A man dreams in bed. |
It’s been six hard days since Saskatoon for a man of no means, it’s hitch and walk, lurch and crawl. It lacks the romance of Kerouac, be assured. When the rides go dry, I hustle street corner coinage collect for coffee, chicken livers, and red pepper sauce. Graceland is an overpass on the Arkansas bank near a place called Presley Junction, and bed is a rag pile left by a bum but fit for the king on this finest of river front property. In the sweaty southern stench of a summer’s eve I bait drop-lines with livers and sink them deep, wait, and bathe in a mud brown eddy, though it’s more an exchange of dirt. Still, water holds power to refresh, and the river rewards me with three fat grunting mud cats. I skin them fast and fry them crispy brown, and suck clean each flavorful bone relish the tease of hot sauce afterglow on my tongue. The flickering fire casts primitive shadows of nocturnal feast on walls of concrete. Coffee, dessert for the soul, mellow and sweet with sugar and cream swiped from Burger King. I slit the foil inside the plastic grocery bag fix my face to the opening, inhale the nutty brown roast. Excepting a woman, there’s no odor finer. Coffee never stopped my sleep and the rags are soft enough but no matter how deep the night, the traffic never quiets and even in a first-class hotel, the lonesome rest uneasy. I smoke a crumpled cigarette, then twine my hands behind my head and yet again play the dream, the Florida dream: Find a job, something outdoors, maybe work an orange grove sunshine flecks in my hair, a brown skin native who swims the clean green gulf, and savors tart spray popped from an orange just plucked. |