Delroy Dumbutt Persists

I walk and walk. The sun steadily sets in my face, turning the yellow-brown smog of urban life into a rich fluorescent orange, setting the sky ablaze, leaving the world awash with floating green dots. I'm not sure what tracks I'm searching for. The bare crumbling concrete doesn't have any of the character or personality that I'm use to seeing when I look at the ground, it doesn't yield up its secrets to me like the earth and stone that I'm accustomed to.

I have followed all kinds of tracks in all kinds of terrain, in all kinds of weather, for all kinds of reasons. I once tracked a group of friends with a full days lead across a 20 mile stretch of river canyon, bare granite, glacier melt, stunted trees and scrub, and barren boulder fields, just to prove I could do it. Never once did I feel lost, unsure of my direction, unsure of my surroundings or destination, turned around, confused. Not once did I loose sight of the trail I was following. I've tracked wounded animals in dense forest in the fall, lost hikers in the spring and summer months, poachers, trespassers, thieves and lost children. I've followed cougars to see how close I could get to them, bears to see how close they were getting to me, wild dogs to mess with their heads. But the concrete, the stunted grass, the garbage and cars and lights and advertisements all look the same, generic, bereft of the individuality that is necessary for a reliable landmark.

The sun now set, and I am certain that I missed a turn, an alleyway, that I am not where I had hoped to be. I still have no sight of the strange girl with the multi-colored hair and the camera, and after the first five minutes my walk becomes less and less about talking to an interesting stranger, and more and more about traveling through an interesting place. I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that I'm wasting a great deal of time and energy on this frivolous exercise. I know I should head back, there are errands that I need to run, people that I promised to look up, yet somehow the commercial buildings and industrial warehouses that now surround me are more comfortable, more reassuring than the bright lights of the more public parts of the city. The people here are more solitary, not as loud or pushy as the folks in the more well-traveled areas. The ones who speak, and are speaking to actual human beings, are doing so in hushed tones, and it occurs to me that this place is very quiet. I can hear the distant hum of traffic, the wind, the sound of ships in the delta, and my footsteps, constantly drumming off the minutes in an all too familiar cadence. But something is not quite right with them. The drumbeat that I have been listening too for most of my life is somehow changed down here, it echoes in a way that isn't quite natural. I think about this as I walk, one block, two, moving forward because thats the only direction I feel like going, and it suddenly occurs to me that I'm not listening to one pair of feet, I'm listening to two. The second pair about 2-1/2 blocks behind me, and trying (almost but not quite successfully) to match my own foot falls. A faked trip over a piece of loose concrete, and a quick glance behind me as I "regain my balance" confirms this. There is someone behind me. When I stop, he stops, when I walk, he walks, quietly. Suddenly I feel more at home, more at ease than I have all day. Finally I have a pattern I can recognize, and the world takes on a crispness and clarity that compliments the evening air.

Delroy Dumbutt Goes To The Big City

Do you ever have one of those moments when life becomes surreal? You are going about the business of your day to day life and suddenly something happens that is ordinary, and at the same time truly bizarre?

Standing in the middle of a crosswalk, sun setting over my shoulder, traffic rapidly approaching from one side, the hustle of the big city all around me, and I find myself fixated on the oddly attractive young lady shooting close-up photo's of storm drain gratings with a 35mm SLR camera and a telephoto zoom lens. She sees me, smiles, turns with a half bow and a bounce that jostles the fluorescent pink stripe that she has dyed into her hair. She skips to the sidewalk on the other side of the road, and heads west into the sunset while I (still standing in the middle of the road like an idiot) almost get creamed by a screaming angry blonde soccer-mom driving a bright red 2004 Hummer with oversized tires and a lift kit. The vehicle is huge, almost the size of a bus, and all I can think as I'm standing there, nose to grill with this rolling tribute to modern consumerism gone wild is "Where the hell do you need something like that? I live on a dirt road in east bumfuck, snow and mud in the winter, 115 degree heat in the summer, granite, cougars, mosquitoes the size of small aircraft, packs of wild dogs, webfooted children playin nekked in the mud and chasin chickens, and I would be embarrassed to be seen in something like that. Where the fuck does this thing come in handy?". She's still screaming, making it very clear that the only reason I'm still alive is that she doesn't want to smudge her paint job. I take my bearings, and finish crossing the street in the opposite direction of the smiling camera girl, who has long since disappeared (possibly scared off by rabid SUV woman).

I'm trying to pull it together, wondering if I'm having a stroke, food poisoning, or possibly a drug flashback. I can't seem to shake the buzzing sound out of my ears, I feel a little queasy. As the angry soccer-mom burns out of the intersection, destroying tires that probably cost more than I make in a month, I glance up in time to see the little crosswalk guy on the stoplight pole go from white to flashing red. The smell of burning tires is doing nothing to help my nausea and growing sense of discombobulation.

I look down at my shoes, see the worn leather, the deep gouges across the toes offering just a glimpse of the steel beneath, the soles, retreads, worn to the thickness of cardboard, stained with mud and concrete, treated with bees wax and mink oil, grommets polished to a mirror finish on the inside of my pant leg. I understand that I don't belong here, thats why I only come down here a few times a year to get some of the luxury items that aren't available up where I am, and to stop by the local Costco warehouse. I know that I'm on unfamiliar ground, that (should I fail to respect the rules) the city will be just as hostile and unforgiving to me, as my home is to the tourists and transplants from the city.

The sun is going down, I'm fairly sure that my truck is parked three or four blocks to the east. I brace myself for the plunge, turn, face the sunset over the unfamiliar landscape, and head west, song in my heart, sun in my eyes, seeking a girl with a camera and a storm drain fetish.

Lazy morning.

Some days are made for whiskey at noon,
days when the failures catch up,
memories and memorials,
surveillance and solitude,
anger and apocrypha,
don't want to remember you like this.

You insist on walking the tight rope without a net,
I refuse to take my hands from over my eyes,
if the world does not change to suite me,
all is correct.

Still Here

Not injured,
not dead,
not in prison,
just can't think of anything to say,
not feeling very entertaining this month,
please send money.