Here's a tandem exercise I wrote with Harry Sanderford last winter. He didn't feel that it was up to our usual high standards, so we didn't post it. But the older I get, the lower my standards become, so I say...To Hell with standards! Let 'er rip!
Through the Window Glass
Maggie leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the Greyhound bus window. Over the river and through the woods, she thought, watching the snow east of Interstate 95 gradually melt away into skinny pine trees and palmettos.
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Finally, after two days and two nights of hard riding, stopping only for bathroom breaks and scrumptious bus depot meals, Maggie's heart skipped a beat and she felt something like a smile forming on her formerly gloomy face when she saw the sign on the highway that read, "FLORIDA - 1 mile."
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Florida was a coin burning a hole in Maggie's pocket. After all, her name was short for "Magnolia," not "Margaret," like most people guessed, and freezing NY winters spent with cold company had taught her one thing; not every tree is meant to drop its leaves and stand stoically awaiting the arrival of spring.
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As the bus rolled into Jacksonville, she was tempted to jump out and start dropping some of her leaves, but she fought the urge and held on to her seat. She was headed for Kissimmee, her old home town, where she had arranged to re-connect with Bubba, her high school sweetheart.
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Twenty years ago, with youthful curiosity and ambitions far too great to be contained in any small town, Maggie had grabbed her diploma, loaded her Chevy and left Kissimmee and Bubba behind, like shoes that no longer fit, to run barefoot out into the world.
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But now, with sore feet and aching heart, she was back in town, pulling into the bus station, and looking for love. Then, through the steamy bus window, she saw Bubba, all 300 pounds of him, none of which included any hair on his head. Bubba, spitting tobacco onto the sidewalk while scratching his huge ass, and Maggie suddenly realized that snow and ice weren't so bad after all. She dived under her seat and rode that bus all the way back to Buffalo, where she lived happily ever after.
