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Somewhere in the Middle I'm digesting this new person along with some of the best barbecued ribs I have ever eaten. In fact I'm already down to pie and coffee. But I was talking about her eyes, wasn't I. She has great eyes. They have a lightness to them, a lacy blue/grey and, I bet, there's some green in there somewhere. I just know they change colors depending on what she wears. Definitely they're prone to different shades; following the degrees and calibrations of the weather or the sky or, maybe, even her moods; especially her moods. But most of all, they looked directly at you, unpretentious and sincere. They are intense and penetrating, yes, but not rude. They reach inside me without violating anything; without making me feel uncomfortable. You know, like some people can look at you or stare and you feel like saying, "Hey! Go away! Get away from me! And it's none of your business anyhow!" Well, this is not the case here. Her eyes make me feel welcome and I have known her, more or less, for only, at tops, just about ten minutes. Oh yeah, if I forgot to mention it before, my name is Trenton Rivers. I'm a traveling salesman. I gotta watch out for a lot of things on the road but I really have to watch out for eyes. "Remember, Trent, they're your weak spot," I say to myself. She's explaining now with a passion, elongated fingers and facial expressions accenting her presentation, an idea for a book she wants to write; mixing in bits and pieces of who she is in the process: single mother (for twenty years), daughter in college (senior – that's funny, my daughter's a senior too!), loves her work (that's obvious – too much energy), looking for more, looking for a lot more of everything (that's obvious also – too much energy). Her book's gonna be about teaching and she draws large pictures in the air with her hands to illustrate time and places and various scenes, always filling in the blanks with her eyes and a clear, distinctive voice that tremors with excitement. I bet she will write it. I'm watching all this animated energy and trying to listen at the same time. It's a hard thing to do. So I give up trying. And I'm just starting to enjoy this whole thing when she's called away to help at the cash register. I watch her gracefully move through the other tables at her sister's restaurant. She pleasantly acknowledges customers and friends. They all seem to know her. Watching her weave a path to the front of the store, I catch my breath and try to piece together the bits and pieces of scattered happenstance that put me here in the first place. The genesis for this unplanned, just a little bit too intense, spontaneity started right here nearly six months ago; eating barbecue ribs by myself, best I've ever had (but I've already said that, haven't I?), on a cold, drizzly, gray-dark wintery evening in a small, small town, right here at Riley's BAR-B-Que, in deep, deep East Texas. I stumbled onto Riley's back then like I stumble onto everything else, I guess: traveling down the road. I was on the road, as usual, calling on my smaller car dealers; selling them converted vans and fancy painted pick-up trucks that we manufacture in our plant in Austin. I have done this for almost twenty years and can sometimes perform my sales function automatically and unconsciously. This was one of those times. It was an OK week; not a great week; not a very exciting week; just a bit on the dull, flat side of acceptable. And I wasn't in my favorite part of the world. I spend as little time as possible in this part of Texas. The reason I largely skirt around East Texas is a combination of some iffy personal history and maybe a somewhat kinky and scrambled intuition about the place. But I'll get into that later. I was about halfway through with the lackluster week, Wednesday it was, and already thinking about home. Also I was starting to catch a slight case of the John Brown blues. The John Brown's start with wet feet, usually, and it had been raining, and they progress slowly upwards ending somewhere in the vicinity of my brain. When they hit me, I mean hit me really hard, all I want to do is spend about three hundred dollars on various canned goods, surround myself with books, start a fire in my little fireplace, lock my doors, turn off the phone, and not come out for two or three months. It was just a slight case, however, but the weather wasn't helping at all. I could feel myself sliding downhill. East Texas is beautiful. But even with its tall pines and thick grassy fields and fat cattle and fish-rich lakes and abundant water in all sizes and forms of ponds and creeks and such, it doesn't hold a tenderness for me. In fact, it holds just the opposite. Amid its fertile thick grassy meadows, I see ghosts weaving through the wooded lushness. I hear eerie voices falling down from the wet pines. Small roadside lakes that double as stock ponds look like black, bottomless holes. Fearful images reflect back at me from the windshields of on-coming cars. An undercurrent of meanness seems to be just beneath everything; peeking out, every now and then, striving for expression; wanting to show itself. A meanness that permeates the rich earth and rises through the sweet blanket of pine needles as if to defend some dark