Traveling with Patchen
because of the Palm Tree, Kenneth
A desperate, middle-aged man negotiates with Great Zoltan,
King of the Gypsies, who would rather have gold
(or a couple hours alone with the bashful young woman)
than accept "this hideous paper you people call money!"
He trades his watch for a rusting, battered Chevy Impala.
Later, he argues with his whiny new bride, and his son,
rationalizing the fact that the car has only one gear,
reverse, as being the best way to avoid sly Mexican bandits
while driving from Florida to the wilds of Washington State.
Lacking a key, he takes a crow-bar to pop open the trunk.
Fretfully, he searches for the few promised molotov cocktails,
finding instead a white cat, a flat spare and a blind fury,
in that order, and far and away at the top of his lungs.
All because she wouldn't blow his job beneath a palm tree.
There are days nobody gets a break.
