At the Speed of Light

By Larry M. Johnson

Larry Mason Johnson

Larry Mason Johnson

I thought it was possible to paint a picture of what it might be like living (inside) strawberry fields forever. So I tried my very best, considering the circumstances. I also included a touch of “The Twilight Zone.” It’s for you to decide: did this really happen? Or is it a good story?

460

460

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646280605

Book preview

cover.jpg

At the Speed of Light

Larry M. Johnson

Copyright © 2021 Larry M. Johnson

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

First copyrighted in 1991

ISBN 978-1-64628-059-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-66240-265-4 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-64628-060-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Simple

Quick

The Coincidence

Life on Easy Street

Faster

A Little Bumper

Rocky Road

Psych!

Chapter One

Simple

In the year whatever, things are relatively very quiet early in the morning on the first day of spring. Outside our known solar system, while sprawled out listening to music, traveling very fast, he’s reading the gold plaque on the Voyager II unmanned space probe about America on its main body that’s telling distant people—if there are any—just what life on the planet Earth is all about.

All of a sudden, a melody softly begins to vibrate in his headphones, called Your Wildest Dreams, by the Moody Blues, and Harrison Bergdorf slowly lets go of the space probe.

Floating free in space, he maneuvers seated on a 1000 cc 1976 Harley-Davidson motorcycle bicentennial Sportster edition and heads home. All that is heard is the song playing delicately in his brain: Once upon a time in your wildest dreams… Quickly, he catches and passes Pluto then leans on a slight curve. He hears a sound that he has to follow. A few seconds pass, and he travels past Neptune and takes a larger curve. The song continues beautifully in his mind, and he whisks by Uranus and takes the slight curve, trying to open his eyes on his scooter, but can’t. Then it’s a colossal corner around beautiful Saturn, and he has to kick his leg out.

Next, it’s a massive turn at Jupiter, then quickly, a bend at Mars.

Earth is beautiful and in sight, very blue and white approaching rapidly. The color brown is in sight. Land. Mountains, small lines, water, roads… boo!

"What what?" Crash bang pow! Reclining at home on the sun deck, Harrison gets vocally startled out of a sound sleep by the mailman, flops up and over the side of his lawn chair, smashes the four-hundred-dollar combination CD player—jukebox he was listening to sitting on it, and the mailman laughs like he’s demented because he scared Harrison so violently.

Ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho ho. Hey, you’re a good Joe, Harrison. If no one else will admit that, I always will.

Yeah, you’re real funny too, Mister Mailman. In fact, you just ain’t to be believed! Just look at what you did: ya ruined my expensive piece of shit Japanese radio! Couldn’t you see that I was sleeping quite soundly, Tom?

True. I knew that you were—but I got this certified letter here from way back in your home town and you have to sign for it; I know you wouldn’t want to miss this one, ha ha ha. At least, hehehe. I didn’t want to miss that one! You were just wha’cha call ‘in the window of vulnerability’! You should watch that. The smart-ass mailman totally loses his composure laughing like a hyena at what he did to a man that was sound asleep.

But Harrison lets it go and grabs the letter and clipboard from him, scribbles his name on line 73, and tells the postman thanks—then get lost!

Slowly stepping through the sliding glass doors into the cozy living room scratching his head, Harrison plops down in the lazy man’s chair, opens it, and reads the certified letter. Instantly, a magical light gleams across his face, and he perks up.

The letter is from a small group of young adults back home in Michigan, and it’s specifically inviting him to attend his twentieth year high school class reunion, on July 28. And it’s on the shore of Lake Michigan!

So Harrison immediately begins shaping up his house, slips into a pair of purple polyester surfer shorts, throws on a nifty white surfer shirt that proclaims Larry Fudd Lives, steps into his sandals, grabs a towel and suntan lotion, pinches sunglasses over his eyes, grabs a lawn chair, throws everything in one heap over the side of his Corvette convertible, and cruises to the beach at Point La Jolla for the rest of the day to think and think and dream about the direction where he wants his life to go.

