It was three beers and six innings later at the Cannon Brewpub that Vic is thinking about that irritatingly sunny day when Ray James says, “It’s only six hours to Gulf Breeze—why not just go?” in a bar, in the same town, some forty odd years after Vic struck out and forty minutes after Vic has relived it once again. Ray checks his old naval watch (one of the big, solid, metal-banded ones with the anchors) and says, “We could just catch the sun coming up.” Vic takes a moment to wonder himself what time it is, but never asks.

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Vic parks the car at the Gulf State Park just as the sky is gaining a bit of yellow. Ray wakes up blinking, and looks around quietly, like waking into a dream instead of from it. He smiles to himself but doesn’t say anything. Silently, he puts his seat upright and gets out of the car, the pain in his knee back from the numbness of the aspirin, though he doesn’t reveal its presence in his actions. Vic picks up some garbage from the floor of the Camaro, and gets out.

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In 1968 Vic Hauser batted a .203 average in the last season of his career, while playing for the Columbus Catfish in the minor leagues. And for those of you who don’t know anything about baseball stats, well, let’s just say that .203 in the context of Vic Hauser in the last season of his life means that he should ponder a career change. He gears himself up that entire last game, convincing himself that when he is at the plate for the last time, he is going to hit one—the big one. The one that gets him out of the minor leagues. The one that does like big hits do, and turns everybody’s head up to the sky like the cumulonimbus tower of a surprise storm cloud. He strikes out—doesn’t even get close to the ball.

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Everyone in America’s favorite road trip moment: flashing blue lights in the rear view. That was sarcasm by the way. Like the kind infused in Ray’s comment only a moment before, “Oh, you’re a professional all right.” Then appear the lights that only Vic can see. His stomach sinks simultaneously as he glances to the speedometer (too late). Through his chewed up cigar, “Aw, shit.” He downshifts to fourth and the Camaro roars in protest. Instinctively Ray knows to turn around in his seat to looky-loo. When he’s done, he turns back around to settle in for the fun, “Well, jes show ’em your tits.”

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Characters and Places: Ray James, Vic Hauser

Vic immediately shoots daggers at Ray who smiles gleefully back as if he just smelled shit for the first time and, I’ll be, that’s a mighty pleasant bouquet.

The officer stands erect, puts his pad away and looks to his own car, contemplating back up. “I’m gonna ask you gentlemen to step out of the car.”

Hanging his head, Vic mutters to Ray, “I am going to kill you, you Son. Of. A. Bitch.” He and Ray both get out of the car.

“If you’ll both stand over by my vehicle, I’m going to search this car with your permission.”

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A dark long place, maybe twenty feet wide, though the red walls make it closer—sometimes someone bugs and then its close cropped like a marine at the door—but only if you’re paranoid enough. The whole fall-apart place stretches way-back past cheap, old fast-food booths to pool tables; where the yellow and orange painted planes of the haphazard furniture make happiness dependent on minutes that pass too quick for a lot who enter and drink their fill. Those folks’ worrying done, those leftover occupy the space taken up a lot by old neon signs (the red and orange kind) besides plenty of other reminders of who has been here before you—people who had gotten together musicians that they were sure mattered—and R.E.M. anyway. So dark, recyclable, posters litter walls. Underwaterfall, Big Tractor, Red Caboose, Soul Miner’s Daughter, big Billy Cutup—who went on to be Billy Trucks, and killed the Georgia Theater—and even Jackopierce—which was, in terms of completing the musical hallowed ground of those who cared, basically among those who were the most important. Still, though, the Cantebury tale of Lallapalooza was all just because of the nature of good taste, who had it, and when they decided to let it drip or perhaps coalesce in puddles of agreement that most folks could abide by. Relics. That’s what they were, adorning the walls. And come to think of it, most of the folks in the booths, too.

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Characters and Places: Georgia Theater, Jackopierce, R.E.M., Soul Miner's Daughter, Underwaterfall

Jacob Coburn is born in 1963 to Cynthia Coburn. He grows up in a poor and opprssed envionment until he attempts to commit suicide in the early months of 1976, After the attempt on his life he attends to St. Peter’s Creek memorial Asylum as an outpatient in the hopes that he can overcome his depression. In 1976 he is 13 years old.

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Born in 1975 in Tulane, Louisiana, Travis Fleeting grows up mostly in Emmersfield, GA. He attends high school there until his junior year when he attends a magnet school for musicians in Altanta, GA. After graduating from high school, he attends the University of Georgia in Athens, GA and begins a burgeoning music career.

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