9.23.2008

On Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

"You have any desire to do that?" I ask my foreman
while passing a camper in the middle lane
during our afternoon commute.
"Do what?" he asks from the passenger seat
and I nod my head towards the RV in response.
"Drive around the country, yes...but I'd never go
somewhere tropical again. The wife and I hated
the Bahamas when we went when we first met."
I could tell he'd light a cigarette at that point
if he wasn't in my new truck. You work with a guy
forty hours a week and you develop a sense of his habits.
"How bad could the Bahamas have been?" I ask, not yielding
to a young buck trying to pass me on the right
in his father's late-model sports car.
"Dude, never take your old lady anywhere tropical.
We were walking on the beach at night and reached
a point where the lights just stopped. I told Bridgette
that was the end of the line for us and she looked at me
with disgust for marrying a pussy afraid of the dark.
I said I had a bad feeling about such a desolate beach
on a foreign island and that it wasn't worth the risk.
Another vacationing couple we'd met on our trip
caught up to us and continued on down the beach.
We found out the next morning at breakfast what
happened to them that night."
I slow down a bit to let a car merge from the entrance ramp
during his dramatic pause that would normally be accompanied
by a deep drag on his Marlboro Ultra Light.
"So what happened?"
"Some guy popped out of the bushes and held a gun
to the husband's head as he raped his wife in front of him.
Didn't even rob them, just got his rocks off and ran."
There's nothing like an image like that to kill the jovial mood
in any vehicle.
"You'd have to shoot me," we both say simultaneously
after envisioning the scene with its players switched up
and weighing the logistical success of a hate-fueled bum rush
on a man who may or may not be too scared to pull the trigger.
In the absence of a smoke to light
we both go for our drinks in the center console.
It's quiet for awhile after that and the next misfortune comes
when I don't have exact change for the toll.

No comments: