It was New years Day, I stood at the kitchen window sipping a cup of coffee, and gazed out at he raw, grainy, deserted, fog-shrouded countenance of 5th Street in Amarillo, Tx. It was cold and foggy and grey, So it looked like I felt. I was listening to a Hank Williams song. I was thinking that on New Years day in 1953, Hank had died somewhere along the way to a show in Canton, Ohio. Whether death is indeed preferable to doing a show in Canton, Ohio has been a much disputed philosophical question ever since. About the only thing I know is Hank has been dead almost as long as I have been alive, and the older I got the more he seemed to be catching up with me. A young lady, with her head resting on her knees sat on the divan looking at a bird on the other side of the window. “You’re probably a big fan of Hank Williams Jr,” I said, on a thinly disguised note of facetiousness. The girl said nothing. She looked at me calmly for a moment, then she turned her gaze back out the window. Facetiousness, I reflected, was one of many elements of subtlety that was assuredly lost upon the young girl. It was also of course lost upon Hank Williams Jr. But that wasn’t entirely his fault. “How would you feel.” I asked , “if after every show some body would come back stage and say. “Your’re good kid, but you will never be as good as your daddy.” The girl continued to watch the bird. I continued to drink my coffee. The fog continued to roll across 5th Street until it took on the bleak beckoning, ghostly visage of an early-fifties Tennessee highway heading inexorably toward the Canton, Ohio of the mind. It was well over an hour later and the young lady and I were both at the window staring at the street. The bird was gone and I had no idea what she was looking at. There was nothing out there but a few parked cars and several wisps of fog that slowly eddied away like dreams from childhood or hopes from the sixties. Early evening the night before, I was pacing back and forth the wooden floor. Waiting for the girl on my sofa to arrive. She was late. Then I heard the click of high heels. I walked to the window and thought the fog was playing tricks on me. Then I saw her. She was a tall leggy blond that seemed to be rising out of the fog like a pirate ship. She enters and you go into the kitchen to get ice for her drink. It was the kind of thing you dreamed about as a child. A mysterious phone call. Then a mysterious mystical blond beauty walks through the mist. She enters your home and you get ice.You glance at the woman, she glances at you, then you gaze at the refrigerator. You are hungry for her. There is no need to open the refrigerator. You already know the world is cold. Our eyes meet and something is unlocked as if by an old fashioned hotel key. As I watched her legs recede toward the bedroom, I began to feel pretty good. This could be a financial pleasure. And if she came over often there would be lots of opportunities to watch those legs walk away. And there was plenty of leg to watch. “One more question,” I asked . She turned and once again I noticed the pale lovely face, the long blond hair, the blue eyes that came at you with the gentleness of rain on the roof. “How much?” There is more than one way to find happiness in the world, or so I’ve been told. Back to this morning. I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee. She did not respond. she was sound asleep on the couch. possibly dreaming of far away places. Judging from the peaceful expression on her face, maybe she wasn’t dreaming at all. Maybe she had found what she had been looking for. I picked up the coffee cup and poured the entire cup down my throat. It went down like a friendly fire. One or two more stunts like that I thought and I might very likely be looking for myself. Like almost everybody else in the world I was operating under the delusion I had any morals. But it was an important right of passage. Unfortunately, as you go through life, the things you think are important are very rarely important at all and the things you think are not important are eventually, inexorably, vitally, profoundly, soul-searchingly important. I put on my cowboy hat and headed out for pastries. As I headed up 6th Street the light rain was steady and fell on the street, softening the lights of the neighborhood and lending the neon an almost comforting appearance, like cotton candy at a county fair.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:19:56 +0000