WyzWmn's World©

the sound: the Doors – Light My Fire, Buffalo Springfield – For What it’s Worth, The Beatles – All You Need Is Love, Procol Harum – A Whiter Shade of Pale, Santana – Samba Para Ti,
REO Speedwagon – Can’t Fight This Feeling, Styx – Lady, Pink Floyd – Breathe

I whirl around to look at Boomer in all his derelict glory and he grins kinda funny and shows me a new tattoo on his shoulder…of a road and a big storm cloud and a bolt of lightening. “Got this to “commorialize” it” he says.

“That’s commemorate or memorialize Boomer” I correct and he agrees “commemorialize!”

I shake my head at him, “Let me get this straight?” I ask, “you…you got hit by lightening and lived to tell the tale?”

Boomer puffs his chest up and launches into a story of how he was riding along the highway somewhere in Wyoming after Sturgis. He’s not too clear on where exactly he was, but he’s also not too clear if this is as a result of his being zapped by lightening or 10 days of partying in Sturgis.

“Go figure?…..Probably the partying” I think to myself, having witnessed Boomer on a roll on more than one occasion. I remind him of the time he bit wee Suzie’s ass (before she became Al’s wife) while she was shooting pool in my bar and how before she could turn around and cuff him he’d lost a tooth (er in his case a rotten stump) to one of the rivets in the ass of her jeans.

Boomer ignores my shot and continues the story to tell me that when he got hit it was raining and the jolt picked him and his bike up offa the highway and threw him into the ditch and the only reason he didn’t die is cos he was too damn ornery.

“er ugly” Robert says from behind me and I almost choke on my pulled pork sandwich.

“Ugly it is” Boomer replies as Robert reaches his hand out to me. I place my hand in his and he leads me back to the firepit and my beer drinking obligation.

Robert seats himself on “his throne” as I’m now thinking of his chair and someone brings a smaller version over and settles it right beside his chair. He pats the seat and I sit down and balance my plate of food and the beer someone hands me on the arm.

“Boomer was actually in a pretty bad way when we found him” Robert murmurs, and I catch myself leaning forward to hear him over the noise. “We thought for a while that he was dead but BarnYard was able to get his heart started…and that’s why ya can’t separate them two numbskulls now.”

“Robert certainly is quiet.” I think while I watch Boomer and BarnYard grapple over a bottle of Jim Bean.

the sound: The Shocking Blues – Venus, Little Feat – Rock n Roll Dr, Edwin Starr – War, Bad Company – Bad Company, Black Oak Arkansas – Jim Dandy, Bob Seger – Against the Wind, The Doobie Brothers – China Grove, Foghat – Slow Ride, Heart – Magic Man, Kansas – Dust in the Wind

“Goin somewhere?” Robert says to my back.

“Uhmmm just to get my jacket”. I pride myself on my quick thinking. Robert makes some kind of non committal noise in his throat as I race back into the bedroom, grab my jacket off the foot of the bed and run back to the door.

“I don’t like to be kept waiting” he says.

“Like he’s the grand pooh bah”, I think, and then think “Oh my gawd, he is!” and again I am overcome with wonder at the abject stupidity of this not so tenable situation. “The things I agree to when I’m hung over…” I think.

I follow Robert out the door cos even at only 126 lbs there is no way that I am going to fit past him in this hallway.

I step out the door and the sites and sounds of an outdoor party assail me. It’s well past dark and there are stars in the sky. There are strings of light bulbs like they use at Christmas only with larger and all white bulbs strung from tree to tree…so the area I’m in is brightly lit while just past the light line there is true dark like you can only find in the country.

There’s a large bonfire in the cleared area by the garage and there’s probably 50 people sitting around it at picnic tables and on chairs or on the ground. There’s a pile of firewood easily the size of a small truck on the ground between the house and the fire and there’s even a couple of drunks dancing around like they are doing a war dance. There’s more people near the camps and I see another smaller fire over there as well.

“Jeezuz…I wonder what time it is?…er better yet..what day it is? Just how long did I sleep?”

As Robert and I approach the garage BarnYard walks up proffering a rather large glass of beer and when I look at Robert he nods. I sigh, “one of many methinks” and take the glass and drink till its empty. “hmmmmm not too bad for beer… really a gin drinker.”

Old Rosie sidles over and asks if I am hungry, “there’s pig n buns” she says as I watch Robert, out of the corner of my eye, settle in a very large but very obviously home made Adirondack chair. And then watch in puzzlement as people from around the fire seem to gravitate to this huge man.

Rosie pulls me towards the garage to get me something to eat and I can’t help but ask “Rosie?”

“hmmmm?”

“uhmmmm Rosie?…can I ask you some questions?”

“you can ask away little girl, but I ain’t sayin I’ll answer em all”

“fair enough…first and foremost…where the fuck am I? I’m not in Minneapolis or Saint Paul am I? what is this place? Who are these people? How long will I be here? How long have they been here? How long have you been here? Is it safe? Am I in trouble?” all tumble out of my mouth almost in one breath.

When I finally stop to breath Rosie says “whoa…that’s a lot of questions!…ok…first off…you are in Elko, outside of the twins and you are safe…as long as yer good”

“what the hell does that mean? Good? I can’t be good…I don’t know how!” I panic.

“Jezuz Baby…breathe” she replies and smiles again as Boomer wanders towards us. “Boomer, I was just telling Baby how you got hit by lightning!”

[ it think maybe that it’s kinda weirding me out that I’m still remembering all the words to the songs some 30 odd years later…..Wyz]