and the next day he is in the back seat of the family station wagon naked roof rack rusting a bit where it attaches to the back the wood paneling that is really not wood paneling peeling just a bit at the edges lovingly wrapped around about him his family his stereo a trunk and a couple of suitcases
off to atlanta on his way to the new world his new world where he will find his path where he will make his way
off to spend a year in school
where his keseyesque dreams of freedom and love and peaceful coexistence picked up from random local library visits the jesup public library where he had already read every book on every shelf from doctor doolittle to doctor zhivago where he had accidentally stumbled across the electric kool aid acid test because the title sounded kind of different
crazy ideas picked up from well-intended and idealistic mentors who had migrated south a few years ago to avoid the draft via teacher deferment a sense to right the wrongs a jim crow corrective action a stirring of the pot a southern adventure where they could sit on the edge of their own yankee cauldron bubbling over behind them they with no nevermind no sense of irony their revolutionary fervor carrying them feeding them ah a decision some regretted a decision many simply accepted as their lot in life
silly thoughts picked up from his weekly viewing of love american style
all these dreams
all these hopeful peeks into some utopian future of what will be once he sheds jesup all this shit will slam into the late seventies all about me i'm ok you're ok graduates of woodstock those bloodbrothers yes who made the promise to ron and his kin back in the sixties who said keep the faith baby back when ron sat around watching and listening and believing yes believing when they believed the hippies when six turned out to be nine when the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply when they said they were going to change the world age of aquarius there's gonna be a revolution power to the people right on then
they the hippies they these revolutionaries
ron he guesses they got tired of fighting the world they just became the world broke the covenant nineteen seventy seven they had broken their promise and ron johnson on his way to atlanta
to go to college
spend the school year in atlanta
where he will try to love the dead but some new found cynicism some pre-seeded uncertainty will get beneath his skin seep into his blood taint his outlook he will try to love the dead and all their hippie silliness he will try to keep on truckin' he will try to know that rider but his exposure to infection by invisible spores of anthraxian doubt will permeate his miracle his mars hotel his tennessee jed he will eventually fall in with the pistols and the clash and the stooges and get a tattoo and
it is harsh and
it is daring but
he still manages to find sally's name in his darkness
and ron johnson he will have doubts about god herself and the church the one true church jesus yes jesus himself his holy self hell he will get left behind as well after ron's first taste of crystal clear liquid love dripped dropped beneath the tongue just a little dab will do ya plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is hop on the bus tune in turn on jesus hell he won't be so much left behind as he will simply be asked to wipe up all that blood and join the card game like any other schmuck and
ron will accuse the hippies of treasonous high crimes and
ron will find hope in on the road redemption in a sparse naked lunch resurrection in this gravity's rainbow and forgiveness in his basketball diaries
his president his fellow georgian he will hold lust in his heart for fuck's sake ron he will hold his lust gripped in his hand
strong like bull
and ron will flirt with the college girls at the dorm parties at the frat parties and down at everybody's pizza where they will guzzle beers and play quarters and wales tales and sneak drunken winks and tickled toes and invitations to get together outside to share a joint to find himself the next morning sneaking out of alabama hall
sometimes with his momma monogrammed underwear in hand
sometimes with hers
but that will happen only a couple of times maybe four or five some vicious drunken rutting in the stalls
love maybe it really is stronger
he'll go back to jesup on some weekends before thanksgiving and then during the winter it will become harder to break away and then springtime in atlanta oh sugar oh baby ain't nothing like springtime in atlanta when the dogwoods bloom and the robins sing and the dew settles back on the green green grass in the late evening and
the coeds publish all in lullwater park
but he'll still make it home every now and then he'll still make it home and he and sally they'll get together
he'll find his way home every now and then he'll make his way back to jesup something about it has a hold on him he'll end classes on friday something will tug at him sort of like the feeling to light up a cigarette ain't nobody say anything him he just has to go ain't nobody say a word
