best I've had, so there are no complaints. There's just some goals left to accomplish, on my own.
You want a list? Is that what you said? Well certainly by all means non-encompassing but sure:
Follow the John Muir trail from Yosemite into the Ansel Adams wildnerness, camera in hand
Write a book about my many travels
Have gratuitous, no frills, unabashed deviant and carnal relations with more women without regard or regret, and speaking of, sugar, I'll have another Woodford if you don't mind.
Once I wanted to run for Congress. Can you imagine? Me, DeepThroat on the C-A-P-I-T-O-L H-I-L-L? Oh I'd wear suits and shine my shoes and stare down God in heaven until he made a campaign contribution, I have no doubt. I'd create deals, break the wills of companies and men because having money and a mansion is just going to be another dilapidated wooden, termite infested tragedy but having Power, with its government granite, with its stone temples and pillars supporting the heavens we create; that my friend is forever.
Did you know, that since I quit smoking for her, over a year ago now, I've gained nearly 60 pounds. That's an entire bag of fertilizer from Lowes and I'm pretty sure I'm filled with just as much shit as that bag will contain. I'm disgusted with myself and what has happened to me.
I've fallen back in love with the World, and the World has taken me back with open arms, stretched wide by the cross they hang upon. I've got cable modems, hair products, a doctor who's worried about my blood pressure, a strange desire to stay informed of exactly who's stock is rising where and why. I've got magazine subscriptions, a refrigerator in my kitchen as we speak that has no other purpose than to serve my draft beer, and I tell you my friend, I believe my time and money is best spent on other endeavors.
There are mountains to climb. There's empires to explore, entire continents that are practically begging me with their enchanting images of exotic mysticism that it drives me insane to be chained here so remorselessly by the monster I created.
While watering the tomato bushes in the backyard is lovely in the waning sunlight under a Texan sky, I can't help fantasize that i'm continually surfing that sunset, as if it were a wave breaking continuously and forever around every reach of the world. It's an endless ride, and I'm telling you here and now, my greatest fear is that my ride is coming to an end that I'm not so certain I'm willing to accept.
But I digress. I do hope you enjoyed your drink. Thank you for taking my confession. I'm not one for priests and apologetic's and all, but this does feel like dying in ways, so I felt it best to tell someone and it may as well be you. The Ice Cube and NWA are rather unbearable, but I had to bring you here to even write this with some modicum of privacy, so I hope you understand. I think I'm going to walk back the wayward paths that brought me here this evening, but feel free to stay. I know you're free, and there are sirens singing their songs touting the glories of Calypso.
I hope you have a grand evening. I'll get the bill.
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