And everything’s beautiful there at the beach. He’s got the first parking spot, it’s a great day for an early suntan, and he’s not feeling too bad. What a beautiful day it is to think and redream under the sun. It’s good to see the light.

Back at home toasted from the sun, Harrison takes a long quiet look at himself. He has a lot of things to be thankful for because things have really been lucky, and he owns a lot of things he wished for as a kid. He’s got a luscious house on the hill above Mission Bay, and it’s beautiful inside! Fancy furniture, thick carpeting, beautiful end tables, a crystal chandelier! And he thinks about what to do about going back home to Michigan.

A couple of months pass, the weather is warmer than usual, there are more and more tourists by every week, the Fourth of July goes, and it’s time to totally make up his mind. Harrison loves to go to the beach so much he takes a Tuesday afternoon off work, and the sun is so hot at 1:00 p.m. in July it’s time to cool off in the salt water. Stepping over and between the many bodies and bikinis and beach towels, Harrison finally reaches the salt water. It’s an awful experience. Not twenty yards from shore, an errant jellyfish happens to land on his left leg and stings it badly.

"Ouch!" he cries as the excruciating pain begins throbbing up his calf muscle while limping up the beach. Then he loses his balance and trips on a big icky brown pile of gooey sea kelp that’s full of tiny bugs for his face, and Harrison makes a spectacle out of himself when he freaks out.

"Shhhhh-it! I’m goin’ home! Ya got that, people! I’m on my way home man! Whew!" And he loses his sanity briefly. People begin looking and laughing at him as he thrusts himself up from the icky brown sea goo full of little beetles with spots and psychedelically colored green horseflies and begins hobbling back.

That Tuesday afternoon, his mind is made up. He briskly collects the stuff at the beach, throws all the stuff over onto the open passenger seat, then jumps in over the closed door, but his ankles catch and he wipes out face first down to the passenger floor and skins his nose. Fuming inside, he starts the car and squeals the tires away from the beach. But he’s right in front of a state cop who’s not feeling too bad, just leaving the jack-in-the-box gut bomb stand. The pig promptly pulls him over for a half hour while writing a four-point careless driving traffic ticket…

Finally, he’s out of there and on a very busy Highway 5.

*****

Harrison pulls of the highway and stops to talk with his little woman at the combination deli/mini-mart/gas station/video store/restroom where she works. Melissa quips, You should’ve seen today at work. At my employer’s other business, he told me he signed thirty-five dismissal slips to dudes that were going out to their car every day for a beer break and joint smoking session. They all came in smashed from their lunch hour, and I think the foreman finally started getting tired of it when he found out he wasn’t wearing the pants around the shop anymore—the heads were. Savvy?

Oh yeah! Harrison grins. What were the dudes like? Were they cool people that would relate and would like you for what you are and not for what you have that they want—or were they just plain c-c-cold…cold…cold as a tombstone like you used to be to me.

Yep! They were all right people to me. At least I thought they were. The one guy told me that he went out on lunch break and saw three friends do up ten thick lines of cocaine, while another guy sold a garbage bag full of fat quarter ounces of Northern California marijuana buds from the back seat. I’m tellin’ ya, they’re not right! And the boss was just getting fed up with it, I guess. He’s good, he has backbone, man. No one pulls a thing over my boss’s eyes. He’s a very smart self-taught man.

Well, that’s good to know. Hey, Melissa! You are adorable. The way you comb and part that gorgeous hair drives me insane. But anyway, your employer hasn’t been approached by any Japanese wanting to buy his business yet, has he?

"Well, I hope not. But American workers and American bosses and American secretaries doing drugs and prescription narcotics on the job are going to be the demise of our beautiful country. At least that’s what I heard the boss tell someone today. They don’t care! Let them buy America out from under our eyes while we’re watchin’ ’em—big deal! It seems like everyone in the US of A has just got on their mind, ‘Ah huh! Like let’s party all the time, man!’ That’s the key word: party! And let’s pay the people that make us do that, the tremendously rich and way overpaid professional athletes, help support the very wealthy alcohol and tobacco companies. I just can’t believe it. Between the people that work for an American owned company, on the greatest nation on the face of the earth—who drives Japanese cars? And the dopers and drinkers in the back parking lot every lunch hour? I don’t know what’s going to take America down faster. That’s the reason no one has any scruples anymore! They don’t care, or they’re too strung out and dumb to think about being the best person they can be, or making anything out of themselves while they’re alive one time—and they can’t logically see the way they present themselves to other people.

