Saturday evening
We’re in the middle of a middle-american dream here at Finger Lakes S.P., Missouri. Everyone here has at least two of the following: an RV, a huge multi-room tent, an ATV, or a dirt bike. The days are loud here with the rumble of bikes and the early drunken laughter of adults who’ve started the beer marathon at noon today. The nights echoe with occational outbursts from adult and child alike, and the smell of meat burning on gasoline lit wood fires at nearly every camp. When I look to my left there are lights from Rvs and fires on one side of the road while the other side of the road looks pitch, only the siluettes of the trees over the darkness about 20 feet up, reaching for the glowing brick colored sky. That twenty foot high eighty foot long patch of mystery is a tickle in my concentration, all except it’s one presence. A single tire rim catches the light of a neiboring fire and flickers it’s signal to me from the unknown; some ancient symbol forged with fire heading it’s warning. I watch the fiery wheel and momentarily try to express a thought dislocated from it’s presence.
We were pulled over today and almost spent our evening in jail instead of being eaten by mosquitos feeling the taste of freedom.