He'll probably just ride away. (Not part 3)

[KB.]

I have been home less than three months and I am on my way elsewhere already. I’m heading east this time. Heart a little heavy, but not so heavy that I can’t manage it. It was easy enough; fill out an application, get a phone call a few hours later, get told there is no need for an interview I have the job when the background check comes back. Done.

I have a place to stay, a job, and some cash in the bank.

Home really don’t feel like home at all anymore, and that is a shame considering how excited I was to get back here just a few months ago. Sh!t happens, clean it up and roll on.

I am excited about the job. I have no clue how I have managed to work for an hourly rate for three years but that is soon to end. I can not wait to get back into commissioned sales. Let me be in charge if my income not a corporate pay scale. I figure a newer car, maybe an old soft tail Harley, perhaps a college fund for a young man, and a clear house note for my folks. The rest is going to the Vernazza fund. As long as the money is decent, and let me tell you clearing sixteen grand a year is far from decent, I’ll be there until the Vernazza fund is full. That declarative statement will probably bite me in the ass.

My boss here told me that if I ever wanted to come back I always had a spot here. It is nice to know you are respected that much for the work you do. He and a lot of other folks told me they hated to see me go. Some people just smiled and told me I would never stay in one place. My mom said she figured she would go crazy now that both her boys would be gone at the same time. Some folks do not even know yet. I figure I’ll catch hell from a few people. Gypsy soul is right. F**k, sorry for the language, I wish things had turned out different.

I like the place I work. I like the people I work with, and I like the people in charge of things, there are enough pretty girls to keep me winking, and enough guys to joke about the girls with. I can play Marshal Tucker Band as loud as I want and no one cares.

I learned a hard lesson the day they closed Circuit City down. I learned that no matter how much you like the folks you work with it isn’t a reason to turn down a better job. Especially when you have no family of your own to keep you anchored down. No children, no wife, no money to be made. Time to roll on.

I’ve met some amazing new people, made new friends, and got to see some old ones I really missed. I told Larry and Sue on Friday that I was leaving again, and when Larry’s eyes got wet I had to bite down real goddamned hard to keep mine dry. Sue had one arm around my back and I was holding her other hand. She didn’t know what was going on, but God help me I didn’t want to let that hand go. I told Larry about me telling stories of seeing him and Sue walking down that aisle, hand in hand, so many years ago. He told me he had to hold her hand now, and I told him he didn’t have to back then, but he still did. He told me I better keep in touch a little better and to come by the house before I left. I just wished someone I know could have met him.

I got to see some old friends from my school days. None of us look thirty, it must be the water.

I’ve got about a month left here, give or take a week. I figure I will head back to St. Louis for a two or three day visit, and then head out. I figure I’ll miss a lot of people.

I figure when I get there I’ll find me another bartender to keep me company. One with a nice pretty smile and maybe if I am lucky one that is inclined to sing a man a song late at night as he tries to work his way through troublesome sleep, and of course she will have a sparkle in her eyes. She will have to like old blues music, Van Morrison, and Ray Lamontagne. Love to dance to slow mellow jazz, and know how to make a White Russian. Also, stories, she will have to like to hear stories.

That ain’t too much to ask is it?

Long legged or short, dark haired or fair. Freckles, knows how to return a wink, and when I say Beatrice was Dante’s first love; the movie Clerks won’t even cross her mind. When I say, "That's Frederick f**king Chopin", she will tell me Tombstone is one of her favorite movies, and when I ask if she has seen A Love Song for Bobby Long, she will tell me Lorraine’s song is one of her favorites.



“Yesterday I had a dream...

I could fly through the sky...

Then I woke up in a sweat...

Not dead yet, But on the ground

I'm up in Johnson City Tennessee

looking for the wind in me

Lord fly me over Pontchartrain

back to the land of sugarcane and summer-rain

Nevermore shall we part.... Nevermore shall we part”

Maybe I should stop while I am ahead.

It has been barely five months since I wrote my first story on this devilish place. Five months, 150 days. I can’t even type that with out a smile, the sideways kind, spreading across my face. I am a man that has been blessed beyond what I deserve. I say with out one doubt in my mind that I have met more beautiful people than anyone else in this world. Men and women both have told me they loved me, women have cried when I came back to visit and a man in his seventies, a former Marine, war time duty, has cried when I told him I was leaving.

I named children, wrote stories about them even. I ate tomatoes; I don’t even like tomatoes. I wrote a plea to a Muse begging for her to quit looking for answers in a place where they can never be found. I had a nice talk with my brother. I said I was done rambling.

Time to ramble on.

KB

“And if you don't understand him and he don't die young

He'll probly just ride away”

~Willie Nelson

[JacksDad]

the waitress came to the table and JD ordered, "Two more Chivas, please."

[KB.]

I'm just looking for a grad level English Lit teaching assistant to help me "revise" some stories. That and she bartends for extra cash and sings like Norah Jones. You know, the usual.