Some Roads
Some roads were broken and patched, some parched and white from sun. Holiday ribbons of empty roads were laid out across the high desert. Most seemed long and straight enough for anyone so inclined to run horizon to horizon and squeeze all meaning out of time.
Just East Of Yermo
Just east of Yermo, where the night crew tarred up quilts of cracks on the interstate, traffic merged into a single lane. After that, the only places to pass came where a slow lane was added for trucks. That’s where the horse galloped by. Nobody else saw the white...
Now And Then
Now and then they passed a building or what passed for a building. None were close enough to the interstate to get a good look at, so she focused on the folds of the mountains and how they trapped the slanting light.
He Settled Into The Shotgun Seat
He settled into the shotgun seat, turned to the warm window and stared out into the passing scene. It unraveled with disregard to his wishes, refusing to slow down or stop to allow him to make sense of it. He hoped to pull something out of the blur, perhaps to find...
There Was No Panic
There was no panic, no pinpricks of urgency and nothing to dislodge the way they felt about heading out. Departures, once so weighted down with sadness, no longer felt dispiriting.
Then They Lit Out
Then they lit out from the place on Kanan Dume Road, winding through the gauzy canyons up to the 101. The only other vehicles out were the slow pickup trucks of early morning landscapers.
He Took Time To Notice
He took time to notice but there was nothing much to see, No place to win or lose, And no place warm to be.
Frivolity #7
After they sold motor court in Tucumcari, the couple used a small portion of the proceeds to fund a lavish honeymoon in Vegas. They were seventeen years late.
Frivolity #8
She knew all the barroom tricks. But she had never seen anything like the rancher who spread his hands palm down on the bar and made his knuckles crack without any tugging.
Frivolity #6
The little man who took the open stool next to her at the blackjack table wheezed and sputtered. The dealer scowled and dealt.
Frivolity #5
Then her confidence returned. At first, she was suspicious. After a few days trying to puncture it, she was satisfied and lit out for Las Vegas.
Frivolity #4
When he told her they would leave at the end of the end of the month, she said she would let him go alone. He couldn’t blame her and told her so.
Frivolity #3
Maybe the wind would never let up, maybe it would keep slicing through the log walls of their cabin forever. None of the clay chinking they layered in worked with a damn.
Frivolity #2
Nobody wanted the party to stop and it didn’t. It couldn’t. Astonishing forces fed the festivities. You couldn’t even feel the first vague hints of it winding down.
Frivolity #1
Got the shu mai, got the eye in the sky and the pumpkin pie. That’s what he sang, walking with newfound optimism past the pawn shops toward Fremont Street.
Outside Copeland, Idaho
Outside Copeland, Idaho, he walked into a funeral parlor where the air was so dead a dry sadness scraped his skin. He felt the kind of grief that was inescapable. This surprised him. He was rarely overcome by gloom. This time it was tough to shake off. Outside...
Where The Night Scorches The Day
Where the night scorches the day and burns it away, the big signs blaze. Huge videos sputter and flash, beckoning like carnival barkers. Jackpots, jumbo shrimp cocktails and 3:2 blackjack, all ripe for the plucking, packing all the big signs with unimaginable...
Too Fast
Too fast for others on the freeway to approach, let alone pass, she soared as long as possible before traffic boxed her in coming up on the 405. “The woman who came to the party at your neighbor’s birthday that night, the one who arrived late.” asked Nick. “Who is...
