7225. MY PEACEMAKER IS IN YOUR GROOVE

MY PEACEMAKER IS 
IN YOUR GROOVE

I crossed the Alleghenies by driving quite fast.

Wanted nothing for wasting my time. Now headed

to Pittsburgh, I wanted to sleep. Some dip-faced

hotel in a little alley-town along the way. I got off

the big road, and just kept driving the turns 'til I

got to some lights. A bar, a tavern, an Arby's,

a closed-up barber-shop, a drug-store, and the 

Cantwell Motel. What a cool name, I thought 

to myself, entering. The lobby was more like a 

ticket lounge in an old movie-house. The guy 

behind the counter said his name was Ned. 

I said 'Ned, I'll need a room for two nights, and 

as long as it's got a bed and a sink I don't care

about nothing else.' Still he went on : free coffee

machine for use in each room, with complementary 

coffee, WIFI everywhere, large screen TV. No, he

didn't get my gist, but I got the room. It looked out,

I saw the next morning, over a lake named 'Lake Orange'

where someone once  -  locals had it  -  saw the image

of Jesus in a scarce reflection on the open water. So, of

course, there's the Lake Orange Chapel right there too.

-

That's why, Ned said the next day, 'we don't got no

porno channels or nothing like that. Hope you don't 

mind.' What a weird thing to say. Saw my Jersey plates,

or what, I wondered.  I sat in his lounge-chair lobby

a while, just to see what passes for life on this side of

those mountains. Which aren't really 'mountains' anyway.

But whatever. Indian tribes had different names for

different things  -  we call it Lake Orange, with a Jesus

attached; God knows what they called it : 'Akeemawapo

boniwicca'  -  I think that means 'Lake of Some White Man's

God' in the local Allegheny tongue. Whatever. Now all they

do is gamble anyway, and take the white man's money.

Even from a guy like me, just trying to make Pittsburgh 

soon, even from a guy like me, though I don't let them.