Livingston Dream Book #1

It’s the kind of town you’ve been dreaming about. Barking dogs in the neighborhood echoing down Main Street at sundown. The wind carrying the sounds and the scent of crackling wood fireplaces. Yesterday’s classifieds covering snowy patches on park benches. Distant train whistles muffling the neon plastered rendezvous secrets. Twilight dreamers and used to be’s finding shelter on used bookstores and cheapjack bodegas. Bible students and flask enthusiasts lining up for end-of-the-day last service salvation. Grain elevator dust ups and water tower freeze downs. KPRK AM radio on old pick up trucks and snowplower grinning stare downs.  Smoke rising on an edge-of-town lonely out-of-season fishing cabin. Sidewalk Ariat boots and Resistol hats by a marquee sign. Cowboy saloon at the end-of-another-workday welcome mat swinging door.  Napkin kisses and wedding ring flesh marks on a waitress’ long nailed polished finger. Slight foreign accent on a blonde-eyed jukebox junkie belching Jessi Colter’s songs. Small talk and big white lies on a small town date night. Another bartender blues tale over another TV news fueled conversation. Hunting lodge memories and melancholic half smiles from a middle-aged couple on the mend. Forcefully open eyes and casting shadows from a corner booth troubled mind.  Bourbon stained Jerry Jeff Walker sing-alongs and last call love pledges. Distant I-90 traffic hiss and lonesome 18-wheeler’s moans and snow tire screeching. Another night falling on dark and colder streets. Silent dogs in the neighborhood echoing as you find yourself alone again. Town’s asleep now. But you’re wide awake.  Waiting. Reminiscing. Dreaming. Again.