Bad Poets on the Road
The engine cranked over but didn’t catch. Dylan, the driver, released the key and frowned. He turned to the passenger next to him and looked over his shoulder at the two heads in the back that were intermittently flashing blue halos. Dylan raised his voice to be heard over the loud at the window.
“I thought it sounded like a Rottweiler singing hip-hop that time.”
Edgar leaned up from his rear passenger seat and said, “Try it again.”
“ ‘Tis no use how hard I try,
The gas is gone - the tank is dry.”
“Yes, I know, but the rhythm, it was pure ... inspiring,”
The knocking rose to a pounding and shook the interior of the Fiat, which had also begun blinking indigo a few minutes earlier. Cassandra remained silent in the rear driver’s side seat as she had for the entire six-day trip. The front seat passenger, William, nudged Dylan and pointed to a uniformed officer at the door. The man was making a cranking motion in the air and pointing at the window.
“Yes, yes, I know, I see him, but I don’t have a lever ... just this button. Do you think I should lower it?
William pinched his chin and glanced back at Edgar. Both men nodded.
The officer began speaking before the window was fully down.
“Good afternoon. I’m Officer Stanley. Is there some sort of a problem ... can I be of some assistance?”
The three poets exchanged glances and shrugs. Dylan smiled up at the officer.
“No thank you.”
The officer stepped back and put his hands on his hips. “Look. I followed you for several miles back there. Clocked you going as slow as thirty-eight and as fast as seventy-four.”
Dylan asked how he liked the cadence, and Officer Stanley answered that he thought it disrupted traffic flow on the interstate. The officer asked why they’d parked on the shoulder and the three men explained that they thought it would be safer than stopping out in the lanes. The fact of the empty fuel tank came up and Stanley asked if they’d called or sent someone for gasoline. Edgar answered from the back seat with a question.
“But wouldn’t that be forcing a resolution? It seems so contrived.”
Stanley leaned in the window, sniffed, and asked where they were going. Dylan explained that they were bound for the poetry convention at the downtown civic center. Stanley thought a minute and said that it was last weekend and that they’d missed it. Dylan answered that they already knew it and said that they had started out in time, but had gotten lost several times along the way. As a group, they decided that a little setback should not defeat them. Dylan tilted his head and raised a finger.
“Our journey has no theme or plot
No destiny is clear.
Arrive too late? It matters not,
When a poet comes to hear.”
Stanley arched an eyebrow. “I’ll need to see your driver’s license and registration.”
The officer retired to his squad car with the documents and the poets began bickering. William assigned responsibility for the delays to Edgar, blaming him for a crucial turn to the north when all the signs clearly said that Tulsa was south. Edgar countered that the journey had become a predictable sequence of west and south turns, and that an unexpected turn to the north was needed to break symmetry. All three men attacked Cassandra for her silence and week-long vow to speak only perfect words. The knocking returned, but this time Dylan knew how to respond. The window descended and Stanley handed the papers back to Dylan.
“Sir, most everything seems to be in order, but there is one little problem. It seems you neglected to settle a metered parking violation back in Columbia.”
A loud “Aha!” from the back seat startled everyone and all eyes turned to Cassandra. She dropped her book and raised her palms in dramatic fashion.
“What’s this: a criminal at large?
This man would be our leader.
Sweet irony, our Bard stands charged,
He failed to mind the meter.”