Hand-me-down

Left my computer for half-an-hour, the god-damned blinking cursor pounding in my eyes giving me a headache.
Sat outside for a quarter hour, until it got too hot for me; only 98 and not yet noon.
Wonder what it’ll be like by three or four, zenith of the sun and the heat.
Wife has me back inside, helping with the door locks and some painting.
She going to the store to buy new ones, get them keyed.
Why it made me think of this I don’t know: a 1968 Chrysler Newport I was given.
1979 and the guy was getting out of the service, heading home to Cleveland, Ohio.
Didn’t want the car, gave me the pink and keys.
I learned the damned thing didn’t run.
Chrysler keys are easy to spot, to feel, they have a hexagon shape.
I know this because I owned a Dodge Charger, a Chrysler product, while in high school.
Maybe it was the idea of keying the house that sent me down that rabbit hole.
I got that car up and running and drove it all over the place.
Gave it to a woman working at a hamburger joint.
I didn’t need the oil-burning son-of-a-bitch anymore.
In fact, she needed it more than I ever did.
She was from New York.
She got herself abandoned by a boyfriend, heading west.
She found work, but always wanted to return to ‘upstate,’ and home
A Rosalyn Russell-type, 5-11, chunky, dark hair piled high, 42-D, bright red lipstick and nails.
Italian.
One hell of a woman, indeed.
The thought of her makes me wonder whatever happened to her.
Did she make it ‘upstate?’
Did the Newport crap out on her as she made the New Jersey Turnpike?
Is she alive still and if so how’s she faring through the pandemic?
Fuck, who knows.
I’m doing pretty damned good.
Think I was built for this shit.
Re-read a couple of novels by Kerouac and Steinbeck.
Read my first novel by Stephen King.
Felt like I was popping my cherry all over again.
Can’t remember what the hell the title was or even what the story was about.
Never really like the man anyway – his politics pisses me off.
Popular writer, though, can’t fault him on that.
Don’t understand why millionaires become Socialists as they get richer and older.
I have no plans to get rich, so nobody has to worry about me switching ‘sides.’
I’m trying to finish ‘Fear and Loathing,’ by Hunter Thompson.
Whadda fucking weirdo, what a fucking writer.
Never been a real fan of disjointed prose, but in his case, an exception has been made.
All this reading makes me wanna write even more.
Authored two books, both qualified duds, the second a worse failure than the third.
Should I make it an even three?
Third times a charm right?
“Very Short Stories from a Pandemic.”
or
“Pandemic Tales from Nowhere, Nevada.”
Got artwork for that; a picture I took a year or so ago.
No artwork, then it never existed.
No proof, then it didn’t happen.
Nothing is happening for now, save the ‘big wait.’
Simply waiting for the other shoe, boot, sandal, slipper to drop.
When it does, it won’t be any surprise if it ends up shoved in our asses, somehow.
Things were simpler back in 1979, the year a guy, whose name I can’t recall gave me a car.
Long time ago and not so very long ago.
Christ, I miss that Chrysler.
I miss me.