It has been another day and night of dusty roads. Gravel dirt and hay chaff hangs in the air. The weight of rain is oppressive; it is fat and ready to swallow the earth. I’ve spent the last three days hitchhiking, waiting for it, watching the road and the bruised face of the sky until the two become the same thing, void of horizon. I have seventeen dollars and fourteen cents in my pocket and three cans of spray paint in my backpack. They are orange, green and yellow, and I can’t think of a thing to do with them. Everything that drove me to paint has left me. Maybe I’m trying to think of an excuse, any excuse, for not turning around and heading home. Right now, I’m just wandering, sleeping in old barns and wearing the highway on my feet. The canvas has become too small and my paintings too repetitive. Whatever muse I was trying to satisfy has left me in a blur of empty footsteps.
I dream in sterile, plastic colors. I see myself in a grubby Soho flat, sketching portraits of blue-haired matrons on foolscap, erasing their scars and giving them shinier teeth.
There’s a shotgun shell being loaded into the breech and I awaken in violent, bold strokes.
Excerpt from Cronic
Ordinary Handsome 