Reflections on Lancaster

It's a desert community in Los Angeles County,

Lancaster, California, a strange

town, you can go through it

on your way to San Francisco,

but if you want a beer, you'll

have to pay $7, because all the bars

are on the outskirts of town --

If you're going to pay that much

for a beer, then you may as well

see helicopter tits on some well-

titted woman at a bikini bar.

Why not?

But, damn, this probably isn't

the type of town its mormon

founders envisioned; check

your gun and gang paraphernalia

at the door. You may not

be wanted here -- "You got a light?"
the small latino man asks, speaking
in one of those muffled latino tones. "Sure."
And I hand him my lighter, the rap
music still sounding like a cow getting
slaughtered in the background, Pow!

Pow! Pow!

"Can I cut through to Kramer's Junction
from here?" I ask as he hands back
the lighter. He shrugs. "Where's that?"

"It's in the desert, east of here."

He looks into the mass vacant spaces
between the stucco columns into the hills.
"I can't stand that woman," he says. "The one
dancing now, she's just . . ." And then he cursed her.

Okey.

Another cigarette lit, and I leave
the man smoking by himself
and get into my car to find out how far
Kramer's Junction was from here, not feeling
one way or the other about these morally
repugnant places and their dangerous
propensities

as long as these wheels meet the road,
they go.