The Dam Broke

The Dam Broke
C. A. Winter

Nine-fifteen. Hour of the beginning of the end. It was drizzling in places around me and I had just wrapped up a chapter in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. The chapter was Titled “The Bust” and it began with a drug bust on the Ken Kesey property and ended on a man named Norman having difficulty getting adjusted to the life of the Merry Pranksters.

During the chapter, words struck me so I grabbed my Trusty Legal Pad and jotted them down as they came to me. The first was a conjoined comical word ‘christalmighty’ and I liked the way it read on the page. The rest I can recite to you but that is not at all the point of this little escapade through my life.

After the chapter I was feeling jovial in the lightning and rain in the comfort of my 2007 Buick Lucerne so I popped my Airpods in and listened to a Top Hits of 1969 playlist on the good old Spotify.

In truth, I played ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac first, then queued up a handful of songs that stuck out to me. In this order, and no variaton to this order; Whole Lotta Love, Bad Moon Rising, Gimme Shelter, The Thrill is Gone, and Fortunate Son.

All around me, the sky lit up in gigantic highways of blue and red, eastward and downward, humungous life itself and Catastrophe all around but where I sat was dry and windless. Windows down and not a drop inside, not a speck. I, in the cool thunderous industrial park of Morden by the humane society, sat in awe and electric wonder of the world and the oncoming End Times. 

I see the bad moon a-risin’

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin’ 

I see bad times today

And then my fiancé finished her shift at the society and we took off with a three point turn on a mudland parkinglot and headed east to Winkler. The Thrill is Gone rang out through my windows and BB King was in the drivers seat and something was a-burnin’.

We cruised and I was quiet and susceptible to the oncoming onslaught. Whatever it was, the thrill was gone and I saw the earthquakes and lightnin’. She described to me an utterly despicable situation her coworker had been entrenched in over the last few months involving her mother and a thousand fractured bones and the Irreversible Cancer. 

And somethin’ was a-burnin’ in the front of my car, a deep plastic musk, and as I reached an utterly disgusted and angry and receptive state from the conclusion of her coworker’s story, the sky lit up in a spectacular way when I hit the highway and then, truly, all the lights in my car, the warnings- the thrill is gone- and it read Pull Over Safely.

In fact, the Thrill was gone and the power with it. All of it, out, with the lights and the thunder and the warning signs and the Check Engine and the battery- All of It, stripped away from the body of the Buick. In fact, the Alternator, the great recharger, had gone haywire and killed the whole system. Battery Saver Activated.

And for fucks sakes, of course it went out today, of course, God, if you had never spoken to me before, if I had never been perceptive to you before, I see- I SEE A BAD MOON A RISIN’ - and in fact, after all of this - 

Thrill is gone

Thrill is gone away for good

All the thrill is gone, baby

It’s gone away for good

Someday I know I’ll be open-armed baby

Just like I know, I know I should 

***


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