secret; some scary thing in the basement that, at all costs, is never, never to be seen. It's just a spooky feeling I have; some unconscious alarm; an uncomfortableness that just won't go away. And I don't know where it comes from; nothing really specific to blame it on. I certainly can't blame it on Riley's Bar-B-Que. Or this little town, for that matter. From the first wintry stop, this place has been a joy; nice people, great food, plenty of it, and an honest cup of coffee with real cream. I mean, what more do you want? Good dog, maybe, or a custom-made Spanish shotgun. Maybe it was put here for me as a crack in the landscape; an entry point allowing me to get inside this land and see what was so frightening to me. When I first saw Riley's, it appeared as a collective of all those houses I had driven past in the rain. But the bad feelings weren't there. "This is good," I think. As my van crunched slowly to a stop on the shell covered parking lot, I saw, through the windows, a crowded, well lit place; a beacon to this hungry, spooked-out traveling man. I walked briskly, stooped against the cold, through the drip-droppy, wood smokey rain toward the warmth that was pulling me inside. She sat down then, introduced herself ("Ann Taylor, Riley and I own this place."), ordered coffee, and asked me a million questions. How did I go to school? What school was it? How hard was it to work and keep up with my studies? Same questions everybody asks when a forty-nine year old man says he's going to college. A couple of years ago I enrolled in a pretty unique little liberal arts college in Vermont. You only go on campus ten days a semester and then mail monthly work to your professor. It fits my schedule, allows me to fulfill my dream of writing, helps me tremendously in coping with the break-up of a twenty-year marriage (three years past), and I'm getting a degree in the process. Not a bad deal. And it never fails to excite certain people when it comes up in conversation. Ann Riley was one of those people. We talked until she had to close up. We covered all the bases: school, kids (they had three — all grown), small towns, real estate prices, fishing, small business, money, and rainfall. Before I said good-by and went out into the night to find a motel, I promised to send her some stuff about my school (and I did). It was a pleasant visit and I forgot for a while that this old East Texas scared me so. That was back in the winter, just before Christmas, six months ago. I never heard anymore from Ann (not even a thank-you for the stuff I sent her but I knew she was sincere and just busy like the rest of us, probably) and, as I said before, I don't frequent this neck of the woods, so I forgot about the incident until now. She must have appreciated the stuff, though, because about the first thing she did, when I walked in, was give me a big cheery hello and a great big hug and she thanked me for the packet I sent. All this and I hadn't been in there but once before and that was six months prior. Nice to be remembered. The second thing she does is introduce me to her sister. And here I sit. Drinking coffee, waiting for Trudy to come back to the table (we ain't through yet), I watch heavy logging trucks through the window rumbling and down shifting through town, and think about me and East Texas. Who are these ghosts I feel? Or maybe, what are the ghosts? But most of all, why are the ghosts? I was engaged once to a girl who lived in Tyler (Rose Capital of Texas) and she was definitely an East Texas Tyler rosebud. We were kids in college then, both going to Texas Tech and too young to be engaged anyway, and while the break-up was worth a tear or two at the time, it barely notes mention except for the fact it didn't make me scared of the area. Her daddy didn't like me too much, but he didn't scare me either. When I think back on it, I don't blame him a bit for not liking me. Showed pretty good judgement on his part. I was nineteen and heading nowhere fast, showing a natural affinity for nineball and whisky. Her name was Marcy and she could sure dance. I still think about her every now and then. Probably has kids in Harvard. Probably married a doctor. Probably grows roses somewhere in these piney woods on the divorce settlement. Wish her the best. She was a pistol. But I'm starting to stray off the subject. Subject being: Why does East Texas freak me out? There was a poker game once, a few years back, that comes to mind. It happened not too far from here; not far from where I've just finished eating these good ribs. The town's name, and it's the truth, is Palestine. How about that for pomp and pride and circumstance? The town, like the whole area, vibrates with a strong undercurrent of fundamental religiosity. A religiosity that builds walls as high as the sky-tall pine trees that live here. A religiosity that sometimes closes its doors to all those outside. A religiosity that encircles and protects; creating a self contained world that says, "We can take care of our own." Autonomous. Strong. Private. The flip side of this autonomy, when you mix it with either too much or too little money, or sometimes just plain old ignorance (but that's rare) is a self righteous sanctimony that can be dangerous, very, very dangerous. Enjoy but stay alert. There's a story