The Road Twice Travelled

I began an odyssey in 2006. The screw accounting I'm gonna be a bartender odyssey.

It has been bumpy and cost me much in pain and dollars.

One stop was a tavern/lodging establishment where I tended bar.

I liked that job. Wore a white shirt, black vest, tie, dress pants. Upscale clientele. I tended bar, waited tables. The conversation was intelligent, the tips were good.

The chef was magnificent. This guy could cook. People would ask to meet him after dining on the food that he cooked.

It was my good fortune as bartender to dine on his exquisiteness for free. I'm talkin' Delmonico steak, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans almondine. I could not believe the meals I got there.

We became friends.

He had dynamite weed.

After close, we'd go up on the balcony or out in the parking lot and smoke. Have a couple of beers. A little civilized whiskey.

The drive home freaked me out on this road between Antrim and Hillsboro. A long, winding, nothing kind of stretch of road.

I would be so stoned, I would lose track of where I was.

I would grip the steering wheel tightly and assume that I was on the road heading in that direction for a reason. And that sooner or later I would see something familiar that would tell me where I was.

Which, of course, eventually happened.

This happened frequently.

I enjoyed it.

I now commute on the same stretch of road.

It is different this time.

When I grip the steering wheel tightly, it is out of intense anger. I am not stoned, but I have been known to toss an empty nip bottle or two out the window.

I focus on the beauty and the graveyard, trying to trick my mind into peace.

But it ain't the same.

Funny how the same stretch of road can mean two completely different things in your life at different times.

Still, it is a nice stretch of road.

I just don't know if it is leading somewhere or if I am just wearing out the same old goddamn route.