J.C. Elkin
 janecelkin@yahoo.com

The “Just Because” Road Trip

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Though we were Yankees who disdained country music,
               though we avoided fried food,
                              though we’d never met a Southerner
                              who sounded smart upon first meeting,
                                     we wanted an adventure somewhere
                                     unknown as the Underground Railroad,
                                     somewhere far from home.
                                              So we followed the Blue Ridge Parkway as far as we could go.
 
Because night fell in Virginia
                 by a lake where dogwoods bloomed
                 like confetti, we met a kid in cammo
                 who shared his fishing secret: WD-40.
 
Because radio reception was spotty,
                 we bought bluegrass CDs
                 and played air mandolin
                 all the way to the Smokies.
               
Because we took back roads sculpted with kudzu,
                 we found a drive-in where a tottering couple
                 brought chocolate malts on car trays
                 for a dollar fifty apiece – same as when
                 they’d hung up their skates forty years before.
                              We slurped by a gabbling stream
                               that smelled of susurrant pines,
                               screeching jays our only  distraction.
 
And because we had no reservations,
                         we stopped at an instrument shop
                         where we bought a hammered dulcimer
                         we never did learn to play well.
                                   
Then on to Cherokee where the only good food
          was at the Casino, a five-star Southern place
          where we gorged on hush puppies, crayfish, collards,
          fried green tomatoes. And man, it was good!
                     Mother Nature served up a thunderstorm
                     outside our window for dessert.
 
Since the gaming rooms were one floor down,
                we went in to look around,
                and found on the psycho carpet
                a poker chip worth twenty-five bucks
                               which we fed to the nickel slots
                               till we won back the price of our meal.
                                    Then we left the smoky sequins and bells
                                    like a trashy film we wished we hadn’t seen.
                                            Almost.
 
Then because the Reservation was there,
           we took a tour with a guide
           who looked just like my mother
           when she was young and lovely.
                  She’d always thought these were her people,
                  and now there could be no doubt.
 
And because we asked so many questions,
        our tour guide took us backstage
        for a sneak peek at real Res life
        where we came on a box of puppies
                      left at the foot of a dumpster,
                       one blindly sniffing her way
                      to the scent of rotting food.
                            And that’s how we got Brave Girl,
                            our most faithful pet.
 
Because we were having such fun,
                we aimed for that Old Man River
                      via Nashville and Memphis honky-tonks,
                      even though we like wine, not beer.
                      So we tried bourbon and ginger,
                            caught a Johnny Cash tribute show
                            with a guy who sang Johnny and June,
                            and sounded like both of them!
                                    Johnny Cash, who our parents had called
                                    that one-note jailbird bum,
                                    and it was like hearing poetry
                                    for the very first time.
 
Since we went to the Soul Museum,
                we lost ourselves in old hits
                whose roots we never knew,
                             took in an exhibition
                               on lunch counter sit-ins,
                                   and finally understood what happened
                                   to our country when we were little white kids
                                   in little white northern towns.
  
And since we were time travelers now,
        we visited a faded homestead
        where we dallied in the cool spring house,
        alert to the crunch of gravel that signaled approaching strangers.
 
We felt like Huck and Jim drifting with the current
since we never knew what was round the next bend.
                 And I’d say we should do it again,
                 except that we never can.


-first appeared in Steam Ticket.