Rainbow Road

My favorite Simpson's quote (this week): "I'm better than okay. I'm Homer Simpson."

You may ask yourself, how did I get here? But the road signs are there in Rubbermaid containers underneath our beds; in the ghosts within my boxed-up N64 waiting patiently for me to beat your course records with Toad. The exit sign says Evansville and we meant to do something spectacular with it. The exit sign says Ashby Barret and I still mean to write a character who bears that name.

I can think of 1,916 more mile markers.

Was that the question? "How will I get here?" Did I hear it asked as I tiptoed through that house, over empty jewel cases, a shoe-box and your sleeping bodies on my way to turn off season 8? Was it hidden in that book by Anthony Towne? Did the question drift slurred and muffled through the smoke and around the charcoal, conte and pencil drawing of the yo-yo, into the three-way stop of a hallway, under the door and over the bed to my ears?

Am I sure that I even heard it asked?

And can we consider it answered?

At any rate, the context is squared away, filed away … the past is past. I’ll still stand with you proudly, adjust my glasses and yell up to the wrinkled night sky (Mufasa, Vader, Moonlight Graham...), “No way, man! We're gonna keep on rockin' forever! Forever! Forever. Forever...”

What keeps me from plodding further in search of the old question and answer is that you revel with me in the new: Will I yell down the same thing to a fresh-faced young man who happens to bear the name of my father? Will I be the sort of wrinkled night sky that would do that?

When I took out the trash this morning I could only find one glove and so my naked left hand cracked and bled in the dry cold.

I don't mind the glove. It fits. Keeps my hand warm. I'm okay, really.

In fact, I'm better than okay. I'm Homer Simpson.

This is my beautiful wife. This is my beautiful house. This is my large automobile.