On a Highway to Hell and Back.
Be very careful who you hitch yourself to when traveling the back roads of despair
I was hitching a ride
somewhere on the south
side of the U.S. of A.
down on my luck
with $200.00 bucks to my name
to survive on while I was
just trying to get back home
where nothing much more awaited me.
I'd been walking for hours
when suddenly I got a thumbs up
from a somewhat, soused
geezer in a ten gallon hat.
He looked like a throwback
to the fifties but hey
he was a ride to anywhere
but the edge of this baking,
endless asphalt road.
So old, countrified Earle,
as he introduced himself
asked me where I was headed
and told me he was going
my way. then he took me out
for a whirl, in his custom black
convertible caddy, with a set
of long horns mounted on
the hood, and a lead foot
infected with elephantiasis.
His radio was blasting
Louder than dynamite
and he was humming along.
Thankfully the top on his
ragtop car was down
freeing me from his
second hand smoke
as he burnt through
one cigarette after another
when he wasn't burning rubber.
But at that point I was
still grateful for the ride
We blew through Hick towns,
faster then JFK's limo had
gone on its hospital run
from the Dealy Plaza tragedy.
Billy Carter beer cans rattled
over the floorboards, while
Dolly Parton busted out a
tune literally, something called
9 to 5, but we were doing 95 easy.
He looked a wee bit bedraggled
his clothes wrinlkled and stained
with God knows what and he
held a slight stench that even
thefresh air coud not blow away.
He let me out in Bum-fiddle
Texas, at a bar called the
Dew Drop inn, and drove off
with a wicked grin, and an "I
like Ike." crusty bumper sticker
covered in dust on his chrome
Bumper was the last thing I
saw, as he vanished into
the noon-high sun.
I walked out of his smoky
exhaust thirsty and exhausted
myself so I went to sit a spell
at that inn that promised ice
cold beer for cheap, Just the
right price for me Later over a
shot and a beer, I told the
bartender about Earle and my
hectic ride, and as i relayed
my journey The barkeeps eyes
popped open and his jaw dropped
just like one of those Charlie
McCarthy marionettes from the
nineteen fifties.
Then he leaned over the bar all
serious and in a hushed tone
as he told me how he had served
old Earle his last Crown Royal
at closing time 17 years ago.
Apparently Earle was too drunk
to drive anywhere safely
but he hid his inebriation well,
and he was a mean old cuss.
each time that bartender offered
to get him a ride home but on
that night in 1963 he totalled
his Caddy, into the side of a
bridge in a crash and burn.
It had happened just near
where he had picked me up
earlier that day. The barkeep
said that I was the seventeenth
person, that had taken such
a hellish ride, each year on the
same day as old Earle died
and my heart played a staccatto
beat it had never known and
then he poured me another shot
on the house but I left it on the
bar filled to the brim, and found
the towns bus station and caught
a Greyhound to my destination.
Just about halfway into my
bus journey after I woke up from
a needed nap on their worthless
two inch margin of reclining
seats I was looking out the
window and I swear he drove
right by us. going the other way!
Nobody saw him but me,
because I asked, polling all the
other riders who thought I
was crazy. Eventually I fell back
to sleep, to the drone of the bus
engine relieving most of the
passengers and the driver.
Then quite suddenly I woke up
by the side of the road, with
my thumb out, and I saw Earle
cruising to a slow stop just
past my trembling, pale flesh.
He grinned at me wickedly
and beckoned me to get in
with a .45 caliber pistol
in his hand pointed right at me
as an incentive to climb aboard.
It was then that I realized
that he was some kind of demonic
Duke of Earle as I entered
his Flying Duchess and we sped
off into a time warp that now
was one times, two times forever.
and life as I knew it was no more
© 2010 Matthew Frederick Blowers III