Fort Worth in the rain is nice enough.
I have some passable jambalaya in a New Orleans restaurant, a real splurge for me, but i still have extra cash from the thing a couple weeks ago. After that i sit on a bench in some town center kind of thing while it drizzles. I’ll pop off for a few beers before driving to the motor inn near the highway. I’m desperate to talk to someone. I was grateful even to make dumb chat with the waitress who took my order. I know i can’t talk about anything that truly matter to me, any thing real, but i’ll settle for just an hour of bullshit over a beer with someone. Not anyone, i’m lonely as fuck but there’s a few nutballs even i can’t quite take for too long. Yet. Ask me again in another few weeks. I am nothing if not falling standards.
Another town, another city… it’s a cross between a blur and something that might be fun if i just had someone to share it with. If someone were with me it could be like an adventure, even with the utter fucking lack of sunlight and the endless driving and buses and shitty jobs every few weeks to drum up enough money to move on. Moving on to nothing.
I sleep okay in the day. At night it’s bad. Still. Mostly, when it’s late enough that there’s no bar left open, no awful late night movie on TV i can bear any more, no movement at all outside my motel window, i just sit there with the window open, or on a chair outside my room facing the parking lot. For hours. I just sit and listen.
I listen hard.
And i wait.
My bag is always packed. I’m never so drunk that i can’t hop into and maintain a long distance sprint in a heartbeat. I only listen to music when i’m in a vehicle, moving. Three years. It’s been three years. It always comes and i always go and i’m still here, still running, you motherfucker.
I like the stillness. It’s a precious thing. And i’m not stupid. I know every extra moment, or hour, day or week i get to just stay still is a stolen gift. A gift to which a countdown is attached. The countdown can be a moment or a month. So i make the best of it. Well, maybe not the best, but i do okay. And i listen real hard.
And i wait.
“Run little rabbit, run, run, run.
Don’t give the farmer his fun, fun, fun.
He’ll get by
Without his rabbit pie
So run little rabbit, run, run, run.”