he will just need to get and go he'll just walk off campus to where he parks his old truck open the door turn the key and head on home sometimes not telling anyone he'll just show up in jesup his momma won't know his daddy won't know his friends he will find them he will find the crowd isn't that difficult not like there are a lot of place to go his friends they'll say
hey ron
like of course he is supposed to be there like it is just another friday night
ron he'll come driving home after classes after whatever might trigger an urge to simply go he'll come driving home find his friends with whom he'll be drinking and smoking and bragging and cussing and spitting and doing the same things that they had always done that those that had come before them had done thy kingdom come thy will be done
sometimes guns might be involved if maybe one of them pulls out a q-beam and starts spotting varmints their beady little eyes glowing out from the edge of the woods maybe a opossum maybe a raccoon maybe an armadillo someone might have a pistol someone might have a twenty-two rifle or a thirty thirty taken from the rack of their truck someone might have a shotgun there might be a cacophony a staccato of shots followed by the cannon like blast of the twelve-gauge overkill a haze of blue smoke hanging in the darkness the sharp sulfur stinging
the eyes might disappear
or not
dead or alive
or not
into the peaty distance they will never have known they will never have cared on earth as it is in heaven
sometimes there might be fights crazy clumsy swinging stumbling bloody fights if quaaludes are consumed and quaaludes are often consumed so there might be a lot of fights a little vitamin q coupled with a few beers combined with a natural ornery tendency to say what one thinks at any given time with an especially blunt drunken honesty drowned in self-important judgement of one's sister one's girlfriend one's momma and grandmomma
hey i like your black loafers speaking of black loafers how's your old man
ah geeze
sorry man that was a dirty crack shit speaking of dirty cracks how's your old lady
and a punch might need to be thrown and another and a circle might be formed and a nose might be bloodied and an eye might go red to black to blue and they might knock the shit out of each other knock each other into a pulpy mess of methaqualone mystery oblivious and numb to the pain confused by the blood streaming into their eyes by the gap formed from a suddenly missing tooth by the mask of spun sanity threading wrapping around their minds with a seven fourteen blanket
pummeling
pummeling
with bloodied knuckles that might swell to bursting the next morning
pummeling each other amidst cheers jeers and beers until one might fall into the arms of his mate collapse into an exhausted embrace before someone steps out from the circle and nobly says in that good old boy meets john wayne the peacemaker voice he might say oh kay boys let's break it up before someone gets really hurt
and they might all laugh except the one on the receiving end of the ass kicking he might be glowering staring at the crowd with that fucking stink eye muttering oaths of revenge
he is a just god he is a vengeful god
but most of the times they might just tell lies and half truths about fishing and fucking mostly about fucking the who the when the how many times the did she swallow and yeah every now and then yeah
on occasion
sometimes
an honest emotion or fear might float around
like when the subject comes around to vance he'd died last summer he'd died last summer in a fucked up way he got really drunk he had a fast car big yellow chevelle with black stripes big tires
wheels that said i'll fuck you leaning over a pine log stretched out in the middle of the meadow in a rainstorm
vance in his yellow chevelle screaming down the road the road curved left yance forgot to follow fucking big ass oak tree defining the bend absorbing the car caressing the chrome crushing the cranium
a bodily trauma on a grand scale
ron's friend billy he might say yeah i hear they found his tongue bit clear off found it stuck up on the tree
then they might be quiet for a while not silent but quiet a quiet sigh exhaled a quiet gaseous burp swallowed a quiet glance around
then
those that had gone away might talk about how they missed the place but can't see coming back those that had stayed behind just not understanding what it was that anyone needed to do anyplace not getting why anyone needed to go outside of jesup georgia
and a couple or three or four that had gone away to the university in athens where their daddies had gone before them their daddies already being the town lawyer the town doctor the town pharmacist they planning to return to step into their daddies' shoes they not really saying much they usually being one of the over-luded prize fighters oft times the muttering one sitting apart from the crowd licking his wounds
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