SNUFF (h.s.)

Chapter 33

Running on Empty

The thunders rumbled, he lifted his head watching the ebony land crossed by the milky trails of tears; lightning thumps as robust and light as the wounded knees dancing in ghost circles. He was wearing his corduroy curved hat with a fine large brim. No scratches, dust or smears. Despite he owned one of the most hardhearted Harleys, he hadn't scarred his skin with signs nor there was a pinched star on his leather vest. His Harley was his Dolly. He rode until he was dry, he'd fill his share from a dotard pump in the desert and return home. He'd left the ecstasy of Aquarius for the passing travelers.

He was groping his belt with a velvet dusty hand, it was thin and leathered like his boots. To some he'd tell the alligator story and how he'd made them on his own, to others he'd remark his luck of finding them scattered at a dirt road. The truth was they belonged to his mother. She used to wear them for her barn chores, the straws combed with her strands, eyebrows as blond as the white sun, patched overalls with hidden corn beads in the pockets, he was watching her. Her fingertips smelled of corn juice as she plucked the cobs and cut the edges of green beans in a kneading clay bowl. He was watching her hands curving to hang the tobacco leaves, she'd told him he had that smell since the days she had him newborn in a pouch on her back at the fields gathering the leaves.

He was looking up to her, he wanted to exceed her. He couldn't see everything she would have accomplished for she had an inexplicable death, he couldn't guess her doings in the following years. Now he was older than she, he couldn't decide of the life he should have. She'd know better. He ached like a father for a daughter, he was a pipsqueak who'd buried his mother in the soil she plowed, he cried as if she had been born from his loins. The mouth of an orphan is as bitter as the moribund kiss of a parent. The fist with the soil trembles the same.
Saguaro's hands smelled of the soil covering his mother's grave.

He ran errands to call it a day. These days he was keeping a lady's motel for the night. He was taking it easy. He was staying out without the company of the disturbing tonk bar regulars. Loafing away the after hours with a smoking pipe and crossed legs he wasn't raised to have an appetite for velvet living rooms. He was upper-crust with the music, the empty hours and a Jackson bill.

He walked to every errand, he was keeping the wheels for the highway. He was of those leftover lads who hadn't been overwhelmed from the alluring city lights at the rainbow's edge. Fast-paced, fleeting, fervoring. He blew off some steam at the local dart dive or Billy's pool bar.

He smelled the brown paper bag with the grease spots like Audrey's dress in Sabrina. If he lifted it under the light, he'd see it steaming like a train's smokebox. He smiled cheerful, he unlocked the office door and burst a butch laughter thinking of his delightful night – he almost fooled himself that he hadn't prepared such a sizzler situation for his slacking skin. Better than eight hours a week, huh? He licked his teeth, the cool bitterness of beer was already tickling his uvula. Walking the road from the kebab greasy spoon to the motel he was arranging how he'll eat each bite. You see, he had an efficient method for the respectable enjoyment of junk finger food.

Here follows the analysis of the method; You unfold the paper and foil wrapping without ripping it but forming gentle creases with tender fingertips that know nothing of the hungry man's haste, for the pitta may be hard but remember that before it was soft and demands care. You check for the wraper's generous spoonful of tzatziki, you inspect the poking strips of tomato and onion – it is vital to know their shape must be of the thin waning crescent moon for sopping ruins the sunny spell – sprinkled with the precise dosage of paprika that fits the thumb and index which know how to crumble blunt, for the individual who knows how to grind the ganja they are accustomed to a slow movement of the fingers that don't permit to throw all the stuff on the same spot. What results is a uniform democratic distribution of paprika for the palate to detect the bittersweet spice. After tracing the perfect first bite with the steaming kebab gleaming, in that glow reminding you the first light of your life you, you luxuriate in your meal like the veteran Obelix.