Saturday Night In Simpsonville, SC

9 o'clock and it's just getting dark
and the crickets are chirping, keeping time
with the old bullfrogs, croaking like they're
trying to find each other in the darkness-

Marco!!!.......Polo!!!....

They chirp and they croak and
the sky gets darker
as pickup trucks and station wagons
and El Caminos and every other kind
of second-hand vehicle pull out of driveways
all around town and set sail
into the night, headlights slicing through
the darkness.

Windows are down and radios up loud
as they blast through the southern
summer night, their destination a field
outside of town, beyond the reach of
the local police they call 5-0.

Somehow someone has scored a keg,
and too big to keep a secret,
scores of teen-agers begin to arrive
in the muggy country darkness.

Country darkness is the darkest of all,
every star shining to it's full potential
and the big fat moon keeping watch over
these children of the night far below.

A fire is lit by the first to arrive, after
setting up the keg, of course!
Tapped and pumped it waits dutifully now
to dispense happiness, one 20 oz cup
at a time, to many who will lose their
"keg-virginity" tonight.

Some as young as 15 don't really know
what to expect, but go just the same
because their friends go, who in turn go
because their friends go.

Every car and truck that arrives
seems to have something to throw
onto the fire, as if it were some
forgotten deity of old. Why the
Willis brothers show up with an old couch
they found God-knows-where and
Woosh...onto the fire it goes, the flames
now reaching high into the midnight sky.

Lynyrd Skynyrd blares from someone's truck,
then Metallica, then Kid Rock, and so on.

Stumbling around in the fire's orange glow,
red plastic Solo cups in hand, the kids
laugh and sing and curse and carry on,
far from parents, far from school, far from
rules and expectations, and as the night wears on-

12...12:30....1...

the keg gets lower and the kids get higher
and the big fat moon sweeps across
the inky black sky.

In the darkness beyond the fire
young couples make out and do things
they have never done before.

At the same time an argument is heating up
and two guys threaten to go at it over
something that was nothing, just a
misunderstanding. Luckily friends intervene
and equilibrium is restored.

Later on...2 or 2:30...and the keg is
cashed and the ground littered with
red plastic cups. Half the kids are already
gone now to whatever fate awaits them...
police, parents, whatever... and the stragglers
laugh and talk shit about teachers, coaches,
parents, cops, anyone outside their
youthful circle.

After a while someone suggests Waffle
House. Man cannot live by beer alone
after all, and the thoughts of patty melts
and hashbrowns and waffles and coffee
lure them from their bonfire...

now just a few glowing embers...

and into their cars and trucks and onto
the road back into town. These are the elite,
the real-deal, having run the  gauntlet of
a drunken night in the country, now sitting
in booths making small-talk with the waitress,
trying to score a joint.

They are disappointed though as she
only has enough to get her through
her shift, none to spare. So they sit in the
orange-and-brown booths, "Freebird"
playing on the jukebox, then Bob Seger,
then some country singer, and wait

as the long-haired cook juggles eggs and
grits and hamburgers and plates and pans
and spatulas, and before you can say
"Bob's your uncle" they are eating their
greasy midnight fare.

Pots of coffee are brewed and consumed
as night passes the torch to morning,
and like all good things this night has to come
to an end.

In the parking lot good-byes are said and
they scatter in the first rays of sunlight,
to climb in bedroom windows and hope
parents are still sleeping. Passing out with their
clothes on, they know it's just a week,
seven days til they will do it all over again.

And that's what keeps them going.