Sunday, July 22, 2012

Drywater Interlude

     "Wish we could crack that reefer," grumbled Minnesota Pete.
     Lefty Daniels sighed, "How many times I gotta tell ya, just cause it says beer on the outside, don't mean there's beer on the inside. Besides, we got four jugs of Topdown Lightning here, and a barrel of Merced River Pino. What else you need?"
     "Well, it could use a chaser, that's all I'm sayin."
     "Pete, you gotta be more philisophical about the situation, like me for example. I ain't been a hobo half as long as you, but I got it all figured out, you see.  I mean, take a look around, pal. Look at them pines in the smokey haze over cross the river. Why, that's a scene right out of one of them Burt Myers paintings of the Adirondacks. Boy, there's steelhead trout right in that river, and all we gotta do is go fish 'em out, cook em over a fire made out of pine cones. See what I'm gettin at? We collect pine cones and we ain't even gotta chop no wood. This is the life, y'ask me."
     "Yeah, you kids think you got all the answers, don't ya? Take a deep breath, smell the fresh air, and everything's right with the world! I used ta think like that. But some day you wake up, find yourself working a played out delirium mine, wonderin where it all went, and how come you never got your cut of the profits. That's a bucket of cold water in your bedroll that don't never dry out."
     "There you go again, gripin about the delirium all played out. We find a little vein now and again, enough to keep us in good with the scientists. They're happy with whatever little bit we can squeeze out of that old mine, so they keep us in pork'n'beans and we spend most of our time runnin our own enterprise. It's a good life, Pete."
     "Wonder what them eggheads do with the stuff? Looks like plain old fool's gold to me."
     "Well, I ast one once, and he said somethin about how there's deuterium, and there's tritium, but that delirium has it all beat over both of them."
     "Aw hell, he was half swacked by then. What you want to go listenin to them eggheads for anyhow?  Ain't I told you they're all hooptey?"
     "Hooptey or not, they buy more lightning than they do delirium, and that's the more reliable of our incomes anyhow. They got money, them scientists, and they like good lightning when they can find it."
    "Yeah, you kids with all the answers, eh?"
     "Aw, c'mon Pete, it's a beautiful afternoon, and not a watchman in sight. We got fish in that river, boxcars all around, and all the wonders of nature just waitin to be appreciated. Just look at this fine new ballast they brought in here this morning. Nothin spiffs up a railroad yard like a strip of fine new ballast, eh Petey old boy?"
     "Listen to you, goin on about a ton of gravel! You're hooptey, you know that? Too much of this mountain air and you kids go all hooptey! You're just a hobo moonshiner, and that's all you'll ever be, same as me. We dig the mine, we run the still, and where does it get us? Where the hell we ever going to go? You damn kids with all the answers!
     "Yeah, I guess I'm just talkin in the wind is all, and that's fine by me. I like my situation, otherwise I'd catch a car over to Soda Lake and get a job in the borax plant. Good money there, but no, I like it here just fine."
     "Damn kids, that's all I got ta say."
     "Who you callin kid, ya old fart? I'm fifty-three."

1 comment:

  1. LOVE IT! heheheh So good!
    Nice work! I love this sort of thing, as you know! :)

    ReplyDelete