2006-02-25 - 12:40 a.m.
Driving Home in the Rain
The time before a plan panned out was always the worst. The prospect that it would be a success slowly faded while the minutes turned to hours. Each passing moment was a new attempt to lessen one�s resolve. Humble thoughts of basking in the glow of a successful endeavor fade as the prospect of future torment slowly takes control.
This was the inner monologue Hank South used instead of a radio on the long trip. He shook his head because his name was William Henry South. As a kid it was Will or Willie and the i-a-m was a tail he hoped to shed forever. It grew back once, after his teen years. He left Oregon as William and arrived to New York as Hank. He became subjugated from himself when he became Hank. He thought in terms of �Hank is� when handling his affairs in the east but wanted to become �I am� again. His thoughts were growing tired and confusing to his mind. He simply spoke what he could not simply think.
�Hank is now me. I am Willie again.�
Now he is all alone crossing the many miles connecting one side of the country to the other and he is still thinking of himself in the third person. It made him think of loop-the-loops and he laughed in the car. He saw it in his mind and it was spelled correctly with the hyphens included but growing up he really butchered the middle word until he saw the entire phrase spelled out in a Stephen King novel. For his entire youth it had been the word da in the middle and it could have been said with the a being either long or short.
�Willie always rode the loop-da-loop but I am living a loop-the-loop.�
�I sure am.�
He looked away from the road to the front of the dashboard. He spent a bundle to get an XM radio and thought �maybe I should turn it on� then he wondered if I referred to Hank or Willie, hoping it was not William, and gained recognition of his thoughts passing the time at the same slow rate any cluster of songs could.
