heading out
Posted: November 7th, 2006, 6:42 am
I moved like a metronome. I picked out my tombstone. There were no gray areas except for the office walls. I had an arrangement; it should run its course. But the hours mounted like the Sierras, so I stopped to meet the God inside and kill it promptly with whiskey and words. But I stopped. Until I noticed a large blank spot on a map, so I crossed a few mountains-- don't recall which ones. The point was to get across. And I came out on a long, spectacular grade, down from snow-jeweled granite toward a rich field of barren tan. It might be warm there.
So I went down, out of the high thrusts and pine-pricked scree, through counties of scrub juniper gin, hard to outrun. I went down, past a few rusted hulks and faded shacks that were a good idea, lower, toward a vast dry lake, where Ed Abbey's sunburnt ghost reclined on a large thrum of pumice and cracked open a rusty Pabst. "You should shut off that damn petrol-swilling beast", he opined. "You don't know the first thing about the opera. You don't know who lives here. I bet you can't even remember the numbers of your last three highways". Had to concede that one. And I went on, lower, past Abbey and his rusted Pabst, toward the vast dry lake, where it might be warm. And quiet.
So I went down, out of the high thrusts and pine-pricked scree, through counties of scrub juniper gin, hard to outrun. I went down, past a few rusted hulks and faded shacks that were a good idea, lower, toward a vast dry lake, where Ed Abbey's sunburnt ghost reclined on a large thrum of pumice and cracked open a rusty Pabst. "You should shut off that damn petrol-swilling beast", he opined. "You don't know the first thing about the opera. You don't know who lives here. I bet you can't even remember the numbers of your last three highways". Had to concede that one. And I went on, lower, past Abbey and his rusted Pabst, toward the vast dry lake, where it might be warm. And quiet.