Letter to a pretty Alaskan I'll likely never meet.

[Salty]

Especially now.

The moon shines so much brighter here than back home. You always read about how the moon lights some protagonists way in novels, but when your home is too far away for that hunk of rock to be little more than a night-light it's just one of those facts that sits in your imagination. That strong pale light hits the streets and bounces right back up and touches everything. Who needs street lights? Cars? Screw those guys. I've got my walking shoes on and I need to boogie. Actually, I need a smoke. I don't usually, but when away from home's...er, let's say creature comforts, I do not sleep. I get drunk just keep steady, but the rage comes regardless. I've got stores of that shit, and nothing is going to untie those knots. Not in this century.

So I need a black and mild. Something somewhat tasty that will soothe my restless head. So far, nighttime on foot is my favorite time in Tucson. The moonlight, the mountains hugging my vision, the light of what might just be a metropolitan area hugs the distance. I can breathe here, I can think, I can see.

Tucson is a great place to loiter. Who's gonna mind? Most of the time it's too damned hot for anyone but the most drug addled and unfortunately mentally unstable to just hang around. And I imagine they have a stronger sense of self-preservation than my passing-though mentality can account for. So, I can just stand here or there, or lean, or sit, and watch. Not many people pass me by but there is such a medley of humans here. The snowbirds are all asleep, or trying to. Maybe they're throwing the same restless fits over their memories as I do, but they must have all the supplies they need to get through it. For this I hate them just a little bit more. You can see the occasional hipster cruise by, you can see people with mullets that GAWD must have given them because, surely, no frail human hand could cause hair to twist and turn into such a horrible shape.

At the gas stations, I am seething while waiting for the counter person and the trembling, nonvocal WEIRDO puzzle over a cell phone, on of the regular kind. Flip open, texting is a pain, you know.

"Do you know anything about cell phones?" she asks me.

"I tell you what, I know just about anything you could want to know. No, I shit you not. I will tell you any damned thing you want about that damned thing if you sell me a black and mild." I say.

I help her, she's happy. Her friend is sick and she's trying to get her number on his phone for some reason or another. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

I leave and keep walking though a silent and peaceable strip mall. Nothing much moves. This is odd to me because the times I experience such quiet at this time of day are rare no matter where you go at home. People always need something, and if they don't they wait until they do. There's a pizza place, a truck sits outside it and the lights are still on inside though it is obviously closed. This kind of quiet is something I would gladly pay for, how can I manufacture this at home? I wonder about these things as I pass the big windows of the pizza place. And something's moving inside there. The freezer door is wide open and those flaps that either keep the cold in or the warm out are moving about violently. Surely, you know what a bear is. Not the giant fuzzy ones that eat anything in their way and use brute strength to tear apart things that stand in their way.

Then again...maybe that's not a good way to waylay to differences. Especially in regard to what THIS bear is doing to the poor little pizza boy in there. Don't get me wrong, it all looks consensual. It's just sort of a savage application of pizza dough. I re-light my smoke and take a good long look at the the kind of fun Tucson has in store for those willing to bear* it before walking back to what will inevitably be a long, long night.

I could be happy here, I think.








*HAW HAW HAW.

[minuspace]

What do you need?

[Salty]

I have a powerful need for substantiative replies, but I try not to get shook up over it.

[minuspace]

I enjoy whole grain over enriched dough. The purity standards of original ingredients may vary, however, if the constituents are not be properly sifted according to the rate at which they rise.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I have a powerful need for substantiative replies, but I try not to get shook up over it.

The part about the moon being fecking huge in that part of the world is right. It took me straight back to being on the road in the Southwestern US.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That little section of the world has about the most transformative emotional power for me of anywhere I've ever been. I've been through many times in the last 20 years, and every time it changes my life in some way.

[Freeky]

It is peaceful, and not just at night.  There's times during the day when it feels like your the only person in the whole goddamn city who is still clinging to life.  You gotta catch the City when it feels like that daytime wise, though, and its much more common at night. 

Most people don't go out because of the coyotes and javelina, but really, they're not much to be scared of as long as you stick to the closed, quiet store fronts.

[Don Coyote]

Ah yes, the way nighttime feels in a desert. And that certain brand of Weird that desert cities breed.
Makes me pine for home.