Maybe he was a little different. Sure, he drank too much, but he liked to write and he read more than the rest of us. He’d punch in the numbers of his songs on the juke the whole while explaining to you just exactly where Pynchon lost his way. And, for sure, for him, Pynchon had most certainly done just that. The rest of us were punching each other and drinking to the shiners we’d handed out.
Everything happened with cans and bottles and packaged goods. With cigarettes and greasy sweat running through our hair. We ate because we worked in the service industry. We scraped change together and lifted wine from the A&P on Royal.
A few times, we ended up in the truck before I lost it to the police tow yard. He liked the fake sands of Biloxi. That’s how life is, he’d say, still dressed in the black and whites he wore to make a living, the pants rolled up as we waded into the weak surf. Life is like these goddamned beaches with their fucking fake ass white sands.
by Hank Cherry
