C.T. Thieme

Last Long Ride

I’m ridin’ suicide. Below me the ballast stones blur with a pulsing flash of cross ties framed on either side by dull gray steel rails. My left knee straddles a rod in the bottomless car with a roar of metal and death in my ears. My ass sits on a narrow ledge of metal. My back presses against my guitar case strung across my back. The Gibson inside well padded by a pair of underwear and socks that are dirtier than what I’ve got on, a bundle of rope, a small canvas tarp and a slightly smaller wool blanket. I know in my right boot, used right now to keep me upright in this precarious position by tension on a crossbar, is a knife with a six inch blade. I’m hoping the vibrations don’t send it below, as there’s no way I could save it and me at the same time.