29: In Limbo

Ten years on and this country is clockwork. You know when to spit out "Yes Sir", when to susurrate "No Bitch". The rules don't change, but that don't mean that they can't be deflected, mutated, digested and shat out as Montelimar.

Just like the old men, you deal in real estate now, like Bobby Baltz or Lee Frost,

you're always on the lookout for soil with potential,

enclosed areas where each angle responds to the previous one,

places where one can stand and feel the rotation.

You are past the point (hell, can you even draw the point)

Where architecture can betray you,

So it knocks you off your game a bit to fall for the old round-the-corner trick.

Shit, shit, shit, Fuck.

It figures they would not disappear

Just because you stopped thinking about them

An awful long time ago.

Ten years of roads spiked with opportunities for contact.

Ten years they've been carrying your features on their own trajectories.

It occurs to you that they probably could not cut you out from the static. They may have the benefit of transportation, but transformation is beyond them. It must be. There has to be a reason you left. There better be. Four men are in the jelly aisle of a grocery store with one nose and one gait to split between them. You start to close the distance, and with every step you get closer to a new kind of comedy.

It's about twenty five paces to the trio

Just don't walk like a dolt at a wedding

Your path is butchered out of this world

You will splice it back after thirty paces

Close enough to tell Ted's asthma's no better

Eyes down they're looking for apricot

Aren't you glad you're strawberry tall

Rounding the aisle you stash the loaf

Bread can wait, the getaway's constant

On the wide open you keep it steady at 75

You make all the left turns they can't

You wish for another dime, at least