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Show Blue Run/80 Ocho Rios, the trip Mama was supposed to take with Floy and Juanita Waymack, only there's sipping a banana drink in a speedo. He's grown a moustache. Love buoys life. A briefcase with a flimsy combination lock any fingernail file could pop And Shawn. I recall one photo of Mama alone, smiling, happy in an Ocho Rios beach chair, the strong light getting her in the eyes. Renee's up by Gulfport We switch and she points the Pathfinder north on Highway 49, up through the DeSoto National Forest, where Dirky Lee inherited land when his own mama hemorrhaged and died on an operating table with him looking right down on her through the glass I always felt for him over that, maybe it's even one of the reasons we were friends; what a terrible thing, I always thought, lose your mother like that She signed him over ten-thousand acres of Mississippi hardwood. He'd have these periodic clear cuts done in the DeSoto National Forest, so he was always about half loaded. Durkee paid for excursions to the Jeannie's Drive- Through Bare Naked Car Wash, and bar tabs at Roger's on Dickson Street in Fayetteville Too bad about him stealing Jimmy's funeral. I have Renee stop at the gates of University of Southern Mississippi, where he's from, where his old man is college Dean or some such bullshit My piss is bright yellow, I'm not drinking enough water. By Greenville, I'm behind the wheel again The river bridge from Mississippi to the Arkansas side is a low steel affair, all business and reason, nothing at all like the pretty cabled-up version upriver in Memphis. I cross over in the deep afternoon with the sun in my face-straight up happy hour. My native state. Arkansas, the word breaks into three hard pieces when you say it. |