The Feet of God

118 - SO IT BEGINS

The jukebox pounded out “Smooth Operator” as the dark figure entered the room.  I recognized him immediately.  He was the dude who sat next to me at McDonald’s earlier.  I’d just purchased my Happy Meal and had gone outside to eat it.  There was colorful, metal picnic style tables arrayed on a patio sheltered from the sun by a long wooden overhang with prodigious quantities of flowering plants.  I took to a bench and enjoyed my food when this man joined me.

“Looks like you’ve been out in the sun a little too long without a hat,” he chuckled.

“It gets a lot worse than that,” I commented.

He just grinned.

I stopped to take stock of the stranger who’d seated himself across from me.  He was middle-aged, I guess, likely somewhere in his mid-fifties.  He had a full head of pure white hair, a neatly trimmed bushy white beard, but most amazing, he had them red eyes.  He looked like a lab rat.

“God damn it,” he spit out some coffee on a nearby bush.  “I hate it.  They don’t make their coffee hot enough.”

“That so?”  I sipped my Diet Coke.

The man looked around.  “Well, at least we’re outside and don’t have to breathe the stench of stale and rancid grease.”  He wiped his lips on a sleeve, and blew his nose on a napkin.

He was starting to affect my appetite in a negative way.

“You live around here?” the man asked me.

I didn’t want to confide too much personal information, but it seemed like an inoffensive question.  “I’ve been in Punta Gordita for a while.  You?”

The man threw away his hot apple pie to some starlings before answering.  “Me?  I’m staying at the Monett 4 Motel while my boat’s in for some minor repairs.  Refuel, and head out.”

“Where ya headed?”

His eyes grew distant.  “The Lost Continent.  Spanish gold.  The Fountain of Youth.”

I was beginning to wonder if a madman wasn’t sittin’ near me.

“Mostly, I seek to possess pure beauty.”

“That’s nice,” I munched on a handful of shoestring French fries.

“Ah, yes.”  He seemed to grow distant and more wistful by the moment.  “Astarte.  Aphrodite.  Venus.”

I gobbled down what was left of my Big Mac.

“My friend,” he spoke with a knowing smile, “I’m a man who’s heard the siren song.  It is that which I pursue.  It was desire, after all, that brought the world into existence.  And eternal beauty is my heart’s desire.”  He trained his red eyes on me.  “Why else would anyone want to be alive, even if it was beauty that killed the beast?”

Confirmed it.  He was nuts.  I finished my Happy Meal and quickly excused myself.  As I got up and left McDonald’s I heard the red-eyed man lapse into convulsive laughter.

And now...here he was again, walking straight into The Rusty Trumpet.  He strode up to the bar and asked Sandi Dollar for a Myers’s Rum and orange juice.

She turned to me and mouthed the words, “He gives me wood.”

Sandi gave this mysterious stranger a stronger pour, one usually reserved for higher-tipping regulars.  She gushed, “You wouldn’t happen to play the oboe, would you?”

“Oh, no,” he laughed.  “Just a little French Horn.”

I thought the Queen Bee was gonna faint dead away.

Popular posts from this blog

The Feet of God

67 - ONE IOTA OF DIFFERENCE It was turning light outside and morning dew sparkled like glass beads.   It was time for me to go.   I tucked the gun back with the stacks of bills stashed inside Yeller Tom’s leather case, then headed over to a gravel path that snaked downhill toward two lanes of asphalt where I might hitch a new ride. While walking along the path a white pebble landed at my feet.   I didn’t know I had company.   I looked back and saw an old man and woman tossing away whitewashed stones from the second letter E in BIBLE HELL.   (I figured there wasn’t much for kids to do around here except maybe Fentanyl, alcohol, screwin’ their first-cousins, and pull’n practical jokes like this.) “Hey, up there, watch out!” I shouted, as a flung white rock hit me above the eye. The elderly couple stood up in a shock of surprise, almost as if they was caught red-handed do ’ n something wrong. “Sorry, friend.   We were cleansing away some smut.” ...
Read more

The Feet of God

60 - UP AND AT ‘EM I heard Yeller Tom whistling Reveille .  “Wake up,” he gave me a smack to the head. I rubbed my eyes awake.   The effects of knockout gas and dope and booze still lingered.  He handed me a small pack of seeds. I didn’t disguise my disappointment.  “I was kinda hoping for an omelet with bacon or French toast or something more nourishing.” “It is not for you.   Feed le pigeon , Gertrude.” The smell coming from the cage below my seat was getting kinda rank.   “Ain’t you gonna clean this bird’s cage?” “ Non .”   Yeller Tom’s nose flared.   “Now we fly.” I ripped open the bag of seeds and threw ‘em below my seat. Yeller Tom pulled on levers and knobs and dials again, and his little blue biplane started with a huge discharge of smoke.   As we taxied down the bumpy path I knew there’d be no in-flight meals served but I could sure go for some breakfast.   Even a lousy bagel without the cream cheese, but I didn...
Read more

The Feet of God

64 - HATE TO EAT AND RUN I watched Madame and Yeller Tom grow smaller and smaller until they vanished through the swing door back of the pastry counter.   My head rolled backwards and my eyes saw above me countless holes in ceiling tiles moving, breathing, expanding, shrinking...damn, this was some kinda special cream cheese. I then heard a voice, “Jeebus, how much didja eat?”   It was the bear of an airplane mechanic, Chuck.   He’d entered the bakery shop and sauntered over to the coffee stand and poured a cup.   “Here, drink this, it’ll help pull you together.” I fought to stay focused as I held the hot mug.   “You’re no barrel of laughs,” I cracked myself up.   “Mr. Grease Monkey.”   I doubled over laughing. “Just drink,” the huge man ignored my convulsions of idiotic laughter.   He grabbed a folding chair and sat down beside me.   “You’re gonna be stuck in that plane with Tom for hours, y’know, and you don’t wanna be flying high...
Read more