"There’s no one as blind as a person that refuses to see. It’s like everyone’s taking an awful lot of really very precious things for granted, and nothing’s significant to anyone about anything. For example, just take a look at our solar system. The Harmonic Convergence. Most people I know couldn’t care a less about that, so they stay uneducated about it. I mean, for the first time in two hundred years, all the planets in our solar system were all aligned in perfect order at a right angle from the sun just last week, and if you looked hard enough, you could see them all with your naked eye! How often does that actually happen in life? But did you see anyone with their telescope out in the front yard?? No. I don’t think so." Sweet Melissa finishes her little mouthful.

Chapter Two

Quick

The next morning, Wednesday, Harrison goes to work until noon then comes home to split. He makes sure things are straight and clean around the house before he splits. The little woman comes over and is helping right along. She knows exactly what he wants and is bending over backward, preparing him mentally, spiritually, and psychically for his long drive back home. She knows that even though Harrison has a sweet car, a brand-new Strawberry Red convertible, driving 2,300 miles straight through is nuts.

The correct time in San Diego, California, is exactly 3:00 p.m. The glare is very bright, and the two are talking as he prepares to enter the vehicle. Harrison says, "Hey, you don’t think any of the super modern people back in my small hometown will think I’m still too square to associate with them when I show up wearing polyester surfer shorts, do ya? I remember well—well, at least all right! And no one ever missed anything about me."

Melissa starts snickering. I believe that for some reason, Harrison, you look like you used to be either wild or a yard bird. Maybe that’s why I like you so much. But remember, you’re not going back there with another girl, so you just always be thinking about me while you’re home. Be good to yourself! Be careful on your way, and enjoy visiting with your old friends.

Harrison gazes into the sky, saying, I always think about you! Everywhere I go! Behind every door I open I only see you. Even while I’m sitting in classes at UCSD! But it’ll be all right goin’ home, I guess. I haven’t done it for a long, long time—and it’s going to be alright to see how everyone has changed over the years. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be great to see how some people haven’t changed at all!

She replies like a woman, "Yeah, well, just make sure that you are a man about a lot of things in your life. Remember. You’re pushin’ almost forty years old, and you do know a lot about a lot of things, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know for a fact there’ll be a ton of temptations being back around your ol’ friends again and all that, but don’t let anyone lead you in the wrong direction. Your life will only take you in the direction which you, y-o-u, choose it to travel. You are my man, and I’ve got plenty of feelings for you. I trust my feelings! I like you too pieces so many different ways I can’t believe it. You’d better get going. I’ll see you when you get home next weekend. Wait till you see me!" And she gives him a tight kiss.

Listen, babe. You’re with me. You’re special, and I hope you know that, he says, looking deep into her blue eyes then comes off the wall saying, not really thinking about it actually happening. In fact! One of these days, you and I are going to personally visit the planet Pluto together! Ha ha ha, well, maybe. We might get close to it. And he gives her a kiss, gets into his car, starts the high-performance Chevrolet engine, and he’s gone.

Pulling out onto the roadway, he instantly turns the radio on a classical rock ’n’ roll station while merging on the super modern Highway 15, North East to Las Vegas. It’s a beautiful trip. The sun is setting, and the temperature is perfect. Once in Las Vegas, Harrison takes it easy for a few. He does some shopping for the little woman then does some gambling and sightseeing. And out of all the things there is to see in Vegas, he takes note of a woman wearing a ten-thousand-dollar dress, standing outside of a beautiful Strawberry Red private helicopter with its blades spinning, watching a tiny toy French poodle, which is wearing a bright red sweater, defecate at the end of her tight four-foot leash.

