Relentless Cheerfulness

It's always cool with B. If you agree on ten, then he's there, ready to go at ten. I stopped at my mailbox, and it was stuffed, flipped through it and found the PO notices to pick up packages, drove on down to B's. He was out the door when I pulled in the driveway; hand signals that he'd walk out and chain the gate, and we're off to Blue Creek. Car chat, catch up on events, B's brother, Ronnie, is holed up writing a novel. We talked about the Nature Conservancy people looking for invasive species on State Forest land, which makes no sense at all. Who's paying whom to do what? Speculative and only mildly paranoid conversation. A light lunch and a small beer for lunch. I was ready to buy, for the company, but B took the check, because he has more money than me. Then Kroger, where we both needed a few things. We met at the exit, where the Salvation Army were ringing their fucking bells. Neither of us can wait to get out of town. Drop B off, at his garage, and make a bee line for home. A huge biography of Dante and a wonderful children's book, in manuscript, from JC; B had passed along the newest Lee Child, two New Yorkers, and I'd already started reading the ten remaining volumes of Thoreau, so I'm pretty much settled for the holiday. Whiskey, tobacco, a smoked jowl and thou. Also in the mail, some red beans from Dove Creek, Colorado, and a bottle of their hot sauce, a numbingly wonderful addition to the thousands of different hot sauces being made now. This one is made by nomadic tribes of aging hippies who walk-about in the arid landscape of SW Colorado. The stories you hear are, of course, stories. I spent a weeks in Dove Creek, we were building a small house for a couple of park rangers, and I was between lodgings. I'd stopped there often, to buy beans (it is the bean capital of the world) and shoot the shit with the staff, and there was a small motel, where they'd give me a cheap weekly rate. I learned a lot about beans. So the red beans, from Dove Creek, carry a freight of import. I was thinking about beams and ship's knees, not that my intention matters a naught, and how fact morphs into fiction.