I’ve never been much of a prose writer. This was written a long, long time ago. Enjoy.

Jesus Christ I was nervous. I got a little shaky like when I haven’t had a cigarette in a while. I had some other things though, rattlin’ around in my brain ⎯my poor ignorant small town brain. You know, after a while you sorta start believing the prejudice. These city folk all feel the same about me.

Where I grew up, the only thing you’d need to get across town were your own two dusty feet. At most alls you’d need was a smile. So when I stepped on that city bus with that god damned bus driver staring back at me, I knew where I was. I knew where I’d come from. This here was a place where a smile didn’t mean much, and the word hospitality was mistaken for hospital more often than not. That’s when the driver barked at me, “Two dollars! Peak hours! Hurry your ass up or get off the bus!”

Where I’m from, I’d be plenty nice to this person. I’d invite him into the house for some pot roast beef, mashed potatoes, and sweet tea. Maybe we’d eat some banana pudding after the meal. This hospitality doesn’t mean I’d have any problems with stabbing that man in the back and burying his body in the old sinkhole. Such is the duality of the southern thing.

I threw my quarters into the till and the transfer slip spat at me. “Take your ticket!” the man squelched.

Jesus Christ I was nervous.

Now, the reality of the big time life hit me like the disgruntled employee stomping the gas pedals before I had a chance to sit down. With every jerk of the pedals I was further from home. I felt like I didn’t belong here, ‘cause like I said, after a while you start believing the stereotype.

The bus lurched as I took my seat in a hurry.

The grizzly man next to my left on this crowded bus reeked of booze, cigarettes, and vomit. Plaid mixed with dirt and tangled his beard. He wore the same clothes for so long that they seemed a part of him, like flies on a piece of sticky tape. After a while you don’t know who’s clinging to who. Nothing was to my right ‘cept for a gold tinted window showing all the ignorant city folk lined up outside waiting in the cold.

The man next to me moaned with each press of the driver’s pedal. Just as I missed home, this broken shell of a man missed something too. He’d fit right in where I was from. Now, I hadn’t learned about fight or flight until I vacationed for a while at this city’s university for a semester, but I was feeling like flight that night. In my hometown I coulda tamed a bull, but this drunk was too much for me at this very moment, shaking nervous on a city bus. Such is the duality of the southern thing. God I was nervous.

There was gum pretty near under every seat. I felt like I’d somehow touched it all. I began to miss the dust of my hometown. It was a pretty little thought compared to all the slime on the metal surfaces and the cough of strangers. “Broom Street!” the driver yelled into the broken intercom.

The driver had awakened the drunk next to me. In his sickness he mumbled about punk kids and how this country’s going to hell because of folks like myself.

Broom Street came, and the bus emptied out a bit. That bull next to me stumbled away from the bus, harassing the good-looking folks waiting on another bus. “He’s just gum under a seat,” I thought to myself.

This is something those goddamned university folks woulda come up with. What a strange vacation that was. A few new folks jumped on the bus. They all got the same hospitality that I did –a bark and a yell.

With the last stop, the bus emptied out a bit. I could now see the man in the back corner. He just gagged and coughed. Only his cough was a little bit different from the rest. It was wet. It was like there was some substance to it. It was like he was trying to get rid of some sort of devil. It was more than just some little cough.

That’s when I saw her.

As he shook with his demons, I noticed the little cutie that sat next to him. She looked as nervous as I was. I noticed what the university kids like to refer to as the personification of beauty. I flat out knew right then that I would have to meet this pretty little thing.
That’s when my small town heart began to pump for the first time. “This couldn’t be that bad,” I say with a southern hospitable smile.

“I think she noticed me,” I sorta plead in the back of my mind as I pull the cord for my exit at Huff St.

The young girl moves away from this man. She has that same nervous look I’m sure I have. She’s shaking like she needs a smoke. And I’m shaking too, only I know I made it. I know I survived this god damned fiery bus ride. Now, nothing from this world would have prepared me for her. No bulls or southern devils will be tamed tonight. This personification of beauty, as they’d say, has got me shaking for a new reason. This personification of fear has got me shaking even more.

As Huff St. approaches, she sits down right next to me on my lonely left. These two blocks feel about as long as the first night in that prison where the air moved like jello and the moon boiled our skin. Yet something makes me stay on this bus. There goes my exit at Huff St.

There goes the small town life. There goes the devil as a southern man, jumping off a city bus. And I wait for a bit. I’m sure she’s noticed that I’ve missed my stop. I’m sure she can tell I’m as nervous as she is when she leans over and half-whispers “Hello.”

And so is how I met my wife.

I suppose I should have seen this coming. I’d traded cars with a friend for an afternoon. Just a logistics problem, really. When I got the phone call, I knew what he was about to say. Bad news first.

It doesn’t take much to total an old car. You factor in its mileage verses its age. You look at the shape the body’s in. Is there rust? Has the paint faded from its original color? Does the interior—red and velvet—still hold its innocence? If the price of the damage outweighs the calculated worth, your car is totaled. In my case, $2000 was the magic number.

And I’d been happy with that. That was, of course, until I cleared my belongings out of it, sitting in the driver’s seat bewildered, sitting—wet with tears—in the overwhelming sadness.

It was just an old Buick. Just a thing. Just a fucking thing. My first car. The car that taught me to sing. Where you’d leave me your handwritten notes. High school parking lots and drivers ed. Hockey games and yearbook. Dads and grandpas. Fredrick’s farm and the stars. All the countless little stars. Our first kisses. Our first broken curfews. Misadventure and adventure just the same. Allie and the endless winters. Every 2 hours just to see you. Driving through on a Wednesday. The dearest of the dear, and all the fucking deer. Tightened corners and spilled soda. First jobs and first headaches. Near misses and nearer salvation. Freedom, Deliverance, Delivery, Whatever.

Totaled.

I remember, I remember everything
Your favorite movie while waiting on the rain
I had plans for a mediocre life. Good ones too.
They all turned to dust the day I met you.

This ordinary life

Meet me in the middle at a barbeque.
This paint by numbers life is coming true.
Can you believe I’m still in love with you?

An ordinary life

Can’t say I regret much of anything,
But if I regretted not breaking your heart,
What kind of man would that make me?
It would have made me yours,
If only for the while.

But this is the man I’ve become,
singing on a Sunday to no one.
Such a long way from home.
Parking lots and sidewalks
With only one little regret,
Having never broken your heart.

When you’ve given up and you’re tired,
Hey, just go back to Madison.
Where all your friends were beautiful,
6 feet tall, and listened to what you’d call country.
Old school stuff like Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Fucking Cyrus.
You’re the dumpster baby doll whose trailer park pedigree’s come calling.
And you’ll head west down 94.
Milwaukee just isn’t the place anymore.
’cause now that you’ve got money you feel the same.
You’ll find unhappy between MLK and Main.
So head west down 94.
Down the middle coast.
Where you’re still the same tired whore,
And no one knows your name.