Years Ago Last Winter

So tonight I logged into this account for the first time in MONTHS and discovered an old draft that I never published. Reading it, I remember how I felt living in Conway last winter...All of those freezing late nights driving from Bruce Street to my mother's house in my shitty little car with no door panel. The way time seemed to stand still amidst the stop lights near the university. The way time seemed to stand still anywhere I went. That ever-present loneliness and the feeling that my life wasn't going anywhere. Our time in my hometown had so clearly out-run it's course and I really didn't know what the fuck I was going to do. Always thinking about her. Playing guitars with Seth until my fingers bled back in the laundry room of that wrecked house. Pizza boxes and beer cans everywhere. Football games on that horrible t.v. in living room. My buddy Leif. Friends getting arrested. Staying up all night. Dirty purple work shirts in the backseat and floorboards of my car. Working for somebody else...So without further adieu, this from November of last year:

" Earlier tonight I was hanging out with a few friends, and it was late and we were bored and just sitting around bullshitting with one another. Somehow we came up with the idea to call the local IHOP and pretending to be Kenny Chesney's road manager attempting to " make a reservation " for thirty people, including the country superstar himself and the rest of the band. Leif pulled the act off pretty well. " Uh, yes. This is Allen Parker with Kenny Chesney and the Wild Cats. We're currently passing through a little town called Russellville, bout 40 minutes from you, and according to these calculations, Conway is the next town to get a bite to eat in. I'm curious if you had the facilities to support about thirty people and a tour bus in the parking lot? " The poor girl had to consult with a manager, and it turned out that they certainly could. We were all cracking up and holding our faces in jackets and pillows. " Oh, and more more thing. You got them Tootie Rooties, right? Cause Kenny absolutely loves those. " "Yes sir, we sure do. " The girl almost sounded excited. " Alright then, me and the Chester will be seeing you folks in about half an hour! "

Later on I happened to drive by the very restaraunt and saw about twenty black and white students dancing in the parking lot while they were waiting on their food. They looked like a step team that was on the road back to their college from a competition. It was two thirty in the morning and they were outside dancing in the thirty degree weather while the rest of the town was sleeping. It was a surreal and fantastic scene. Fog and steam were drifting in the empty streets. A green and red stoplight flashed on and off. I headed on down to a Waffle House to get some food and read alone, for these days I have become somewhat of a nocturnal insomniac who stays up until daylight everyday, messing around in my notebooks, reading other books, fucking around on the internet, thinking too much, and hanging out with my dog. "

I WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED ( AND SO I OUGHT TO KNOW )

We must have seemed like madmen, standing on the corner with a huge bottle of Jameson and a busted up accordion, waving a ragged ten dollar bill at passing cars in the steadily brightening flood of morning light. We looked like worn fools in need of an angel. Some kind of savior singing the blues. Hell, we really just needed a ride and a place to lay down. The hours beforehand were devastatingly funny and we were still reeling from the music, liquor, and the general hysteria of the evening's outrageously bizarre turn of events. And when I say bizarre, my friend, you really have no idea. There was a strangeness and hilarity to the whole night that would be impossible to quantify with words. And the ensuing hours would only get WEIRDER.
You know what's better than one room in an ancient and gorgeous hotel in a small Victorian mountain town with nine of your friends? THREE rooms on the fourth floor of that very same hotel for the price of one, courtesy of a credit card behind the old fashion locks and a little bit of intoxicated engenuity. The old door man made a fatal mistake when he mentioned that we were the only folks staying on that floor, and the jacuzzi suite and king size beds soon became ours for the taking. The Christ of the Ozarks watched every step we made. No one was harmed. Nothing was destroyed. And it sure beat the hell out of sleeping on the floor.

A DAY OFF SPENT THE RIGHT WAY

The woods were practically choking

with the dryness of October

red and yellow leaves

laying all over the ground

all that wild growth

from the summer

slowly dying

and turning

brown

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