Good Lord. Seriously? Should he stay or should he go? No one cares. Bo does not care and he is the one in charge of deciding his character’s fate. He draws a big ‘x’ through the words, thereby cutting his fictional creation loose. He will have to make his own way now and Bo is free to move on to a new song.

He writes:

That is how he begins each song. If he accomplishes nothing else each day at least he knows he has written something.

All lyrics or thoughts, songs or would-be songs are recorded in a black hardcover note book. No scraps of paper. Scraps can go missing. Or into the laundry. So everything is in one place. No matter how old or rotten the words might be.

Or how promising they might be:

Those two lines have been in his black book for as long as he can remember. He is waiting for a third line.

It will not be arriving today. Maybe next time, my love.

Each time he begins to write words in his notebook he also places a cheap recorder on the table. Otherwise, if he does come up with a nice melody an hour later he will likely realize he has no idea -no fucking idea- what the melody might have been.

Dylan would have written three songs by now. He’d scribble the first one on a napkin before the bus left the terminal. Imagine that freedom? If it was good, he would keep it. If it was crap he would use it to clean up the coffee stains and then move on to the next one.

Bo is living The Bob Dylan Dream. Well, that is idiotic. Dylan is living The Bob Dylan Dream. He is the only one who will ever live it. Everyone else -including Bo- will only ever dream about living The Bob Dylan Dream.

Hell, by now perhaps even Dylan is not living The Bob Dylan Dream. Fame and fortune may have forced him to live someone else’s dream.

He loves the rhythmic sound of the tires on the asphalt, the slight “kaboom, kaboom” as the bus moves over the ruts in the road. There is much comfort and protection in the moveable cocoon. He could almost use the sound as a backtrack for a song.

And an added bonus: There is a cute girl a few rows ahead. She looks like she might be a bit too wholesome, but she is so cute she could be a dancer on Big T. N.T. TV program.

He will chat her up when they stop for their food and washroom break.

There is also a man in uniform. Bo does not know which branch. He has never paid much attention to such things. That is the price he pays for living in his own little world.

But he is going to make a fresh start. He got lucky with Candy. Lucky in that she had the good sense to dump him. Imagine him as a father. Breadwinner. Shoulder to cry on. Rock of Gibraltar. Man of the house.

He takes a hit of bourbon and closes his eyes. The “kaboom kaboom” lulls him to sleep.

The bus stops at one of those highway restaurants that are accessible from both directions. It has some picnic tables, two vending machines and a ‘restaurant’ that sells packaged sandwiches and coffee.

The cute girl has already left the bus by the time he gets organized.

The cool night air is frosty. He has left his coat behind to hold his seat.

The coffee is almost as stale as the doughnut but they are both inexpensive and he is thankful he still has enough money to buy anything at all.

The picnic table is covered with dew. It is dark and quiet except for the sound of traffic and nature and the hum of neon. He could be anywhere or anyone. He will ride away from here and be whoever he wants to be.

A family of four is sitting two tables over. The parents are eating from a picnic basket while the kids get rid of their energy. The father looks at Bo and smiles. Bo does not know what the smile means. He imagines the father is wishing he was in Bo’s shoes, a young kid heading somewhere, maybe setting off on a holiday or going to see his girlfriend and remembering how he used to do such things.

Bo gives him that nod that says, it will be okay, Mac. But what does Bo know. (Thanks Rudy.) Maybe it will never be okay again.

Back on the bus he passes the cute girl. She is sitting with the soldier. She looks up at him and he thinks he notices a smile.

It is 20 minutes before the bus driver returns. There is much muttering as he climbs behind the wheel and starts the engine without explanation.

Bo imagines the driver has a girlfriend at this rest stop (and perhaps others!) and he stays with her until he gets what he wants and then he slaps her on the ass and says, ‘thanks babe, see you next time’ and then he saunters back to work.

Every lousy song he writes now belongs to him. A mixed blessing as the songs that belong to him may never find a publisher or a recording deal, so he may end up owning 100% of nothing.

Musically he feels trapped somewhere between the apparent ease and charm of The Carter Family and the obtuse, wordy lost and found world of Mr. Dylan.

He wonders if he has arrived on this music scene just in time or a few years too late. It is exciting to see the Old Guard being pushed to the wayside, but is it a good thing? The folk crowd are often a bit daft in their obsession with musical authenticity but perhaps something will be lost if the Post-Dylan-era forces them to return to their private acoustic bunkers in the woods.

In the end the music itself should prevail, not where or when it was created.

Good lord, Maggie thinks to herself. The soldier does like to talk. It is endless. And he has nothing to talk about other than the army and some Viet-something-or-other and she does not understand very much of what he is saying.

    She wishes the kid sitting a few rows back had found her first. Too wholesome, perhaps, but nice. He looks like he could be a waiter at one of those folk clubs in The Village.

    Oh lord. He has asked her a question.

    “Sorry?” she says.

    “Your name,” he says.

    Oh God. Could it have been any more obvious she was not listening?

    “Maggie,” she says. “Yours?”

    “I just told you,” he says, sounding cross. “Is it because I’m black?”

    “It’s because it is 3:00 AM in the morning! I don’t even talk to my mother at this hour.”

    He laughs. Sort of. He likes feisty gals, but this one might be too much.

    “Sure,” he says. “Sorry. Nice talking to you, Maggie.”

    “You, too--” but she cannot finish the sentence because she does not know his name.

    He moves back to his former seat. She is fine with that. She wants to turn around to see if the kid has noticed but she does not want to further antagonise the unknown soldier.

    It is better if she shows up in DC without someone hanging off her arm....