PERFECTLY GOOD DOGS

Surely I could make it to Chattanooga. When I had started driving in Staunton, Virginia everything was fine and I had a hot cup of coffee in my right hand, my left on the wheel. But the moment of glory when you're in a nice car and the passing lane indicator clips by in white pulses like you're flying had long passed and my partner was asleep to my quiet right and it was just me with all these strange lonely cars zipping by cause I was not speeding for fear of shutting eye and shooting off through a guard rail .....my life become some finale for a car crash scene in cheap movie.... but to keep myself awake I would fanaticize about those travelers in nineteen-ninety america zooming towards the end of millennia and life itself ...and it almost kept me awake that they all drove so stalwartly... I wondered where they all was goin' as we wound through the edge of Tennessee and I imagined it all as a map in head ... like each mile checked itself off in my noggin' and we slowly ticked into georgia. All I remember at about 4am something was going through american city and since it was a change of scenery, like caffeine, it kept me wake long enough to crank out a little miles cause me and my partner was tough by nature and it was important who drove furthest and all... but then we were out of there and only shadows of mountains remained. Ya gotta be strong to be at mid-morning in Tennessee and nearly falling asleep, but still got guts enough to smashya nose on the rent-a-car windshield to attempt to see the mountains at night..those eastern mountains that contain all the soul and backbone of a nation whether mislead or on the right track... Lawd I had been swerving and racing ahead of tractor-trailers (to keep their lights of doom far behind trying to drag me into eternity) too long at that point to go on any further .... and supping on the last magic frigid bit of my coffee from styrofoam cup kept us on the road and to the edge of Chattanooga city limits....goal at 5am. It was there that I had to call it quits and wheeled into rest stop behind all kinds of purring rigs yellow-lit like cheap christmas houses along roadway .... pulled on the brake and fell asleep to match my partner unaware of any destiny....

Day broke right over us and whoever woke up first woke the other and I grabbed the wheel ready to fire it up and spin right out onto the interstate, but Daniel was grabbing my arm, "Peter, give it a rest a second. Shit you're not even awake." Truly I wasn't and said nothing but rather got outside of the car, hopped the guardrail as I edged down over the embankment to piss on a rotten and forgotten pallet at dawn.

Daniel slowly came out of his cocoon and we talked as I wrenched back around behind me and grabbed a highly caffeinated citrus soda from the cooler.

"Awh my, what a long night" he said and grabbed his neck and rubbed. Probably that spot behind his head resulting from being decked in San Francisco by a drunk guy in a parking lot was giving him trouble.

"What a pansey," said I and slammed the rest of my drink, obsessed by the idea of getting us there on time (9am) and at the same moment thinking I had to (unbelievably) again take a piss...

Being a little more coherent after the Mountain Dew, Daniel and I heedlessly pushed the rental to its limits, finally crossing the border....our next goal being the deception of Georgia.

[and as I right this God I have grabbed another beer but not before I went downstairs from the attic and took a leak and looked out the bathroom window and captured beautiful purple view of red chimney, heavy green maples that almost reach you, and glorious moon (reference of cheap poets) that met my glance when I was all alone and tinkling...]

We drove on into Georgia as the sun rose higher and our crotches responded appropriately... all sticky and demanding attention. Seemed we had to pull over at next gas station, not for fuel, but to rearrange those stanky folds.

I noticed the kudzu (every lame southern story must make mention the plant) immediately and the way it seemed to come alive in attempt to impede our weary efforts to realize the state trooper barracks. [Black man and daughter walked along on the wild southern weed infested cement sidewalk and it panged my heart to see them and it made me think of my own sorrowful existence all lonely and getting nowhere....]

"Awh damn Peter, right here is the turn!" My partner, holding a map all askance above his small frame, was yelling and had hold of the dashboard, ready for the skid.

I kept most wheels on the ground and put the car in park. Daniel had to get out and face the music. We had driven all this way (to Georgia originating in Pennsylvania) so's he could get his old license renewed and reap the benefits of a sweet low insurance rate. He asked if I wanted to come inside and I said, "No way" and grabbed my book about a great writer and sought some answers as the smell of pine came through car window.... Daniel walked in with the paper work he was told he would need when he called them earlier that week from Pennsylvania.

He walked out blanch-faced and shakey about five minutes later. 700 miles learned us that you can't always trust the state worker on the other end on the line telling you that ALL YOU NEED IS THIS ONE FORM when the sad truth is that you ALSO need a very important piece of identification that is in a glove-box in Pennsylvania and you are in Georgia - Dalton, Georgia.

We reasoned heavy and headed off towards the mountain town where his folks lived. Kind of as if drawn there... call it a dying whale looking to beach itself. We cursed and spat the whole way up through and into the mountains..... and the mountains! I was still driving and having to piss my kidneys out after the synthetic milk shake I had just chowed for lunch.

Time went quickly as I drove, yet sneaked enough time for my goggles to take in the marvelous mountains.... checking out the mountains... we talked about solutions to the driver license dilemma, but all we could do was drive towards his dad and hope that solutions might become there apparent....

Then, coming around a nice turn, Daniel and I were both reasoning the circumstance when we saw this blonde animal face RIGHT BY THE ROAD like a magic bear .... it's eyes piercing us to the point where we looked at each other and decided we had to stop. It took about 200 yards to slow down and pull over. Daniel had already gotten out and was trotting back.

"What was it?" I yelled after him and slammed the car door, now running to catch up.

"I don't know. Maybe an animal just hit....injured and dazed."

"Looked like a blonde bear!"

It didn't take long to get around the bend. I had caught up to Daniel and we saw the animal at the same time. Still it was sitting there so close to the road that each feckless passing car brushed its blonde hair. It blinked in the sun and when it saw us started wagging its tail.

"Christ it's a dog. A puppy."

Daniel said this and the picture of the animal became clear and both of us digested in a sad instant the entire scene. It was then that two other puppies came forth buoyant from the woods. Here we had stumbled upon a trio of dogs not quite a year old living and surviving along the road. Eating the trash thrown from windows of passing cars, likely they hadn't wandered far from this location where they had been deserted by the humans responsible to them and were probably waiting for them to come back one day. They now churned around our legs and jumped up in little hops and licked our limp, powerless hands. In that instant those puppies had found their salvation in two young men who would leave them as well. I responded in the kind of anger that brought a tear before killing old yeller. Cars flew by and I wished I could crush them when they honked their horns like we were in their way and obvious fools for stopping to check on these perfectly good dogs. Likely they were cruel idiots who would swerve to run over a turtle in the road.

"Let's get out of here Daniel."

"But Peter what do we do?" he pleaded knowing that to leave was likened to deserting them in the first place.

"We can't do anything! Our car is packed full of shit and we surely don't have room for three mangy dogs."

"Maybe we can tell an animal shelter about this when we get to my parents house."

"Yeah" I said.

I started walking back to the car and the dogs of course followed, jubilant tykes that they were. Though they were in such a desperate position, they bounced around all-faithful like things were gonna always work out. Maybe only humans are cursed by pain of hopelessness.

We pulled our cooler out and threw three sandwiches out into the wood. The puppies chased them and disappeared from our eyes. Our car pulled out and we didn't look back and didn't talk.

The day was fairly successful. Daniel finally got his Georgia license and that night we camped in the Chattahoochee National Forest. In the woods sitting around a little fire we unraveled as much of the Great Mystery as we could... and after all the pain, in the end everything is magnificent. Eventually we got scared of something we heard and crawled into the tent and our dirty sleeping bags. Outside was a symphony of the unknown. As far as I knew the sky above never ended.