The Truth Museum

A fable.

Stock photo (but not AI)

I had to get away from 
the noise and clatter,
the fumes and rot, 
so
I decided to take a long drive West
to 
the Truth Museum. 

My electric car needed charging
but the Tesla station required 
an ample credit card balance
and a pint of red blood; 
so 
I borrowed the Ward Captain’s 
Suburban 
(he is married to my sister)
and filled the gas tank 
at my neighborhood 
Chick Fil-A.  

Tunes, I needed tunes for the road.

My old mother, 
before she died, 
had slipped to me 
her antique iPhone
with a passel of downloaded 
songs that she secreted
when the Copyrighters 
came to collect.
She was feeble then,
at least apparently, 
so they left her alone.
One of the few.  

Outside the city now,
mostly just road,
I ventured to listen:
Joni Mitchell and Rise Against,
Gil Scott-Herron, 
Eminem, Brubeck;
deep dives into Talking Heads, 
sweet dashes of Johnny Hartmann, 
gallery walls of John Lee Hooker
Little Junior Parker and Odetta;
meanderings of Phoebe Bridgers, 
Sun Kil Moon and Leonard Cohen;
a power dose of Sam Cooke,
three-chord rapids of Rancid,
a scream of Set Your Goals: 

In this vast network of
sharks and minnows,
where the minnows outnumber
the sharks a million to one, 
why is it that we have yet to converge?
To take on the upper hand?
Why have we been so scared?

Quaint. 

Rolling west, unimpeded, 
the thunder review continued: 
Nina Simone, Morphine, 
Post Malone, Bob Dylan,
Prince, Whitney, 
Tom Jones,
Chris Stapleton,
Kendrick, 
Aesop’s Rock, 
Jellyroll, 
The Dead,
Max DiRado.

Halfway through Billie Eilish,
many hours outside the museum,
the music died. 

In the mournful silence 
one Rancid lyric 
stuck to me like a burr -

I only got one weapon, 
and it's so plain for me to see,
my only weapon, 
I call Poetry. 

But that’s another museum.
Today was for Truth. 

After what felt like days
I came to a crossroads 
on an empty span of 
unremarkable desert. 
I stopped.  Listened. 
No sounds but the Suburban's
engine vibrations.
No wind, no birds.
No humans. No animals. No government.  

But a vision presented. 
Through the dusty windshield 
a semi-opaque figure shuffled 
at the crossroads.
It was the ghost of Robert Johnson. 
He was just looking down.
A broken guitar string cradled
in his bleeding fingers.
He muttered a low moaning sound. 

I was unafraid, 
and dropped down from the driver's seat
to comfort him.  
Above, a dark shadow passed. 
A massive wingspan and talons.

Then I saw it:  
a cigarette butt on the ground. 
I picked it up, 
held it to the sky,
rolled it around in my fingertips,
considering, considering,
then tasted the lipsticked 
end of it. 
Fresh. 

Where? Who? 

There in the ground, 
angling away to my right, 
Northeast across the perpendicular, 
sole imprints - a work boot pressed
into the dead soil,
thirteen steps fading to dissipation.

The engine of the Suburban sputtered,
coughed, choked,
then silent.  

“Shit,” I muttered to myself,
"I better sit down and wait."

I sat upright against the signpost,
looking toward the sky. 
Robert's ghost joined me, and
the names of the roads emerged:
running east-west, Liberty.
running north-south, Equality. 

I was out of gas 
at the intersection of
Liberty and Equality. 

There would be no Truth Museum
this day.