today

Alex was the kind of guy who comes over and picks out Blood on the Tracks to listen to when we're drinking and talking. "I know it's kind of weird, but I'm into it." He wanted our lyrics to tell stories, and we talked about Tom Waits and "Burma Shave." And I said how I wouldn't know why that song was great if I hadn't seen that episode of Quantum Leap with my sister, where Sam was out in the middle of nowhere in a Chevy convertible with the wife of whoever's body he was inhabiting driving past those brick red Burma Shave signs in the dim headlamp light of the 1950's. And then there was that Looney Tunes with Bugs and Daffy that started out with rhyming signs leading up to Bugs's hole. We both got the joke, and we both got the song. We happened to understand at just the right time. We drank Tequila, because it doesn't have gluten, and we sat and spoke and listened while Bob Dylan crackled and cried with beautiful disarray, Alex's boots heavy and faded on our thick, red coffee table, his motorcycle parked outside the window.