The Feet of God

13 - COLD COMFORT

They say the best part of sex is something called the afterglow, but I could never keep awake long enough to see the light.

When I woke up I was under a truck.  Nothing new about that.  The rusty muffler resting on my forehead was a bit unusual though.  The scent of food cooking permeated the damp morning air.

At least the sun was shining as I emerged out from underneath Bob’s pickup.  Not intending to catch something indecent or nasty or anything, I lifted up the canvas on the bed of her truck to peek in to see if they was still there, but no one was at home.

I stretched and filled my lungs to capacity with fresh country air, and immediately begun to hack and cough no end, promising myself once again to quit smoke’n.  I then fulfilled a morning obligation on the tires of an orange Oldsmobile parked nearby, while noticing Seekers doing their own morning wakeup constitutionals.  It wasn’t lost on me they was all eventually headed toward the same barn, so I buttoned up my Levi’s and took a stroll on over in that direction.

I wasn’t disappointed.  Just inside the paint-blistered barn door a chow line (not unlike the line at the honor farm of my youth) snaked past a steam table.  Picking up a tray, fork, cup, paper napkins, catsup, salt, pepper, sugar, and any other freebie utensils and packets I could grab, I was set to eat my way through.  I woke up with a hungry man appetite.

Behind the steam table stood a goofy Seeker with mostly clean fingernails and a white towel tucked into the front of his soiled jeans, ladle in hand ready to serve.

“What’s good on the menu today?” I smiled.

“Processed cheese omelets, food bank turkey hash, day-old biscuits and herbal tea.”

“Sounds like that’ll do.”

“Guess so,” he slapped some of the brownish mush on my plate.  I sniffed at it, and it smelled a little like turkey, I suppose.  At least it was something hot to eat.

“Herbal tea?”  I made small conversation.  “What kinda sad giveaway program did you scam herbal tea from?”

“Huh?”  The kid was too busy scratching his head to pay much attention.  “Oh.  No one.  We got shit planted out back of the house.  Home grown.”

I moved along the line and looked away, trying to ignore the yellow pieces of crud stuck in the remnants of his beard.

The girl at the next station was holding out something white and orange on the end of her spatula.  I suppose it was an omelet, but I kept on walking.  I grabbed me a couple’a biscuits to soak up the runny turkey hash and then proceeded to search out an empty place to sit.  I found an available seat by a folding table located near a stall with a sick-looking horse and some loose chickens.  A few novitiate Seekers sat at the shaky table and was deep in conversational shop talk.

“…I’m moved to follow The Fifth Path of Mystery and Discovery down I-80.  No one’s been plucking down there for a couple months, and there’s that used clothing store that gets the overstock from Faux Army.  It’s mostly surplus crap and knock-offs but there’s some acceptable leather chaps, vests and belts.”

“I’m not sure this is the way the Loud Enlightened One would want you to travel, brother Seeker.  As we are called to pluck it from the fallen bounty of the land, should we don the clothes of exploited foreign labor and endorse the suffering of animals?”

“Sister Seeker, how can you possibly become a Finder much less exalted Reaper if you cannot get over the pain of others?  The Master taught us life is about avoiding such suffering.  So get over it.  It is natural for laborers to toil in fields and factories, and let us pray all the furs and animal skins resulted from a death of natural causes.  Keep true to The Path, and lo and behold, things will be of pleasurable comfort and value.”

Some of the words used by these Seeker kids I’d never heard of, and the ones I did understand had me wondering if it made any sense.  I politely kept my mouth shut while chewing since I ain’t fluent in their lingo, and I hadn’t had a cuppa coffee or a cigarette yet to clear the cobwebs.  I was sopping hash juices onto a biscuit when Bob and Rufus walked into the stale air of the musty barn, with their arms lovingly draped around each other.  I pushed my paper plate away and wondered if there was a Denny’s close by serving up Early Bird specials with hot black coffee….