he sat for hours
on a hard plastic seat
of the type that is bolted
in fours to hard plastic tables,
reading giveaway real estate flyers,
and job listings in the local
freebie weekly.
every hour or so a refill of coffee
and another small order of fries.
ate them one at a time
as they grew limp and cold
and the salt sting on his lips
reminded him of windy
days at the tip of the cape.
the sun-darkened escapees
gathered round a dead shark
on the steep beach
batting flies out of their
sun-bleached wind-tangled hair.
where he met jimbo and rainbow
in their lucy and desi vintage
tear drop travel trailer
lugged to that southernmost point,
living on beans and head-splitting weed.
rainbow got tired of the perpetual sand,
her old man jimbo didn't mind,
long as the beans and marijuana held out,
and fucking bored weekender teens
who found his tousled orange county
beach bum good looks alluring enough
with a sufficient supply of tequilla
and moonlit bullshit.
so when rainbow asked for a lift,
ready to leave jimbo
and his daily beans in the trailer behind,
he'd said fine, and they made
the thousand mile drive
back up the spine of the peninsula
in his swoopy-roofed '68 boat of a pontiac.
she had no bread to contribute for gas,
but kept him entertained
for the three days to the border.
he dropped her off at a crash pad
in corona del mar where she hoped
to return to a gig selling salt water taffy
and weaving macrame plant hangers
to hawk to tourists in the evenings.
he tried to persuade her
to come with him up to willits
where he knew some growers
but she said it was too far from the beach,
the socal coast was more of her ideal clime.
his friends had been busted
by the paramilitary raids
while he was gone, so now
he sat in this burger joint in ukiah,
trying to decide whether to go back to baja,
or the crashpad in corona del mar
where rainbow had touched down.
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