Breaker! Breaker! Good Buddy!
Rollin'!  Rollin'!  Rollin'! Keep those buggies rollin'…
Beaver → Girl in short-short shorts.
Drives a red Cor-ov-air, coloring her lips with a
Stick of hot-pink wax in the rear-view mirror.
Smokey Bear → Patrolman adjusts his
Black hat while flashing his blue lights at
Four wheeler → Car "Pull over buddy!"
Not good for the buddy.

10:26 → Time

The time is round. Rollin' down
The highway with Old Sarge, Apple Annie listens
To her dad talkin' to the sea being official.
"Breaker! Breaker 19! Anyone got a 10-26?"
Old Sarge listens to time garbled in the static,
"A roger that Diamond Lil…10-4 we're gone!"

Seriously,
Meat Car → Ambulance.

At the present we are at the
"Inn of Lenoir Motor Lodge."
The car parked safely behind
Closed brown curtains,
Encrusted with soapy detritus dirt.
Stiff coverlets cover
Old Sarge and Apple Annie.
The double-beds spaced-out
At exactly the right distance.
Sleeping in the same room as
Parents makes it hard to think
About lust and life and on and on…

Out on the highway, me and Old Sarge
Talk over the smackle-crackle somewhere in the panhandle –
About his father – paying a guy ten bucks
not to mention the girl at the lake,
but the guy gets drunk, and tells
The whole town. Poor Old Sarge.
Negatory → Negative.
Come back → Respond?
Respond! Respond! Rest-pit by the pond…

We arrive at the beach.  I, Apple Annie
Pick a-round oranges in the swamp; while
Old Sarge whistles, Lou, Lou, skip to my Lou.
Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah.
Someone's in the kitchen I know–oh-oh-oh,
And sticks his toe in the crimson tide of ingulfed water
Anyway. Not like brain burned-out
Stacked-up dinosaur gators in the sun gaping
Tooth-saw mouths and droopy eyelids. Could
Care-less that Injun Joe strolls by strummin' a guitar
Instead of flippin' cold-blooded gators by the old bayou.

Glad to be back on the road, and rollin' down the
Bumpy blacktop away from the waves
As high as yesterday – Old Sarge warms up the air,
"Breaker! Breaker 19! Old Sarge here,
Ya gotta South-bound Smokey Bear; he's
Hidin' in the bushes mile marker 27." 
The handle on the other end says, "Hound Dog here, a roger
Dodger back-atcha Old Sarge."- - "and a roger back-to-you
Hound Dog…
10-4. I'm gone."

A handle is a thing of beauty.

Apple Annie is working up the nerve
To ask Old Sarge how a little boy with a
Girl chasin' father grows up to be
A great Dad? Come back → respond?
Nerveless. Need to work on it. Got a gaff
Stickin' in my craw, and a throat all lumped-up.
Never mind, cause Old Sarge 
Can turn a four-eight-sixteen wheeler on a dime.

He's a Man with a Handle.

Old Sarge and Apple Annie head back North
A lickety-split…10-4 → We're gone!

 

© Conrad Reeder