All day I drove into and out of shadows and rain and brief spouts of light that went from farm to concrete slab without prejudice. And all day I stayed away from the radio. But as the light began to recede and the caffeine dug its nails in one last time, things got a little rambunctious. A stream babbling behind bare trees in West Virginia second guessed a fog bank on top of an Arkansas forest pushed from red to brown with winter’s touch. I wasn’t lonesome, just glad to be solitary, hand to wheel, wheel to slick paved road. In Oklahoma, the road worsened. They started charging you to ride over it. Thirteen hundred and eight miles altogether, but they waited for the last 112 beat-to-shit ones to charge you freight.
by Hank Cherry
