dr_knownothing

we left late in the day in june to drive twelve hours to north florida in two cramped cars with 7 kids some in love in doubt in crush in lust in a car smooshed up hot to eachother windows down southern summer night air sweet and heavy. oh and some of us hated one another. and just as doing anything with one other than oneself is harder, doing anything with two cars and seven people makes everything infinitely more complicated. after a few hours of driving like this- 4? 3? some may even say 2- you've left your world behind and have created your own little travel world where everything is wacky and crazy and time drags on and trees rush by seen from a low angle in someone's lap, a beer between her knees, the pale skin there turning a little pink from the cold...or you nap on the sidewalk in front of an abandoned rose's dept. store under the bright lights which they still keep on so you can buy a coke or ride a childs mechaniical horse for a quarter in safety while it's taking everyone an hour to get a sandwich and the kids who work there are real cool you know in the middle of nowhere of south carolina and lets get high with em yeah sure and they tell us all about life in their town and we about ours and we all wish we could trade places a little...but then they started getting sketchy and we left and found the biggest mcdonalds billboard ever and it wasn't high up or anything, it was just like on the ground and it was all lit up it was like a movie screen showing the ad for mcdonalds the movie permanently and bats and flies were swarming around it all like crazy like they couldn't wait to buy a ticket for the first midnight showing and we sat on our cars in the field and ate our sanwiches and whiskey ...how does kerouac say it, keeping the left wheel flush with the holy white line of the road? i don't know...you know what it's like when it's just you and everyone's asleep drooling on eachother and twitching and probably uncomfortable and your arm is out the window and you're bored as hell of driving at 4 in the morning with no one to talk to and while your thoughts are brilliant and profound, you can never seem to remember them as the signs go by you have to watch and as you think you see a bridge that isn't there. i've never seen a ghost in all my driving, but i do see ghost bridges all the time...and finally we've made it, the red clay from nc to ga has given way to a sandier soil that typifies the geological makeup of northern florida and it's shallow limestone crust which is virtually a giant piece of swiss cheese, it being so easily permeable by the copious amounts of rain falling, forming underground caves, rivers, whole lakes, a huge aquifer of crystal clear water, de leon's dream. i was driving far ahead of the other car (lameasses). i was the first one there. everyone was still asleep and the water was bubbling out of the huge spring silent and steady. there was no sound. the night animals were going to sleep, the day animals were still asleep. the sun and moon must've been secretly making love b/c i couldn't see either of them. a few fish, clear warm water and spanish moss hanging off trees not even moving and me. floating. and i sat on the muddy bank in my under wear, water running dirty rivulets down my thighs and and and everything woke up. i heard the first bird call out. it's going to be a great day!. and then slowly they were all singing and gettin all excited and flying around swooping low to the river to scoop up bugs and fishes bigs and fushes and and egrets even! tall like a stick that is tall and looks like a bird. oh and i forgot to talk about the sun coming up and the mist of the warming water and, oh you can imagine. but i was in the sunlight, squatting on a log barefoot half in the river and a turtle crawled up and sat on the other end wanting to warm itself as i, indifferent as everyone started waking up and the other car got there and what with the hooting and hollering and splashing and what not and i said bye and someone gave me a beer floating in the middle of the spring and party time began! whoo hoo!