Dee

Alright so it had been a long bus ride so far, and we were takin’ this pit stop at a roadside café in the middle of noplace; just road and the night. That’s all yer sight disappeared into anyway. I got off the bus and stepped into the café. Summa the guys from the bus were standin’ at the counter askin’ for quick cups of coffee, then waitin’ all anxious-like, you know, so they could get back to their stuffy seats on the Greyhound.

Me, I grabbed a booth by the front windows. I took my pen outta my shirt pocket and started scribblin’, sketchin’ on a napkin. Then the waitress came and when I looked at her… oh! Oh! Oh! I mean, I never seen eyes like that. You know, I seen eyes blue as the blues an’ green as a fisherman’s salty waters, but these eyes, man, they weren’t just what you’d call “pretty”, see. They were the kind that would search through the air and catch you lookin’ an’ lock you in. Couldn’t look away, you know? They were just the color of the forest floor in the back woods of my sweet mother’s old cottage up north. Wet earth like, spotted with the colors of leaves that fall in the shivery autumn days. She had long brown hair done up in a pony tail, and her nametag said Dee. I ordered a coffee an’ some hashbrowns an’ I asked where she was from. She told me about her hometown, some place not far away, just down the highway from the café. She asked where I was travelin’ to, and where from, an’ I told her… We had us some conversation, me bein’ the only customer sittin’ down in the place. She went back behind the counter to put in my order an’ I went back to my scribblin’. Lookin’ out the window, all I could see was the Greyhound bus with it’s headlights still on, the beams pointed north up the highway, moths swimmin’ round in ‘em, and fadin’, gradual, into total black.

I was the only one still in the restaurant. My hashbrowns came and I ate ‘em real quick, writin’ a poem for this waitress at the same time. In the poem I ask her to come away with me, that she has the option, if she were just up for takin’ it, of getting’ on that bus with me and headin’ who-cares-where. Woods. Woods and love and days filled with both, know what I mean? When she came back with my bill I looked at the pink clock on the wall. The bus would be leavin’ in three minutes. I slid the napkin with the poem on it towards her. She saw what it was and giggled with cute laugh, sayin’ “is this a poem?” like if she were a guitar someone had just strummed a chord on her perfect. She slid into the booth across from me to read it. She was smilin’ wide, but told me she would lose everythin’ goin’ for her in town if she left. I didn’t mind. I mean, some people just aren’t in the place to pick up an’ leave; it’s easy to get like that; I understand. I don’t even know how serious I was when I offered anyway, you know, so I just smiled and I shrugged. But then I felt her put her foot lightly on mine under the table. She looked over at the counter real quick and whispered, “I’m off at three”. Then she got up and went back to the counter. I saw her slide the napkin into her apron’s pocket.

Three o’clock am was in an hour. I walked out of the café an’ got back on the bus. Everybody all down the rows were asleep so I quietly grabbed my rucksack off the floor and got off again just as the engine was startin’ up. I sat down on the front steps of the café there, smokin’, lookin’ at the sky. It was such a beautiful night, with tons of stars, just tons, and a sweet moon that gave me a shadow. At three, as promised, Dee came bouncin’ out the door, still in her uniform – that yellow shirt an’ skirt , white apron ‘round the waist. We walked a little while down the highway, just outta sight of the café and all. Then she took my hand and we stepped careful down this ravine on the side of the road, and the clear sky disappeared over top of us as we got into the bush, dark woods all around. As soon as we reached the bottom of the hill, I could hear a shallow steam we came to the edge of, where we stopped. And that’s where she and I made love on a bed of our clothes, by the creekbed glowin’ alive with moonlight, in the thick summer air that smelled of wildflowers and pine.

Back at the café, we stood out front in the parkin’ lot, waitin’ on her friend’s shift to be over, so she could get a ride back into town. Under the lit up sign readin’ CAFÉ, she had arms around my neck and were were slow dancin’ through the little time we had, maybe thinkin’ we could really slow time itself. She whispered in my ear then, just as her friend came out the café door and unlocked her car, that her real name was actually Darla, sayin’, “Dee’s just what’s on my nametag” you know, in sexy whisper. Then she kissed my cheek and neck and got in her friend’s car and they pulled outta the parkin’ lot, disappearin’ into that nighttime just as the bus had, leavin’ me lonely now standin’ by the café sign. I figured soon the sun would be up, and the traffic would be awake again. So I moved my rucksack to the side of the road, and sat on it smokin’ waitin’ for my first chance to hitch. I was in no hurry anymore. It came to me that this driftin’ is all there is. And that it is just what it is an’ it is nothin’ else. An’ I guess that’s about how I got in this here car with you folks. I never stopped since that night.