ROCK SPRINGS, WYOMING - 1973
OUTLAW INN
SUMMER
MIKE WHITNEY
"At $1500 a night, the customers don't want to know the band is angry."
- Robin Williams to Jimmy Cliff in Club Paradise
We closed the last set with Prine's Sam Stone, an anti-war tune about a vet who comes home a junkie. Luckily, we got away safe, mainly because Gloria's voice, red hair and Trini Lopez Gibson had charmed the cowboys into a stupor while Mark, Greta and I became mainly her side men.
The next morning, we packed to drive to Brookings, South Dakota to start two weeks at the Ramada. Mark and Gloria got into their station wagon and hooked up the trailer for the drive; Greta and I got into the Jeep CJ 3, took down the side curtains, tossed guitars and bags into the back and got onto the highway, posted limit, 70 mph, which means 80+.
That short wheelbase, high center of gravity makes the Jeep hard to keep in a straight line at those speeds - two hands, 10 and 2 and still a stiff side breeze will put you in a new lane. Greta was wearing a jump suit, paisley patterned, with a zipper down the front. She was quiet for the first hour, no radio, no shop talk, and almost no traffic. She pulled the zipper down to her waist, and I saw perky boobs, small, high, hard, nipples pointing, "I'm bored. I'm horny." Pouting, with the wind blowing her long ash blond hair out behind her.
Mike Whitney
earth2mongo@verizon.net
The Given Day
Dennis Lehane