Mysterious Friend Makes the Case for Camelot (Page 2 of 2)

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“He’s a warmonger… ”

“OK, but he’s also down with saving the planet. He’s down with clean energy. He’s against torture. He’s for restoring habeas corpus, he’s…”

“You voting for McCain?”

“Not likely, not with two brilliant Democrats left in the race talking about health care reform, getting us out of Iraq… ”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said. “It’s just too damn bad the people who got the most things right their whole careers, Gravel and Kucinich and Edwards and Dodd, all had to drop out. And Gore’s out in Silicon Valley half the time, making big bucks… ”

“Yeah,” my friend sighed. “They tried forging swords into ploughshares. Something good’s gonna grow from that though.”

“Nice try,” I said. “But listen… uh, I need to finish up here.”

“You throwin’ me out?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way…”

“Well, I tried at least. Don’ get up,” he said as he stood. He drew once more on his cigarette, exhaled seven perfect rings into the air and dropped the butt-end into ice-melt from his finished drink. He set down the glass and, touching two fingers to his forehead, turned, raised my sash up higher, reached his muscular left leg over the windowsill and climbed through. He hit the ground running.

I watched him jog down to the creek, across my bridge and up the long driveway. When he was just a smudge on the scenery, I swiveled around to my screen and deleted every word. I’d have to write fast now.

It was still smoky in the room, so I stood before starting over and went to the window just in time for an unseasonably warm breeze to waft through.

A ragged red flame appeared among the branches of my magnolia so close at hand, then shape-shifted into the clean lines of a well-groomed cardinal. It lofted its head and rendered three ascending trills. Somewhere a turtledove sent three haunting coos across the land. And from the creek, spring peepers began to sing.

* The views expressed in Commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Knoxville Voice.