7387. I PURPOSELY APPLIED

I PURPOSELY APPLIED

In good measure, all things remain ready :

the caliber, the weight, and the lift. Like the

best of actors, we all know our mark. This

new morning is colder. I arrive early and 

sit down chilled. The old man at the coffee

counter isn't getting any quicker.

-

Stories are always told, of salad days when

things were better. Who remembers now? The

things we forget are forever the bad. Driving

in a Pennsylvania midnight, cold and dark and

alone, over a jet black ridge name Wyoming?

Sure woke me from my drowsy with that sign.

-

Wyalusing Rocks again  -  I look out and there's 

nothing to see. Just a bunch of horny fracking workers

stumbling out of the little Lookout Cafe. Back to the

cabins they're renting nearby. The old guy once told

me those cabins were there for fifty years now, idle, 

leaning, and never used. Just falling apart slowly; and

I remember too. Now, he says, these energy-company

workers get put up in them for $800 each a month,

the energy company pays, and it never fails.

-

'These guys like to drink, and they like the women too.

Whatever can I say, I was young once, and they're all far

from home. Let 'em frolic, I figure  -  long as I get paid too.

Like I tell him, heh, heh, heh, 'you get laid; I get paid.''