about an old East Texas oil field hand that thought he would take up religion. He first went to a Catholic priest and said,"I believe I want to join up." Priest says,"OK, but you got to answer some questions." He ran down a list of a few things: How many commandments? How many disciples? When is Christmas? Stuff like that. And the old driller was doing pretty good until the priest asked the last question. "Where was Jesus born?" The old cowboy thought for a minute and said,"Tyler?" "Nope. You flunk," said the priest. "Come back when you've studied more." Undaunted, the oil field roughneck called on a Baptist minister. He thought because there were so many of them around he wouldn't have any trouble qualifying. Same story. The minister said he could join if he passed on the question test. Once again, he was doing OK until asked, "Where was Jesus born?" He was more careful this time and thought even longer. "Nacogdoches?" he queried. "Nope," said the minister, "try us again when you've studied more." He was getting pretty depressed about this church business. Seemed to him, after all the fuss in the world about drinking and whoring and gallivanting around, these preacher people oughta be a bit more obliging. If a man wanted to mend his ways, that is. Finally he decided to give it one more chance. He went to the Methodist preacher after hearing they would take just about anybody. After all, didn't his dear departed mother once say that Methodists were just Baptists that knew how to read? Sure enough, he was welcomed with open arms but to his chagrin the Methodist minister said he had to answer a few simple questions. The driller, not wanting to flunk again, pulled himself up tall and straight and said, "That's OK with me but you've got to answer one first. If you don't mind, that is?" The Methodist said, "Sure." "Where was Jesus born?" "Palestine," said the preacher. "Damn!" the old driller reflected, "I knew it was in East Texas somewhere." Anyhow, this Palestine poker game was a monthly, sometimes weekly, affair and had been going on for about ten years. It was such an institution that a local apartment was leased yearly for the ongoing event. The apartment's sole purpose was to provide a comfortable and masculine air for gentlemanly wagering. The steady players over the years furnished it in early motel. Little by little they accented the early motel with a not-so-subtle macho motif. A deer head with one antler missing stares vacantly down from over the mantle of a fireplace that burns only gas logs ("When I hit that buck with my pick-up, I never could find them other horns. Ha! Ha! Ha!"). A big screen TV was furnished free by the area bookmaker. He is a regular player in the game and never was one to pass up the business opportunity a televised sporting event provides. A huge five foot by five foot, stereotypical multicolored print of dogs in various stages of human attire, sitting around a poker table playing cards, graces the living room wall. And last but not least, an enormous, 1950's refrigerator, with all the racks out and completely full of beer, stands alone in the bare kitchen. There is one telephone on the floor by the bathroom. Its function is to connect the local car dealers, real estate brokers, and various drop-ins with their primary source of income and/or with wives and girlfriends who, on occasion, might wonder where they had been for the last couple of days (the bookmaker, of course, having his own personal cellular phone — an enormous briefcase type affair back then — with a built in scrambler). This specific Tuesday night game was no different than any other Tuesday except that I had made out real good on Sunday football and had a little bit more money than normal. The additional funding allowing me a looser approach to my already loose approach with cards and money. You can always make more money, right? Just sell one more van. I wasn't a regular regular but was always welcome. The main reason was because my beer consumption promoted a gallant and dashing blatant disregard for my bank roll. I could also tell a decent joke. Let's see, around the table, when I walked in, was Johnny "Rock" Johnson, a car wholesaler from Dallas and a helluva stud player, Sidney "Gotcha by the Shorts" Lankston, the bookie and originator of the game, Mel "Always Late" Roberts, owner of Robert's Dodge, steady contributor to the Boy Scouts and this game, and "Tiny" Harris, four hundred and fifty pound champion lowball player from Harris Chevrolet ("Right here in beautiful downtown Palestine folks! The people with a feel for what's real!"). Tiny, at the moment, was running the car store for his big brother, Clayton Harris. Clayton was currently on "vacation" for a few months in the regional minimum security penitentiary at Big Springs. Something about tax fraud or insurance fraud or something like that. Nobody, not even Tiny, knew for sure. We did know, however, that his tennis game was approaching an unbeatable state and he was losing weight and toning up, which he needed to do. He was also meeting many new business associates with interesting ideas, which he didn't need to do. They would let him come home on week-ends if he passed his drug test and if he was back before five on Sundays. This was the core group. When I sat down, after