Five to one, baby

one in five,

no one here gets out alive…

“Five to One”, The Doors

Pamela lives by the [sea], I’m a [free spirit], she says. She takes my [hand] and pulls me along the [beach].

You’ll see, she says, it’s him, it’s really him.

I met her at the Food-Rite. I was buying [baking potatoes]. She was stealing [bananas], and wasn’t very good at it; she peeled the little [stickers] off and stuck them on her [forehead].

She pulls me along a stretch of beach that fronts a [trailer park] and [campground]. I know all their [songs], she says, I have all their [albums]. I used to. He’ll be here soon, c’mon.

The [tent] reeks of [mildew], there’s a makeshift [clothesline] at one end. A pair of [men’s underwear]. Two pairs of small [white socks].

A man coughs. Unzips the tent. Pamela is on fire. And I’ll be damned if it’s not [The Lizard King].

Of 1968, I’d say, or maybe ’69. He looks at her in a slow burn. Pamela, he says.

I have to be running along, I say, and once I step outside, I hear the sound of a thousand [nights] she thought she had left behind.

When I was six years old I burst through the [door] one day, with a ball of [orange fur] on the end of a [length of rope]. This [dog], I explained, followed me home.

Pamela takes your hand. She pulls you along the beach. Pamela isn’t free and Pamela knows.

[Five to one] and [one in five]. It’s coming anyway. Might as well come from The Lizard King.

Pamela by the Sea