1:23 PM

I tell you, I miss mornings, fella. I miss the taste of coffee. The feeling of a newspaper in my hand. The sight of the soft light of daybreak.

I don’t know why I keep bothering to tell you.

I’ve told you before, so many times. You never remember. An exercise in venting perhaps, but what’s a sound without a soundboard? A tree falling in the woods. A right Sisyphean task. You’re the only one I’ve had to talk to for a very long time.

You see, I’m stuck.

It’s always the same. I’ve lost track how long I’ve been stuck- there’s no way to know. No way to track. No permanent record. 1:23 to 1:24 PM Pacific Standard Time, the sun burning like high noon.

Never any rain, hell, never any clouds. I miss clouds. Something to shield me from this sun.

No morning, no night, just this perpetual afternoo—

Sigh.

Afternoon. Yeah, it’s a scorcher. Hey buddy I know you don’t know me but let me tell ya a story. So I’m here, in this fraction of a moment, in the unbearable heat of a sweltering summer afternoon in the damn desert of all places. Ain’t that just my luck. I was only stopping through on my drive west. Saw a billboard advertising the crater and thought to check it out. How many opportunities are there gonna be to walk on a volcano right? So I get off the highway and I pull in to this motor cafe, you know, get a little lunch. Hard to remember what I even ate anymore… ham sandwich, turkey? My last meal and it’s been so long now I can’t recall what food even tastes like. I’m about to get in my car, drive over to the crater, I see you walkin up and I think you look like a man I might be able to bum a smoke off of. And that’s it, every time, just standing outside this cafe watching you approach, wiping the sweat off my head with my hankie. Nothing meaningful about it. No rhyme or reason I can find, to be here. Not enough time to become a better man or save someone. Not enou—

Oh hell. Hey there fella how’s it going. Yeah, it’s a scorcher. Listen I know you won’t believe me, but I was just telling you a story. You see I was driving the van out from Chicago to visit this tall broad in San Diego. We met a few years ago when she was a waitress at a jazz club. You know I play upright bass, I would perform with the trio… had to be once a month at least. I don’t know why she took a fancy to me. She had some killer legs. Real looker. But she moved out to the coast, wanted to take up surfing. Wrote me a letter inviting me to visit. So here I am in my old clunker driving down highway 66. I realize I’m making good time, I’ll be in San Diego by evening. And here’s the Mojave Desert, the mountains on the horizon, and I see this billboard about an old volcanic crater. Worst mistake I ever made, I suppose. Coulda been, maybe, I’d still be stuck like this from behind the wheel anyway, perpetually driving nowhere. Least I’d have some wind on my face.

Yeah, yeah, it’s a real scorcher. Say pal, do you realize it’s June 6, 1966, and we’re just off highway 66? Must have taken me thousands of these minutes to make that connection. Probably just a coincidence. Who the hell knows what it all means. I wonder if anyone else is stuck, like this. It’d make a hell of a movie. I swear pal I’d kill just to be able to watch a movie. There’s a little TV going in the motel lobby but by the time I get there I can only take in 20 seconds of that same episode of Bewitched where Samantha turns a letcher into a dog …. Hell I’ll never know how it ends I guess. I can walk back into the cafe and order some coffee but they never bring it out in time, and Shirl’s nice enough but she’s too busy to hear me. You’re all I got, pal. And you don’t even know me. Name’s… my name is Bud. Bud. Can you say that back to me? I don’t want to forget my own name, or how it sounds. Yeah. Thank you. Can’t tell you how nice it is to hear that. You’re a real nice man. You always humor me and I know you must think I’m a lunatic. I hope you never get stuck like this. I’m tired, fella. I’m real tired.

Real scorcher, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I hear ya.

Sure is.