HomeYears, 10.7.2011, afternoon

Yesterday morning I bolted out of Indianapolis with a cheap fever for a pretty southern drawl while the sun was still low and yolk-yellow before the sizzle. My buddy, Arabian Panda, was cramming textbooks down his throat for his medical school exams. Last time I'd seen him that anally retentive he was selling his sperm in milk jugs at Cambodian lunch buffets. Needless to say, a night was enough to get me jonesin' for a break out of there.

Hopped in the rental black Jag and sped south, cruising the highway like a canoe down the Mississippi. Nothing smoother than the smell of Louisville luring you south. I was burgundy with desire. Stopped in Shepardsville, Kentucky for a quick perusal of town living. It was all lazy summer and fried food. Hospitality was a chubby middle-aged woman with the personality of a sun god, smiles and giggles in every word she spoke. Left me mesmerized in the sunshine of that tiny little town.

I got to Nashville after noon. Rolled through the red hills and the whiskey green grass of the town with a cheshire grin, sticking my head out the window. Music pouring out every door. Cute blonde girls in tight jeans, tee shirts and boots. Cool dudes with beards and tipped pork-pie hats. Passing by the houses with their front porch open doors and walls full of pictures or rooms full of instruments. This city is made out of musicians. The walls of buildings are built with piano keys and upright basses. Every house has a set of strings and nimble hands ready to dance notes like electric muscle.

The fellas brought me in, we got drunk like a summer party, laughing at the bar, swinging to the tunes of mellow guitars and skittering drum skins. Food and whiskey, brothers already and getting ready for the wedding in the smokey mountains. Hope the bears don't claw me to pieces before I fall sweetly to the sound of the heartbeat pulsing melodic through this city.