Monday, August 30, 2010

Zelda Wonders What I Got

I walked through East Texas, round Longview. The pines were high and my shoulders were low, loaded with the weight of all my things. I set them down, guitar, backpack, and my small bag of food. Exhausted, I prepared to lay a while and catch up on much-needed rest and relaxation, when up ambled Zelda.

Zelda's tall with a shaved head, crooked teeth, those still hanging in her gums, others fallen out by some reason I never asked for.

"What're you doing here?" she questioned in the third degree. I sat fiddling with a stick and she didn't trust me.

"Just getting some rest," I replied, polite as I could given her authoritative demanding manner.

"Where you from?"

I hesitated. It's been so long since I've been from somewhere, I couldn't remember. New Orleans? South Dakota? Thackerville? "Tyler," I told her. That's where I'd slept last, anyway.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked again as she glanced among my things, searching for something. "You on drugs?"

"No."

"You got any marijuana?"

"No."

"Mind if I look through your bags? People like to come out here and do drugs."

"Do they? I don't know anything about that. I'm just walking from Tyler and stopped for some rest and relaxation." I unlatched my jug of water from my side and took a sip.

"I'm just curious. I wanna know."

I looked at Zelda, devil in the eyes. "I look so like I do drugs that you gotta look through my stuff?"

She looked at me back, wicked and straight. "You got a reason I shouldn't?"

No comments:

Post a Comment