first pouring two Budwiesers into a gigantic Sonic Drive-in plastic mug with a day-glow handle, I had a funny feeling this was going to be an interesting night. Little did I know how interesting it was really gonna be. We were waiting for Cedric Fallow, the local insurance agent, who was known to bet his entire stake on a pair of deuces if he felt like it. And he felt like it often. Had something to do with misplaced guilt and a well known un-secret secret twenty-year affair with the Presbyterian minister's wife. For reasons of discretion and hometown courtesy, the clandestine couple had survived in the shadows all these years because Cedric was a good contributor to the church in addition to always furnishing its Little League uniforms every year, and the minister looked the other way mostly because Candy, his affectionate but not too faithful bride, was the number one booster in town for the week-end bake sales and, more importantly, could make the best chicken fried steak in four counties. Anyway, we were waiting on Cedric because, all things considered, he's a pretty good old boy and we all wanted his money. That's who we thought it was when someone knocked on the door. But before anybody could get up, the door popped open and in walked two enormous black guys, dressed rather nappily, each holding what looked like the biggest shotguns in the world. And they were pointing them directly at us. How rude! The best way I know to break up a perfectly good male-bonding poker game is to send in two robbers with stocking masks on and have them point shotguns at the players. It spoils your concentration just a tad. Funny, you know it? We never thought about robbery. It wasn't a real big game by any means. It was fairly funded, however, for regional competition. It had been richer and poorer but tonight there was probably eight/ten thousand dollars laying around plus jewelry. And when you think about it, it sure beats sticking up a convenience store or stealing an old lady's purse. Obviously we were dealing with crime at a higher level here and there was some snob appeal in that. At least we weren't getting cheated. Nobody was sneaky (I hate cheats and sneaks). It was straightforward and very blatant. This was an out and out, old timey, all American, dyed-in-the-wool, pure-dee, no fooling, in-your-face stick-up. And speaking of stick-up, that's the first thing they said, "Stick-up, mothafuckers, stick-up!" Most of us sitting there had been to college, even if not for very long, except for Sidney the bookmaker who had an MBA from Stanford. So we didn't need to be told twice, or even once, to put our hands up. Fact is, I don't think they even said that. But thanks to TV, it was a fairly reflexive action by all of us. If you've ever had a gun pointed at you, especially a shotgun, and this made three times for me (all three in East Texas, by the way — a pattern might be forming here), what really scares you is seeing how scared the one who points the gun is. Their hands were shaking, their underarms were wet, and beads of sweat were popping out of the tiny, tiny microscopic holes in their stocking masks. This created a sheen on their distorted faces that we watched with a mixture of fascination and fear. Their large bodies, while very tall and erect, subtly and continuously quivered; like a dog shitting a peach seed. And the barrels of those two shotguns jerked around in tight, nervous concentric circles always pointing in our general direction. It makes one hope and pray that no car backfires or no other specific disruption occurs, other than, of course, the current disruption of being a participant, or should I say victim, in an armed robbery. It makes one almost want to help; speed them up so they can go about their business of getting away before they make the nervous mistake of accidentally pulling the trigger. Because of the fragile balance between the robber and the robbee, especially a balance teetering a hundredth of an inch away from buckshot ruining a perfectly good, hand tailored Hong Kong silk shirt that you just happen to be wearing, the robbee is particularly compliant and agreeable to any and all current demands; whether they be verbal or merely implied; whether the robbee deems them fair or not. This was our general attitude. And the reason the three of us with boot pistols had the good sense not to do anything rash. Even in the old west, experienced gun fighters never "drew against the drop," and these two robbers definitely had the drop part going real good. And we three armed robbees were not all that experienced. Dashing gunmen we were not. We lacked a certain amount of commitment. We had just heard somewhere that it's always a good idea to have a pistol around. But for the life of me (interesting use of words) I elected to pretend it wasn't there: in my boot, that is. I for one, if I ever got out of here without being accidentally blown into spaghetti, was going to, first thing, sell my "road pistol" because, in a flash of fear induced insight, I realized I wanted no part of a gun fight no matter what the reason. If, in any confrontation in the future, I had the blessing of more than a hint of distance between me and my perpetrator, all he or she was going to see was my ass and hear my voice, no doubt in falsetto, yelling "Feet don't fail me now!" Other than being scared shitless and hyped-up nervous on adrenalin and whatever else, the robbers were extremely polite even if a bit direct. Probably this overstated softness of manner was to keep themselves calm more than anything. "Please, very slowly, empty all your pockets and put the contents in the middle of the table. Thank you. Also, and listen real good, if there is any other money, anywhere other than on your person we would appreciate you giving it to us right now. If we find any more that you didn't show us we will kill one of you. You may keep your jewelry." "Well said," I thought. I didn't know about the other guys but that sounded fair to me. I had just got my Rolex out of hock because of a disastrous football Sunday only two months before. They were pretty smart, too, not wanting to mess with selling the jewelry. I love professionalism. No matter where it shows up. If I didn't get killed, I was planning on thanking them for letting me keep my watch. "Thank you, gentlemen," the taller one said. "Now is that everything?" We nodded in unison. "OK, that's good. Now, if you will slowly stand up and put your hands on your head. Thank you. We are going to walk back, single file, to the bedroom." In the bedroom, they told us to sit down, close our eyes ("Oh shit!"), and not move. Then they turned off the lights (Oh shit again!). "OK, here it is. You mothafuckers will not, I repeat, will not leave this room for thirty minutes. I'm closing the door now. I don't want to hear the slightest sound. Do not move. Do not even breathe for thirty minutes." We could hear them backing away and closing the door behind them. We were very, very quiet in the dark. We didn't hear them leave. Weren't really sure they left. They were very, very quiet too. After about ten minutes, we started rustling around a little bit. Just mainly trying to work out some cramps. And, if all of us had to go to the bathroom as bad as I did, we were in trouble. But our eyes, to the person, were glued to the closed bedroom door. Five more minutes went by. "Man! I gotta piss so bad I can taste it," whispered Tiny in the dark. "Me too," said Johnny Rock. "Shit! I think we all do," I said. "Are they gone?" "Think so," said Mel. "Would you bet your life on it?" said Sidney the bookmaker. Always trying to drum up action, he was. Always looking at the odds. Jesus! "Well, I think they're gone," said Tiny, "and I could stand flat footed and piss over a water tower. I don't give a damn! I'm going to the bathroom." Tiny was starting to lose it. We didn't blame him. "Both those niggers can kill me, if they want to, but I ain't gonna piss on myself. These are brand new slacks, for Chrissakes! Do you know how hard it is for somebody four hundred and fifty pounds to buy slacks? Gotta go all the way to Dallas and have them Jew tailors down on Elm Street sew 'em up by hand. This material came all the way from Scotland, I think, or New York, maybe, or some place like that. I think that's what they told me, anyway. Wish the lights were on. I'd show you guys some real fine work. I bet even old Joe Kennedy, when he was alive, never had a pair of slacks as nice as these and I ain't gonna piss in 'em!" Tiny idolized Joe Kennedy Sr. He had read so much about him, and all the rest of the Kennedys, he felt he was part of the family. Old Joe, to him, was the perfect patriarch: power, money, rumored bootlegger, and known to have placed an occasional wager. "Yessireebob! They got my goddamn money but they ain't ruining my slacks. I'm going out there! If I don't see ya'll again tell everybody I died with my boots on." "Tiny, you goofy fucker!" I say, "Stay put! Who cares about new slacks at a time like this! If you do pee in your pants I'm gonna tell everybody from Galveston to Biloxi; even gonna tell your brother when I see him and he'll tell all his new prison buddies. Then instead of calling you Tiny we'll call you Tee Tee." That brought a round of giggles: grown men sitting in the dark giggling. We started laughing at ourselves. Then we couldn't stop. If, for some reason, they were still out there, we were done for. We laughed louder and louder letting out all the fear and nervous tension from the past hour. Had it only been an hour? All of a sudden we heard footsteps. All sound stopped as if cut off by a gigantic meat cleaver. The footsteps walked across the room. The footsteps hesitated. They were uncertain. They shuffled around a bit. The bedroom door flew open. We were dead! "I thought I heard something. What are you crazy bastards doing? Sitting in here with the door closed? On the floor! In the dark? Have you all done gone queer on me? I told you that would happen if you hung around Dallas too much. Playing doctor, are ya? Some kinda new game? I ain't gonna play it! Did ya'll know the front door is wide-ass open?" It was Cedric. It was over. He and Candy probably got carried away and forgot about the time. And it took a lot for Cedric to forget about poker. He missed the whole thing. He would never hear the end of it. He stood there outlined by the living room light behind him. He beamed with what was no doubt post coital appreciation and fullness. No preacher man was eating chicken fried steak tonight, would be my guess; more likely microwave meatballs. They all got up, shook themselves off, and walked into the light. Tiny ran to the bathroom followed by the entire crew and there was much yelling and beating on the door and jostling for position. