After a few hours of driving west, morning dithered between mist & rain. 11AM traffic flowed surprisingly smooth with the usual alpha-politics of weekend lane-changers manically vacillating brake lights through a series of obstacle course chess moves en route somewhere to desperately relax in, ultimately, failed escapes. I exited to a turnpike travel plaza & followed a wide-load casually bottlenecking the restroom entrance. Upon return to the food court lot, the minivan was silent when I twisted the ignition. I called my hometown dealership. They prescribed wiggling the battery connection. The engine turned & I drove toward a nearby service department they recommended — north of the interchange — open on Saturdays. By noon I was maneuvering around a building looking for the Service entrance & passed uniformed mechanics out back, grilling, laughing & talking in the meat smoke. The bay doors were closed, so I parked, left it running & went inside through a side door. A dealership button-up behind the service counter said they had stopped working for the day & didn’t mention the BBQ, but suggested I drive about half mile more & look for a garage under a large American flag. “Find the flag,” they said. I did. It was massive. I could see it as I pulled out from the dealership lot, beelined & parked beneath. It smacked in the wet gust like a snapped gym towel. A youthful gait, so nimble he seemed made of rubber, sprang from somewhere with a rag & pliers. He smiled, pulled the hood & tightened the battery connections. The hood slammed tight for “no charge” & the youth bounced away. The elements died down, the flag sagged & I headed northwest. At 6PM, I loaded a few guitars into the venue helped by a sound person being trained by an older man who said he'd once worked for a company that made cryogenically-treated audio cables. He complimented the way my cords were coiled. The stage manager introduced his teen daughter who skulked through a performance of extreme boredom as set times were confirmed. The promoter went over the contract details & presented his young-adult son who, the father said, “hates children but loves hockey.” It was also revealed that the opening act's guitar player is a corn farmer & has a dog with diabetes. My memory of the show is that I forget some songs, but kept moving with kind support from the audience. Load-out was assisted by the child-hater & cryo-trainee. I drove towards the motel noticing gas prices on the way & decided to gamble it towards the state line. It was colder when I found the lit, open-curtained room. The wall heater below the window started on its own as I chained the door & pulled the drapes, whirring & exhaling upwards, making the curtains dance.
Heading south, the next morning’s sabbath gas price gamble paid off thirty cents cheaper & I celebrated with a secular thrift store stop. A man in cycle apparel & holding a bicycle helmet explained to a woman stocking shelves how much could be made reselling thrift store finds with “. . . you spend a hundred you make five hundred, you spend two hundred, you make a thousand . . .” She listened silently as she worked with her back turned. When the man left without buying anything, he got in a dented sedan & threw his helmet in the back seat. Meandering a loose Sunday-drive route, I fell for a business route historical marker billboard to the nation’s first concrete paved street. It was roadblocked for repairs. That evening’s motel was located next the city’s Expo Center offering a gun show & free glucose allergy testing. I was tempted, but instead practiced a few songs that’d been detoured the night before & snacked from a vending machine. The show that last night has escaped retention. The Monday drive home, I remember though, was dry.
like tiktok for the literate. your ruminations, like your songs, reveal lives that often seem more real than nominal reality. or at least lives more lived. see you in rchmond?