15,788. I FINALLY LOST MY MOMENT

I FINALLY LOST MY MOMENT

I've always considered red wine to be a

health food. Is that the right word? What

instead? A very 'nutritiously positive' 

drink? Now this fool tells me he washes 

his punk-blond hair with it to achieve

a certain tint he wants. Yes. Lots of

guys become girls over time?

-

I've smuggled paraffin loaves over

the border. We told the guards at Canada

that they were bakery cakes with icing;

instead they were filled with contraband.

The guards never stopped us fully once;

always the same bullshit moment: What

to declare? Where were you born? Can

I see your driver's license? (They actually

always said 'Driving License,' which I'd

never heard before. I declare!).

-

I had a friend named Billy. Dead now, again.

He'd always catch a girl with bleach-blond

hair and say, 'Hey, tell me, do your drapes

match the curtains?' I never at first knew

what he was getting at, until he told me

straight out, 'You think they're gonna' dye

down there?'

-

Maybe it wasn't funny, but it was unique

enough. At that same Canadian border

once, they wouldn't let us cross from

America into Canada with a dog in the

car. So we had to park the car and walk

the bridge  -  and when we finally got

back to the car, the nervously abandoned 

dog had panicked and torn up the upholstery,

AND many of the wires underneath the

dash. We had to junk the car, have it towed,

and grab a rental back home to Elmira.

-

Just as well about all that. There was a

pistol in the console we'd never had been

able to explain, and a whole case of sterno 

in the trunk, for the camp-stove thing we

had with which we stop and make meals

in any park we'd find. That same dog I

mentioned? At a park in Buffalo it got

loose and roughed up some little kid

who was walking the pond with his 

father while we ate.

-

It could have gotten ugly, but we got

away, with a little diplomacy, fifteen

bucks as payoff, and some luck. 

Damn dog it was, every time.