I first met Dick (I mean truly dug Dick—loved, ate, drank, and slept Dick) not long after my wife and I split up. We'd worked together before that since forever of course, but we'd just booted that election big time, and I won't bother to talk about that, except to say that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and her defecating to her gang of Left Wings (I won't use the L word here), the Feminine Majority of Hollywood Pinko Menopausal Broads. Yes. The F.M.H.P.M.B. you could call them. (And do you know they ALL voted against us?) But never mind.
For a while there, say over the holidays, when the cold sad wind blew across what's left of the ranch, and that's all that she left me, I was feeling like everything was dead. Not just talking dead people and dead Presidents which comes with the territories, but on another maybe more important level people had grew tired of seeing me explaining stuff that isn't my fault since I was only following orders. The fact is I'm not great on my feet, I'll admit that; and when I get under the spot I don't think well. I think you know that. Dick knows that and I love him for it.
But with the coming at last, you could say the Full Flowering of and be not far off (we're not talking hippity tree-slugging here, just the truth as I have found it to be), with the holy crazy beat arrival of Big Dick Allhart at last began that part of my life you could call my life on the road. Where else could I go? Kicked out of the house, booted from every country we ever tried to occupy, in the name of all that's good and true; not a savings and lone west of the Pecos would take my marker. I had reached that point in my so-called life where the wise man leaves the ways and means of society and the mother and goes to seek the truth as he knows it ought to be—and in our case (me and my man) forgiveness.
It was all Dick's idea.
A woman who was only made famous because a man remembered her in a book I never read said "the world will never find peace until men fall at their women's feet and ask them for forgiveness."
And that's what we're doing, according to Dick. We're on the road to truth and forgiveness for our sins and the sins of our children. And maybe a movie deal, if I can set this down acutely.
Big Dick (I call him that; it's just a figure of speed.) does the driving. That's just the way it's always been between us, and as your youngsters might say (or my daughters): he's got MADD driving skillz. And I have bad problems in this area, so, you know, I don't drive.
But there's nothing like glancing to your left while a West Texas sunset blows sweet jazz over those arms and powerful shoulders and you realize you're in the bowels of a master pilot of your ship. This comes from the end product of all Big Dick's been through in his life you know, which is great. The ups and downs and in-betweens and backwards and forwards and sideways in and outs of a man who's spent his entire service life in service to what he calls his art.
Not that I'd know anything about that because of what follows:
I don't remember if you knew I was dyslexic or not, meaning I can't always tell right from wrong. People have written about this thing, condition, which runs in the best families, you know, and my brother has had it, which causes him to have sex with strange women who appear at his hotel in Japan—not that they were prostitutes—and HIS wife divorced HIM, you know, but not only because of the sex in hotels but possibly also because he can't tell left from the center either, and Mum (I have always called her Number One, as opposed to Number Two, which would be my earthly dad. No joke. Sick.)…Mum has always been big in my life and in dyslexic circles. Well. She's always been big, period, but she used to make me stay in on Saturday morning to do more math (not good) which is a total drag, the best day, but there you have it.
Big Dick would also sometimes keep me around after office hours, too, which I tend to get out of by supper time usually, so in a way you could say he's a lot like Number One, except for the hair, of which he has much less than her, but it's good. It's all good. (Take a look at the one dollar bill. Ever notice how Number One looks like that? The Mother of this Country? That's how big of an influence she has been on my life and that of my country. I think of money, I think of Number One.
Anyhow, somewhere along the line I may have revealed that I am not so wrong when I'm WRITING down the words, especially on a computer and can change them if I need to, which you can't if you're standing on the commode, which I never liked and am glad I don't have to any more. That's the greatest beneficial of losing an international election—no more standing up for what is in your best interests. What everybody wants—God and fetuses and baseball and a healthy trust fund for those who deserve them.
Now Dick (BD) you know, he grew up in situations quite a bit different from ours. His Number Two didn't have mine and his friends and socialites, and, you know, he and Yale parted company there early on with bad grades being culpable so I can't call him Bulldog (BD). But BD's a man not too proud to work with blood on his hands and it's been his various hand jobs as a young man that gives him what they call street creds. It's another reason I feel so relived about him being behind the wheel all this time, basically, 24/7/365/both terms, though sometimes, yes, I do worry about his heart, which even if it's totally never given up on him deep in the dark night of his sad soul it has once in a while skipped a beat, like lovers do. But like his name suggests, he's all kind hearts and red corvettes and that's good.
You know who gets my vote for heartless, or at least she did till I let go and let God? That redhead, that Mick floozy, that Maureen fedayeen from the New York paper, whatsitcalled; I call her The Cobra, yeah, but that's only because she reminds me of those snakes you hold its head and I'll have my manly way with you.
I'm a man that says what he means and means what he says and never the twain shall meet and I'm not too proud to beg for my supper from her, that Cobra (bra I said bra) that never interviewed me but knew all along that our dog don't hunt.
But first we had to get to New York.
I didn't know gas was so expensive. When you're sitting up front in the Big Freedom Bird (built especially for me) and the wag the dogs are stuffed back in coach you don't think about things like oil money. I know it's all about supply and demand and the economies of enveloping nations and an obscene prophet for the Lone Star State but dammit, when a man's standing on the end of that thousand mile highway with his gal on the other and he hasn't got buck one for a gallon or two, that's just wrong and I told Dick so. Being a man of princables he's not going back on his vow to give all the money back, starting this trip, and without our corporate angels, well, the two of us were just gonna have to get by.
I admit, it was a brand new spanking for me. Standing on your own four feet takes guts and courage and much uncommon value even if your poor and I told Number Two so after he wired me the cash for the trip.
Been a while since the Big Apple. Stood in the Hole, ground zero; shot the campaign spots, lots of flags. The warmth you feel from the people when you wrap yourself in their flag, why, I'm surprised other recoverings haven't been trying it. It's the one thing that's always pulled me through, those stars and bars. If I had a nickel for every box we covered with that great mad flag of ours, well, let me just say there'd be no gas shortage, now, would there?
This may be the first road trip in the history of literature that has to wait in line for gas all the way, but it's the American Way now, innit, pretty much? Know your limitations.
(to be continued when I get rid of these runs I’ve been enjoying)