Ha ha ha ha… Harrison really chuckles at that one. The dog looks like it’s deformed, and the fancy lady in the rich glittery clothing, standing directly under the whirling rotor of a helicopter, looks like she’s got scoliosis. Harrison grins all the way down the road.

Not the third stoplight away and at the last casino out of town, he sees this beautiful mobile home. A beautiful bright silver Peterbilt semi-tractor, with an extended sleeper cab and chrome wheels, looks like it cost someone with a lot of extra money a few hundred grand. And Harrison drools at that sight. It looks so beautiful with its running lights lit and great big headlamps on the front, he dreams and wishes it were his. So he keeps going.

Briefly stopping for petrol in Vegas, he has an unusual experience. It’s an experience that rarely happens in Southern California. A big wild opossum with pink eyes strolls out of the desert and pauses by the air hose looking at him. Harrison bends over and picks up a rock throwing it, almost hitting the critter, and it scurries off back into the desert.

The next city is Denver, Colorado. He gets gas and drives straight through but has another experience. Leaving the town, another big opossum strolls out in front of his car and he yells, Get out of the road, man, or you’re going to get hit by a car and go into a coma again, ha ha ha. And he leaves the town, heading North East for Highway 80, which will take him into Lincoln, Nebraska.

Once there he eats, naps a little, gets gas, and it’s back on the road again. But! Leaving Lincoln, he notices another opossum on the side of the road directly under the last stoplight in town.

It’s lying there motionless with its head as flat as a newspaper. Not really thinking about a lot of things and not totally understanding about life itself, Harrison chuckles and keeps driving.

*****

Through the next city, Davenport, Iowa, he pumps another tank full of gasoline, eats more fast food, and sees another opossum lying on the side of the road. Its nose is bent, but its teeth are showing and its eyes are open looking at the sky. Ha!

Harrison, still not totally thinking about a lot of things again, snickers, driving toward Chicago.

On the road home for fifty-two long and lonely hours driving by himself, he finally does what ends up to be the wrong thing to do. Even though it’s something simple—it’s the wrong thing to do. He gets more gas at the last stop-’n’-go in town and gets six ice-cold beers for the last two-and-one-half hour cruise. And he drives onward for home drinking cold beer, thinking about a lot of things, seeing a bunch of old friends’ faces.

Finally, he’s miles down the road next to Lake Michigan.

Turning the radio on the first station that comes in, a song by the Beatles begins to play. And it’s the only song that Harrison totally dislikes by the Fab Four. One lone flute begins to play the delicate beginning to Strawberry Fields Forever. He hears that, listens to a few words and changes stations.

However, right when he does that and right next to the big fluorescent blue Say Yes to Michigan sign, another opossum is sleeping on the side of the busy highway with its legs sticking in the air. Harrison sees that and, after a few beers, laughs even harder! Haa! You silly-ass possum. And he drives home.

*****

His hometown sure is beautiful in summertime! A little harbor town on the shore of Lake Michigan, where the Coast Guard comes and goes, a bunch of beautiful girls play at the beach, or a coal freighter comes in to unload for the paper mill. As he cruises along the State Park with the top down on the Corvette, no one knows who he is. He sees different people all over on skateboards, dudes in roller blades, people walking the pier, window-shopping the town, and he slowly drives by the old bar where everyone used to hang out and watch the musical fountain play across the river. And there they all are now! The same small group of old friends that sent him the invitation a few months earlier. They’ve gathered to reunite before the big bash tomorrow.

Harrison can’t wait to see them and looks for a place to park. But there’s so many people in the town on the warm summer weekend with the full moon—there’s no place to park, except a half mile away down the one-way road without any street lights.

Stepping out of the car with a slight wobble and taking a great big stretch, Harrison is more than ready to see what everyone’s like for the first time in twenty years. And he proceeds up to the bar then gets recognized right off the bat.

"Hey, look at the head on that possum!" With his arm draped around his wife, a young man named John yells to the group, causing everyone to look.

