The night air - unrealistically cool for July, it couldn't have been more than 60 degrees - was still and full of waiting rain, the moon was low and shimmery. The improbable cool wave was in its sixth day and everyone was talking about it, how wonderful it was to have their windows open and their air conditioners off, how freaky for July, how odd. The dogs moved slowly into the cool darkness and I wondered if maybe they'd been dreaming as well. I was pretty sure they liked having this break from the heat as much as everyone else. To not have to run central air in July in the south is next to unthinkable but here it was - six days of cool and damp - even three solid days of rain had not made anyone complain. I couldn't find a soul, not even among folks who have lived here all their lives, who could remember such a run of weather.
I thought about going back to bed but suspected it would be a waste of time and energy so I sat on the deck to smoke, think, and listen to the quiet. It was too early for the doves to start calling to each other but I heard the old familiar train whistle, the hum of the electric wires, the crickets. I wondered who else might be up at this hour, what they were doing, what the voices in their heads might be saying. It was several minutes before I heard the music and at first, it was so distant and so soft that I thought it was my imagination - an echo, I told myself, maybe a memory or a sleepy, half-formed wish - but then I realized that the dogs heard it as well,
all three were sitting placidly, heads cocked in the direction of the sound. A guitar, I thought, no back up, no band, no vocal, just a single guitar in the middle of the night. Playing Merle Haggard's Someday When Things Are Good, I'm Gonna Leave You.
I was thinking that it was a waking dream when Haggard slipped easily into Ray Price's Night Life.
Not real, I told myself, not happening.
But the dogs were still listening.
Feeling like a fool, I got up as quietly as I could, stood on my tiptoes, peered over the fence and saw what I was sure was a mirage - sitting in my neighbor's porch swing was a shirtless stranger in faded denim jeans and a stetson hat with a guitar across his lap and a Siamese cat sitting at his side.
Losing it, I thought dismally, this is what delusional is like. It's three in the morning and 60 degrees in July and this is a hallucination.
I feared taking a second look - he might still be there and what would that say about me - so I hurriedly led the dogs back inside and crawled back into bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, putting walls and windows and structures between me and the (imaginary) music. My last thought was wondering if you're aware of it when you lose your mind or does someone have to point it out.
A few hours later, morning arrived in its ordinary way with birds singing and dogs barking. I'd forgotten about the guitar player dream entirely until I glanced out the kitchen window and saw a Siamese cat asleep in my neighbor's porch swing, one paw under its chin, the other resting lightly on a stetson hat.
I thought about going back to bed but suspected it would be a waste of time and energy so I sat on the deck to smoke, think, and listen to the quiet. It was too early for the doves to start calling to each other but I heard the old familiar train whistle, the hum of the electric wires, the crickets. I wondered who else might be up at this hour, what they were doing, what the voices in their heads might be saying. It was several minutes before I heard the music and at first, it was so distant and so soft that I thought it was my imagination - an echo, I told myself, maybe a memory or a sleepy, half-formed wish - but then I realized that the dogs heard it as well,
all three were sitting placidly, heads cocked in the direction of the sound. A guitar, I thought, no back up, no band, no vocal, just a single guitar in the middle of the night. Playing Merle Haggard's Someday When Things Are Good, I'm Gonna Leave You.
I was thinking that it was a waking dream when Haggard slipped easily into Ray Price's Night Life.
Not real, I told myself, not happening.
But the dogs were still listening.
Feeling like a fool, I got up as quietly as I could, stood on my tiptoes, peered over the fence and saw what I was sure was a mirage - sitting in my neighbor's porch swing was a shirtless stranger in faded denim jeans and a stetson hat with a guitar across his lap and a Siamese cat sitting at his side.
Losing it, I thought dismally, this is what delusional is like. It's three in the morning and 60 degrees in July and this is a hallucination.
I feared taking a second look - he might still be there and what would that say about me - so I hurriedly led the dogs back inside and crawled back into bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, putting walls and windows and structures between me and the (imaginary) music. My last thought was wondering if you're aware of it when you lose your mind or does someone have to point it out.
A few hours later, morning arrived in its ordinary way with birds singing and dogs barking. I'd forgotten about the guitar player dream entirely until I glanced out the kitchen window and saw a Siamese cat asleep in my neighbor's porch swing, one paw under its chin, the other resting lightly on a stetson hat.
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