2 March 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 1

The Thunder and the Sunshine

by SCOTT YARBROUGH

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
– Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Club meeting, convened. Fluorescent lights shine candescent where once our faces were lit dimly red and blue by beer-sign neon glow. Captain up front, popping his gavel made from the antique walnut stocks of a Colt Peacemaker. Clack once, clack twice, call to order, Satan's Tramps. Captain's been captain for more than twenty years, don't see him losing the post anytime soon now. Tradition on his side. Grey whiskers venerable and sage streaming from his face, wrinkles in the corners of his eyes deep as plow furrows. He does not say My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me, this is what he does not say, he says instead Billy Buddy will read the minutes of the last meeting.

Billy Buddy does so while me and Jimmy give each other pained looks of utterfuckinboredness. Captain throws open floor after minutes interminable of Billy Buddy. Spicko speaks up, says, My wife and I were talking, gets interrupted by deep-throated steel-rasped harrumph from Throttle, unnamed minister of righteous ritual, carnal convention, and leather-bound legacy. Spicko, pained look on his face, starts over, Me and the old lady was rapping and she was wanting to know about RV facilities at the retreat this year.

Jimmy leans over and snorts, saying sidewise, Boy it ain't like it used to be. In living testimony Stu sidles up to give his audio-book report on the latest Hunter S. Thompson. Well over fifty, he still disassociates himself from shirts and any other torso-wrappings, clothed from the waist down in leather pants, and from the waist up in ink only. His shaved stomach hangs heftily over his brass belt buckle, contour-lined blue and red and green, a living map of years gone by, of side streets passed and avenues ventured, of tailpipes rattling hot.

Not like it used to be as understatement of the age. Stu's woman is black, tall and regal, twenty years his younger, as knowledgeable about the inner workings of hogs, choppers, as any Tramp still rolling. I remember me and Stu and Jimmy and Throttle and Ben, now dead, rent apart in fiery c