NOTE: From a July 2005 vacation.
Floyd Va. is a small desperate Blue Ridge town in the southwest corner of the state. The indigents seem to travel begrudgingly day by day with the northern yankees, who migrated here for the cheaper land prices, the small and hopeful bohemian group whose visibility glares like a neon light through a cloudy pool of oil and water, and the tourists with wide eyes and cameras and kids drawn by the 46 year old legend of the Blue Ridge Parkway where one unopened can of beer in the trunk can make the driver a felon. By no means is it "Paradise" but, by-God, one will never really know until the word's definition is posted on the interstate.
I came into town fiercely late to see my son on his 16th birthday (He lives now with his mother--the only reason I would come to this back-corner of the earth). I thought I could slip into town without the confrontational cheetas coming at 60 mph ready to rip my face and scalp, complaining all the while about my tardiness and how the 24 hours from my original time had screwed with their daily routine and changed their life forever, but I was wrong. I was like the James Gang in Northfield, Minnesota. There was a gun in every window. I felt like a baby zebra encircled by a pack of vicious and snarling hyenas ready to rip flesh and crunch bone. I was doomed--I thought.
The fail-safe instincts kicked in. Years of living in a "good ol' boy" environment with their salt in the wound acerbic attempt at wit had seasoned me. I had developed an emotional flak jacket. The bullets would hit, sting for a while, but never come through. When I got on my feet I would go over and pat the shooter on the head and say "go screw your self Jimmy Joe", and leave with a smile.
Zenophobic locals have never known my combination. Nor will they ever. Because if one cannot talk about Milton, Locke, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Yeats and the brilliant Hunter S. Thompson in place of driving a truck or working on a worthless car, then it is the bottom of the ninth with two outs, and a third strike has been called. Stay out of my ball park...dude.
Going to the Express Mart in town is like a cross-cultural adventure that transcends the garden variety exposure to large city mixes. Hey! This a small Virginia town. One does not expect to meet anyone other than a John Deere cap fanatic or some grease faced wrench monkey. But as I came out with my cup of ice and pint of milk a white Bob Marley with corn rows pulled up in a ten year old Land Cruiser and brushed in and out with the swiftness of one with a coca leaf in his blood stream. I looked as he left at the old ladies at the pumps getting their Wednesday gas and the home grown good old boys coming out with their double-deuce bottles of Old Milwaukee and I thought about John Milton's Satan from "Paradise Lost"--"I would drather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven". Which one was it for these people? Were they ruling or serving? Was this Heaven or Hell? Or did they even give a damn?
There are thousands of smallvilles across the country. I live in one in Kentucky. But there are only fast food shops and country cooking. No tofu outlets or latte stops with wireless routers. It's a dull place where there is an abundance of Ford F150's, and the mullet-headed locals have become meth cooks. They can't even spell "bohemian". I have to give Floyd credit . There is an attempt at creativity.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride...
I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school...
Fine manners, liberal speech turned hatred into sport...
--William Butler Yeats

The cheetas have been active on my tenth day here. Maybe they are hungry, but more than likely drunk. Drunk cheetas. That sounds like a defamation, and I don't like to offend nature or the World Wildlife Fund. Especially since they are through with Vince McMahon after making him change the WWF to the WWE. What a strike for purity against that synthetic world that entertains the camo crowd twice a week and one a month for 40 bucks, if they have sattlelite.
Back to the cheetas. In nature they are the fastest land animals on earth with their top end at 70 miles an hour. They are cunning and calculating and their satisfaction comes with the prey they catch and a nap after...and an occasional lay when the estrus pops up. They stalk and eat and procreate. A simple plan with nothing complaining but the gazelles. The cheetas in the wild attack from the back, the front, the flank--anywhere they can get their claw in the meat. Like all animals in the wild they are Darwinian pragmatists with only an instinctive will to survive. And they won't blindside you. The cheeta that lives in a house on the outskirts of America is a different animal that has developed a carnal attitude: "Yo ass is mine as long you're back is turned." It is an aberration of the natural order that this animal has two faces--one for smiling, one for ripping.
The "Koran" is by my side thanks to a trip, with my son, to the the local county library. I have not read it but I am sure it is full of benevolent Islamic beliefs, for the most part. Just keep the "Infidel" erased. I will have to go to a ravenous web site to find out how to pack 2 pounds of C4 in a Hefty bag and drop it off at the cheeta's with a little pink heart and a note "do you believe in the big bang theory?" That's one way of getting rid of those damn animals. Really! I am peaceful and melancholy, and never would do something so violent...but like Jimmy Carter I have lusted for it in my heart over the last few days.
My days in Floyd are rapidly ending and I will miss my son until Christmas, about 4 months away. The days will be long, boring and usual in Kentucky. I will be there this Sunday if nothing happens. How unfortunate. But to a certain extent It will be a relief to get away from the cheeta and the rambling mouth, relentless in its pursuit of stupidity.