Note: Suffer through this, I'll explain after.
We saw him, outside that Texaco. Outside that Flying J. Old white guy. I’d say he was middle age. We saw him with grey hair and a lumberjack’s flannel shirt. I saw him with a denim jacket and long salt and pepper hair. He was real old when we saw him. He seemed to be just sitting there. In Texas I seen him. In New Mexico. It was Arizona when we saw him, at a Chevron. He had really blue eyes. He wasn’t asking for money. We saw him on the way to Moab. It was in the early 90’s I think. Like he was meditating, just sitting there. I saw him up near Sturgis, he was real ragged. I’ve seen him once for each of my marriages. August 12th, 1974. 2:46 in the afternoon, that’s when I saw him. We saw him in a bomber jacket like a vet would wear. He seemed powerful, that’s the only way I can say it. He was sitting outside the chevron, on the curb of the parking lot, he had these really big eyes. We’ve never seen him, we’ve never wanted to. We saw him at a rest stop near Fort Worth. The only thing my bastard father and I share is that we’ve both seen him. The kids wouldn’t leave the car for fear of him. I’ll never forget those eyes. My old lady’s real religious, and she lit a candle and put it at his feet. He wasn’t begging or anything. Like a totem pole. We’ve seen him twice. I said “Hey buddy” and then he looked into my eyes and I couldn’t remember what else I was going to say. We’ve never forgotten him. We were heading to get a quickie wedding in Vegas when we saw him. I just felt like following him wherever he was going. My wife and I felt the strange pull to sit with him, we still talk about it. We gave him twenty dollars, and then just waited for him to say something, I dunno to tell us our fortunes or something. When I’m driving near the road where I first seen him, I keep the doors locked, even going 70. We saw him last year. I don’t put nothing past him. He pulled me out of a wreck, I swear it was him. Our kid gave him a dollar and he touched him and since then he ain’t ever had asthma no more. He’s Cain I tell you, forced to wander the earth. We saw him. I touched him. It was in Little Rock. Barstow, believe it or not. Colorado Springs. Dillon, Montana. Taos. Yessir, Memphis. Pocatello, just last year. We just knew there was something about him. My Lord and my God. I’ve started keeping time from the moment I saw him. This sound’s funny but we’ve always thought that when he dies, America dies, if he can die. Patron Saint of the highways. I saw him last spring, but my uncle says he saw him in 64’ and he was just as old. Show me his grave and I’ll call you a liar. I’ve seen him and I don’t want to talk about it. When I die, either way, he’s gonna be the one that comes for me. I asked him his name. He said his friends just call him Buddy.
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Composition notes. For A long time I've been wanting to write a novel about a kind of wanderer/god/savant/bum/evil Forrest Gump kind of guy. The guy's name is Buddy. Think of it as a mix between On the road/Fear and Loathing/The Bible with a bit of Rime of the Ancient Mariner thrown in for kicks. I've been thinking about an intro for that book for a while. I decided to finally write the first version of it. I'm going for a "filmic" or cinematic type style with this thing. Epigrammatic. Supposed to be a bunch of different speakers. I hope that comes through. I wish I could upload pictures at this cafe because there are some awesome ones of roadside bums.
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