Harrison hears that and tilts his head, wondering why John would say such an odd thing on the very first time they’ve seen each other in ages. Here, he just got through driving fifty-four hours home from San Diego, and he remembers vividly an opossum on the side of the road in every city he drove through. That was really weird for John to say that.

So, Harrison proceeds into the group, chuckling along with everyone else so he’s accepted, and compliments all of them on how nice it is to see them again. He starts out with John. Hello, John! I knew that was you because I remember your voice, remember? You were always doing the fast talking back when we were young.

Yeah, I remember that, MR! John, along with some other people, used to use that nickname on him a long, long time ago. "Hey, it’s great to see you again, MR! I can’t believe it. You came home from California just to be with us. How come it’s takin’ so long? We know that you’re probably busy out there and all that, but I know that I think about ya once in a while, every day. How are things going for you out there?"

Harrison tightens and loses his train of thought for a second because of the six cold beers he bought in Chicago then drank on the way home. He says, Oh, I’m not doing too bad, I guess. You know, man. I work, then surf! But other than that, I’m not doing many other things. I slowly learned how to play the piano. I watch as little television as possible. I play hockey a lot and drink a few cold beers afterward with the boys! And hopefully I get laid once in a while! The guy’s wives chuckle a bit.

Chris snickers senselessly all by himself, perplexed. Ohh, c’mon, Harrison. You’ve got yourself a chick? You never had one of them before! Is it your piano playing? I don’t believe my ears.

"Hey! It’s good to hear from you, Chris. Well, I hope I have a woman! It’s tough out there! She’s an adorable little crushed velvet blue eyed Norwegian brunette friend I just met five months ago, and she’s really a class act, and I fell in love with her instantaneously the very first second I ever set my eyes on her one night. She has the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever looked into and she even combs and parts and flops her wavy hair. It drives me out of this world. And right now, her love is cutting me inside like a knife, but for some reason that I can’t explain, it feels so right. She’s awesome! Like, she’s a babe! I just hope her heart is still with me when I get back. Ya never know, it’s like trying to clasp the wind. I’m sure gonna miss her when she’s goes, Harrison says, looking right into Chris’s eyes. Isn’t that what they do, Chris? They peel your head and just go."

John cheers, Wow! Is he beautiful gang? I always did know you had it in ya, Harrison. I’m not doing too bad either—that is, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. I’m married, and my wife and her good friend Joey helped me start up my T-shirt silk screening business. I work almost eighty hours a work week, and we’re flourishing now! I print the shirts in many different colors and interesting designs, and sell them to stores who sell them to consumers all around the United Sates. My shop motto is—and I tell everyone this—you’re doing one thing while you’re here and you’re making sure that you do it far better than anyone else. Sometimes I can’t believe that I have to tell my employees that basic natural fact about life, John claims with a tight forehead.

Hello, Harrison. What’s been happening? Jim says. I remember when you were about to move to California, Harrison—me and you were the hippest dudes in our small town. It sure did seem to get empty when you left.

"Hey! Well if it ain’t my good friend nervous Jim. Long time no see, man. Yep I had to get out of here man, I wasn’t going to let a few drinks get in the way of my dreams, I know that. That was a long time ago man, and now that I’m older I have just about totally quit drinking since then. With me and alcohol, it’s out of date from a bygone era as far as I’m concerned. I try very hard never to touch that first drink, but seeing as though I drove fifty-four hours home to party with my ol’ friends tomorrow, I stopped in Chicago and got six sodas and drank ’em like cold water on a hot day, ha ha ha."

Hey Harrison, I got your nervous Jim hangin’! That was a long time ago man, Nervous Jim interjects, and Harrison laughs at what ole nervous Jim said.

All of a sudden, John speaks quickly. "You drank beers like cold water on a hot day. That’s nothing! I had eighteen beers in me before I got here! John laughs and coughs and spits continuing, and his wife smiles at the ground. In fact, most of us are all gassed! At least I know that I am! Well, Chris must be also! Ha ha ha ha, I’m tellin’ ya, Harrison—if looks could kill, Chris’s woman hurt him tonight. She and Chris were cat fighting all night, ha ha ha. I mean they were in each other’s face over somethin’ big. Or! Maybe it was something way, way too little. Hey, Chris! Remember in the locker room when we nicknamed you Pinner for some reason?" John laughs, then blinks at Chris for a response.

