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“Bringing It All Back Home,” is the title of an old Bob Dylan album I once owned, back when Carole and I were still together. We used to keep all our albums—or LPs (long players, definitely a misnomer) in cardboard boxes on the living room floor in front of the stereo. The cover on that one showed Dylan and a woman sitting in front of a hearth. I wonder if Carole still has it. Or any of the old records we loved.
But anyway, that’s what I’m doing, bringing it all back home. After twenty-five years of wandering around the country pursuing my self-determined holy trinity of money, sex and drugs, while all the time unsuccessfully searching for the Perfect American Waitress, I’m dragging my weary ass home, complete with the excess baggage: my troubles, ailments and faded dreams.
I feel kind of empty and burned out and I can sense the law sniffing at my trail. And, frankly, reuniting with my family is the only thing that sounds even remotely worth doing at this point in my life.
And yeah, I know I split from them in Florida all those years ago. And it’s certainly true that the supposedly good reasons I had for doing it don’t look so good anymore. At least not good enough to convince those I abandoned, my wife Carole and my son Mike.
I wouldn’t even try.
So I’ve got this push-pull thing going on in my head. And now that I’m almost to Zenith City, Minnesota, where it all began, I’m starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this reunion thing.
Something about the idea is scaring the shit out of me. I guess I’m afraid of what they might think of me. Afraid it’s worse than what I usually think of myself.
Scared I might have to take too close a look.
But then again, I know this is something I need to do.
Push-pull, push-pull.