VACAJUN
BY ALIA VOLZ
Way down in a bayou town. Just for kicks, my love, you and me, we don’t know this place. No infusion bars, vintage boutiques, or multilevel movie theaters; no yuppies or hippies or hipsters. People here lean too close, and slur through log lips, and you can count their swampy teeth. Hey, be nice, you say. Watch the stereotypes. I know it, I know it, but even so, those were some teeth.
I’ve got to hear live zydeco, would die to hear it, so we drive to the roadhouse, out where the town trickles off into the weeds. We get there as the light bulbs on the sign blink out. Two women stand smoking in the dirt lot. Is the music really done for the night? I ask. It’s so early. A brunette with wadded tissue cheeks says, yes, they’ve gone home already. But come on back tomorrow, seven o’ clock, they’ll be at it again.
But there is no tomorrow.
Alia Volz 