Chris gets a bit mad, then talks from his heart: Hey, quiet down, John. Just because you ate four helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy like a pig before ya got here and drank over a case of beer, doesn’t give you the right to start running your drunk mouth. Big deal! My wife’s a little bit hot at me. I bitch at her once in a while also! She’s just mad at me because I bought myself a pair of two-hundred-dollar dingo cowboy boots…and didn’t get her anything sentimental for her birthday like she wanted, that’s all. His friends all look away, shaking their heads.

Harrison quips at Chris, I’ll have to meet this girl. You haven’t changed, man. Right when he says that, the front door to the bar opens, and out strut two very beautiful women. They both look over at the group Harrison is standing with and turn without an instant of hesitation and begin walking down the dark street toward their car. Chris looks away, and Harrison notices the look on his face, asking, Wow. Those girls looked like they were mad at the world about somethin’. Hasn’t anything in this town changed? Are the women still scrapers? Or was one of them just mad at Chris? Ha ha ha ha. What’d ya do, Chris? Harrison chuckles hard. Tell one of them that you loved ’er?

One of them sure is mad all right, John blurts, continuing, and the whole group begins laughing except Chris. "No! No. She’s not mad at Chris—she’s ticked! I’ve told you, Chris, that you’ve got to treat them like a woman, and the way they want to be treated! It’s almost like a game, and you have to perform or you lose!" John chuckles very hard at what he can say to his good friend Chris in a time of chick crisis.

Chris doesn’t know what to think. His girl is walking down the road upset at him because he’s drunk. That’s what she’s mad at! And Chris knows that’s the whole problem. He can’t hold alcohol and says, So. If she wants to go home alone tonight with her friends, let ’er. Sometimes she bugs me—I don’t get space, ya know!

John chuckles as Harrison listens intently. Yeah, but you have to remember, Chris, if you want to drink alcohol, you have to have a bunch of starches in your system to soak up booze! You have to eat a whole mess of mashed potatoes and gravy before you go out drinkin’, otherwise you’ll get drunk and stupid like everyone else!

Harrison changes the subject. Listening to how much other people can successfully drink then unsuccessfully hold gets very boring very fast. He says, That’s bullshit, John—you’re out of date. Know when to say when like a man. Listen, people, I have to say hello to my parents. They’re expecting me. Besides that, I need a cold shower to the max! Do any of you know what it’s like living in your car, let alone the street? I mean I can’t stand living in a car! I feel like a hair ball that was taken surgically out of a cat’s ass! So. After I’m out of the shower and let my mom and dad know that I’m home safely, I’ll come back out. Harrison prepares to leave.

We know you’ll be back, Harrison. John grins from ear to ear. "Seeing as though the party’s on the beach tomorrow and because my folks are down in Antarctica taking pictures of Rockhopper Penguins again, I’m having a pre-reunion bash just like I always used to have over my folks’ house for the rest of the night, and you are more than welcome to come over. Just remember not to get destructive when you get drunk or stoned or high.

"Your mom and dad went down to Antarctica to watch the Rockhopper penguins? They are my favorite aquatic birds! They seem to fly through the water! But please listen, people, like I told you, the only time I like to drink a beer is after one of my hockey games. I don’t drink when I go out anymore. I don’t need to, so why would I?" Everyone shakes their head at Harrison because they don’t know whether or not to believe him. And John reinforces his statement about wanting to drink in the later hours.

John claims while slurring his words after drinking twenty-eight cold beers: "Ohhhhh, you’ll want to drink some cold beers over at this party, Harrison, because just for this special occasion bash, I happened to buy a half ounce of high-grade Colombian cocaine from a dude at work to make us all feel right. You know, we’ve all done it before, so I know damn well doing it just this one more time won’t hurt! It’ll just add to our fun, and we’ll all catch a good bonus buzz. You know, we’ll get good and plugged in. Yeah! That’s what’ll happen. John reasserts Yeah! We will get all plugged in!"

