bye

Once we took a road trip through Iowa. It wasn't a long trip, more of a jaunt I guess. First stop was a bar where a picture of my dad's college football team from the 1950's hangs proudly on the wall. She snapped a close up on her camera phone and weeks later her twenty-one year old sister came across the photo. In a voice mixed with curiosity and entitlement she asked, "Who the hell is this guy?" To this day that cracks me up.
Anyway, it was a humid summer day in a rivertown on the Mississippi. The early morning seven mile race was long finished and we came for the evening festivities. There were three main areas of interest: A catchy, irreverent punk/pop band on the street between two Irish pubs, an aging metal cover band sqeezed in an alley and what I'd call a corporate stage fronting a woman with a very average voice masked by more than average breasts. We strolled and sweated our way through the crowd, drinking beer from tubs of ice and sneaking whiskey from a small silver flask. Between trips to blue portopotties we talked about observations and sounds and thoughts, always shiny with sweat and humidity. The punk guys were clever, the metal guys were passionate and the woman, who actually garnered the largest crowd, deep down probably wished she had more talent. We ended the night in the alley dancing to Rush's "Tom Sawyer" which I still believe was selected for us because our new drummer friend from the metal band wanted to show off his chops. And he was right; he hit that fucker note for note.
I woke up that night, her unbalanced ceiling fan clicking above and her black hair across my shoulder. Looking into the darkness I realized something about that day: We held hands. In the car, on the street, dancing to Tom Sawyer; we held hands. And we were still holding hands under the fan.
I love that, even though it's gone.