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and everybody else calmly walked out on the terrace, lined up, and nonchalantly peed off the balcony. I was still sitting on the floor, too relieved to move. "Come on Trent. It's over. They're gone." "Nope, I'm staying right here." "Why?" "That man told me to sit here for thirty minutes and, by my watch, I still got four more minutes to go." They laughed and I laughed but I still sat there, smiling. I was happy to be alive. I thought of Sam. That's what I called her. That's what everybody called Samantha except maybe her mother. She was my only affair ever in my married life. Back in the seventies you didn't count one-nighters. The sexual revolution, remember? And nobody died from it. She was married also. We loved each other. I really liked her husband even. I mean, anybody Sam would marry had to be cool. He never found out. Our deal lasted about a year and it was over. It was too good to be built on a lie. It wasn't long after that she finally left him. Last I heard, she married a bounty hunter (no lie!) and moved to Acapulco. I've loved three women in my life. And Sam was one, a very special one. And guess where she was from? Palestine. Jesus God! I'm shutting it down for the day. Enough is enough. Looks like I'm finding a few of those ghosts, recognizing some of their names. That's OK. That's good in fact. I'll deal with them one at a time. One day at a time. And how about J.D.? Godfather to my youngest son; my Marine Corps buddy. We were drunk in New Boston (real scary spot!). Sharing a room in a dilapidated old motel we procured with a tilted Visa card; pre-van days. We were trying to sell stuff we didn't know how to sell and too proud to come home broke; a bad, bad time in both our lives. He told a Vietnam story about a big Cobra snake and he cried. I asked him to be a Godfather. I think he's in Key West. Haven't thought of him in years. Jesus! They just keep on coming! And the little East Texas towns: Boston, New Boston, Old Boston, Atlanta, Pittsburg, Paris, Big Sandy, Reno, Telephone, Naples, Omaha, Detroit, Carthage . . . . The air brakes on a logging truck loaded with timber screeched supersonically and broke my reverie, locking tight as the driver, white faced and frantic, was trying to shift into lower and lower gears to keep its heavy load from hitting an ancient pick-up. A pick-up loaded with cantaloupes was stalled in the middle of the highway. The big semi, almost jack-knifing, slid past, missing the old pick-up by inches. Close call. The old farmer and, I guess, his son pushed their stalled truck to the side of the road, quietly; humbly. God looks after cantaloupe farmers and traveling salesman, most of the time anyway. I looked around the restaurant. Trudy was still at the register. Ann and Riley were in front of the meat locker counting what looked like hamburger patties. And I was wondering where exactly I fit in here. I knew one thing for sure. It was time for me to leave Riley's. I had an early appointment in Tyler tomorrow anyway. I liked Trudy but I was busy looking for ghosts. I could do that better alone. Maybe soon we could get together and talk about books and dreams and hopes. But I was too full today. Here was a nice school teacher excited about things, unencumbered with ghosts it seemed. Something inside me said that an ex-drunk traveling salesman, soon to be a college graduate, who was a pretty fair hand in a Texas Hold 'Em poker game and had a penchant for writing stories and poetry, was a little bit much for her right now. Or, maybe, just maybe, a high-school English teacher without any game to run, or deal to put together, or any hidden agendas of any kind, was just a little bit too much for me right now. I was relatively new dealing with real people. It was too fresh to understand and handle with a lot of comfort. I bid the sisters good-bye, thanked them both for their hospitality, shook Riley's hand, and promised to come back soon. Trudy said she would write and might just be visiting Austin soon. That was OK with me. We would talk about her book. Driving up the road, I realized I was right smack-dab in the gray middle of things. I wasn't living in the past. Although I was looking at it pretty hard and it seemed to be bubbling up from everywhere. I wasn't living in the future. I didn't have the foggiest what it held in store. Didn't scare me though. What the hell could happen? I was neck deep in the gray middle of where ever I was going. It was shaky ground because I hadn't been there before. It was all new but I felt OK, just had to take it slowly. I was starting to recognize some of those faces reflecting back from oncoming windshields. Some of them even had names. I'm going to re-meet all those ghosts, one at a time, and get on through to the other side. It will be all new there too, I guess. But I'm going to make it. I'm going on through and gonna come out the other side of it all. But right now, I'm driving up to Tyler, listening to the night sounds of an East Texas summer, somewhere in the middle.
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