Harrison is startled. His hair blows back three steps because he can’t believe he heard John, of all people, ask him that stunning question. In an instant flashback, the thoughtful words from his woman back in California flash through his mind. You don’t need that shit, Harrison. You’re a man! Never let anyone point you in a wrong direction in life…

And all of a sudden, Harrison spontaneously rejects the proposition: In that case, I’m not coming over John. Negative. You people are crazy! Who really wants to be around that bullshit when life has so many, many beautiful things to offer? Don’t you have any dreams…or big dreams? Ya gotta want it!!

John responds quickly, Oh, come on, Harrison—I was only kidding. I thought it would be great to get some old memories out of ya. Remember when—

Like, wasn’t that a few decades ago, John? And you weren’t kidding. This is the nineties! How can you just waste money? I don’t see how you can even think about spending money on drugs for yourself when things are the way they are in the United States, let alone the world. Do you even have any idea of the number of people in America or around the world that go to bed at night hungry? Or how many children go to school hungry? Think about it. Help someone out! Harrison’s hot.

He tries to be polite, excusing himself, and says to the small group of friends and their wives or girlfriends or whatever, "I’ll tell you what though, gang—I can’t tell you how great it is to be with you to party one more time. I wonder what the rest of the people in the class are like. I wonder how many people’ll be there! Hey, listen people, but I have to get going. You know—there’s things to see and people to do." Harrison turns and walks quickly in the direction he came. He’s a happy camper, home and safe! For the first time in ages, he’s home…and it couldn’t feel any better.

As he walks away from the small group, he hears John and Chris, Kurt and Gary all laughing and chuckling with each other, then hears his good ol’ friend Nervous Jim say aloud in the cluster, Did you guys get a load of the shorts he was wearin’? I don’t know about polyester. And Harrison chuckles when he hears that heading down the road.

About down to the car and in a wide-open spot where the moonlight is shining bright, a car door opens protruding in the roadway, and as he walks by it, he sees it’s the same two girls that left the bar earlier.

Harrison gets on one knee in the road by the open driver’s door and jokingly asks, Hey. Didn’t I just see you two walk out the front door to the bar? Ya looked like you both wanted to scrap it out! I know you can smile. Things aren’t that bad, wow.

The blond driver shrugs, as her cute friend works bubble gum around, listening. Oh, boy. You were just down there talking with dingo Chris, weren’t ya? I can’t believe it. For the world being so hugely—it sure is an incredibly small world man. I hope that you’re easier to talk to than him. He gets mad like a baby at me if I get mad at him, and I’m only trying to help! He just won’t quit drinkin’! No matter how hard I talk to him, he will not hear me. No matter how mad I get at him, he won’t see me. And when he’s drinkin’, no matter how softly I speak to him, he gets very mad at me. He’s lacking sense—he refuses to understand! He gets himself intoxicated by alcohol—it’s not good for him, and it’s not at all good for me! I can’t believe that shit, alcohol. It starts out as such an easy thing for people to do, drink a beer, but it’ll get ya! It destroys an awful lot of priceless things. That’s a fact! I wish he could see that. She’s beside herself with concern.

Harrison says politely to the driver, as her friend pulls down the sun visor and starts applying fluorescent lime-green lipstick, Wow! Is he selfish or what? It sounds like he isn’t treating you the way you want! Maybe it’s because he was always a clown back when I knew ’im—and it sounds like he still is today! Tonight’s the first time I’ve seen any of them in twenty years.

You haven’t, the pretty passenger with clean skin says, looking in the mirror. Where have you been all my life?

Harrison claims out the side of his mouth, "I just got in town like about twenty minutes ago. I’m originally from here a long time ago, man, but now I, like, live out on the west coast. But this place is still my home, and that’s where I was just going—home. It sure is good to be home and safe again. Out there, the whole side of the state is either under rain water and sewage! Or it’s burning! Or it’s very