Note: I am just having a little fun with this. I don't know if it's something I'll do any more with. Although, there are some interesting thoughts. Snake will recognized my favorite fictional locale. Also take a listen to the tune first. It's a cool song and I wrote this to match up with some of the lyrics and mood.
Pulling the pink ponytail tie out, Sandy was pouting now. The long thin strands of her dirty blonde hair fell about the side of her face sticking at places where sweat and nerves and fear all gathered.
“We can’t stay here, Jim,” Sandy said in a whimper. “There’s nothing, nothing!”
She twisted around to face the screen door of the front porch poking her middle finger through a hole in the mesh. Beyond, the sun settled down low behind the city’s water tower. Jim squinted to make out the fading green letters at top. He could clearly make out an ‘I’ and an ‘N’. The rest were lost in the building dusk shadows and passing time. He knew what it said.
“Lincoln,” It slipped his lips in awe.
“Yes, damn it, Lincoln.” Sandy swirled back around. “That’s what it comes down to, don’t it?You wantin’ to stay in Lincoln. Where there’s nothing and ain’t going to be nothing.”
“It’s where we grew up Sandy. It aint’ so bad.” He pushed past her and out into the open air. A small dog yelped down the street. The dust from fields being harvested only a mile out of town floated in the air and piles of leaves spotted each yard on the block. Off in the distance, children giggled romping around with a football.
“It ain’t so good,” Sandy's hands went to her hips and for the first time her charcoal colored eyes settled on the blue Toyota parked in front. “This is it.”
“There’s somethin’ to stay for,” Jim said taking her hand, but she pulled it away. A silver ring, really an old twisted spoon that he had shaped down in shop class years ago, slipped off her finger and fell to the sparse, yellow grass. He’d given it to her with words of love. Words he had meant. He didn’t want to lose her. “There’s somethin’. I don’t know what. Something’s happening, can’t you feel it.”
“Yeah, I feel it,” Her words came out like arrows from a bow. “It’s dying. I feel, I see it, I smell it.”
She moved then quickly away toward the Toyota, her heels tapping off the cement sidewalk. Opening the driver’s door, she pulled back her hair again and tied it back.
“Sandy,” His voice was hoarse as he bent down to scoop up the ring. She looked up. “Hold on.”
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4 comments:
I seem to remember this video from one of those like 100 greatest video countdowns on VH1 or something. Tom Waits just looks weird though all hunched over strumming his guitar like some osteoporosis suffering grandmother. Sorry, it is just hard to get past that image so i needed to share it.
I like what you did with the story and tying it into the song but not totally the same thing. I love hearing about people in Lincoln. It makes me want to go to the real Lincolns in various states in so wierd hope that one would match it somehow.
I love the opening line to this song, "They hung a sign up in our town. If you live it up, you won't live it down."
Tom Waits is a crazy dude. Check out the video for "God's Away on Business." That thing is crazy.
There's a part in the "Hold On" video where a the waitress puts a the heart-shaped box in her apron, and I couldn't help thinking about Julia (the waitress from bug boy). That's what made me sure to set this piece in Lincoln.
Yep, Lincoln is sort of becoming like Springfield with the Simpsons, which one is it. In some strange way, I think we've all been there and maybe we'll never be able to get back.
I'm rambling.
I am keeping this going cause I almost find it silly now and can only imagine what people who dont know me that happen to read all these comments (like anyone reads this damn thing) would think, especially since I am going down the list in a sequence that would no way truly transcend to the blog, only our little email updates we get. and you claimed to ramble.. and now i got interrupted and lost my stream of conscious which saying that reminded me that that was what i was trying to comment on, that i should try to write how i think like that cause i noticed on my drive today that my mind makes all these connections where i start @ 1 random object and end up 10,000 miles away from that object in a matter of a minute through all these crazy connections where something reminds me of something else. I would probably be telling myself to hold on cause i could never write/type that fast. See I tied this one all the way back in to the subject of the post.
So do the drugs make your morning coffee taste different?
Whatever your on, send my way, because you're supercharged this morning.
The stream of thought stuff might fit in better with the T.S. Eliot poetry referenced in the Dark Tower.
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