Unabashed

Burning south on British steel–it’s autumn but there’s no fall color. Skies clear,
air brisk, running 90mph all the way to Tuscaloosa with plenty of throttle left.
Suzy’s arms wrapped around me, hugging me tightly, wearing the Wolverine tee
shirt I bought her when I was working in Abilene.

The girls at the shop where I bought it thought it was supercool, me buying my
wife a Wolverine tee shirt; one of them had a tattoo of the baby Endless and
asked me if I knew what they were. I told her and she almost came apart, as if
she didn’t know there were people like me in the world–thirty something,
corporate-looking, blond, no tats, no piercings but knowledgeable about some of
the same things she was. Maybe I am. I’ve been reading comics since before I
could read the words–my collection has swelled into the thousands but now it’s
only about five hundred. I was a Wolverine fan before it was cool to be a
Wolverine fan. I named my son Logan and yes, he’s a superhero. But I digress…

In T-town we ate burgers at the Coppertop and drank beers and watched some of
the GAME (Alabama vs. Ole Miss–American football, ye lubbers!). It’s called the
Coppertop because the bartop is made of copper. Then I bought three cigars, Suzy
got her belly button re-pierced and we blew town, north again at about the same
clip that we’d done southbound.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: abilene, Alabama, coppertop, endless, t-town, Texas, tuscaloosa, wolverine