I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.
– Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Maybe 1974, a ghostly old mining town.
Spaced hippies crashing in empty relics. Puffing and huffing.
Raced up a mountain. Five miles straight to the top of the sky. Give or take a switchback.
Was in second place when a guy in Hi-top Converse white canvas sneakers went by me. Pell-mell. A wisp lost in a pale cloud above green angels.
Huffing and puffing.
Seems like later I saw the same man with a billowing cigarette. Puffing and puffing.
At least by then the race was over. Except for maybe the wheezing. Mystery how he could smoke me like that. A ghost myself.
