Dog, Man, Book

Big Biped puts my supper dish on the carpet. It has kibble with bits of canned food mixed in. I nose around and eat the canned food, along with a few bits of kibble for politeness. I'll get back to the kibble later if I can't cadge some treats.

Big Biped is in his recliner reading a book. I sit down under the piano and give him the alert look. "You want to sit up here?" he says, scooting to one side. I hop up, turn around, and lie down next to him. It's snug.

A box fan stands on a TV tray, next to the curve of the piano. The fan rattles and whispers and pushes us a soft breeze.

Big Biped is reading Kerouac.

I walked along the tracks in the long sad October light of the valley, hoping for an SP freight to come along so I could join the grape-eating hobos and read the funnies with them. It didn't come. I got out on the highway and hitched a ride at once. It was the fastest, whoopingest ride of my life. The driver was a fiddler for a California cowboy band. He had a brand-new car and drove eighty miles an hour. "I don't drink when I drive," he said and handed me a pint. I took a drink and offered him one. "What the hail," he said and drank. We made Sabinal to LA in the amazing time of four hours flat about 250 miles....

To be on the road. Heaven.