Moon River

So Holly Golightly doesn't run away this time. Cat is thrown from the taxi in the rain. Paul runs out a block later. Holly follows. They're soaked straight to the bone. They find Cat. They embrace. They kiss. Moon River.

Motherfucking shit.

The song is intoxicating and I believe it wholeheartedly. It's as true as the book, and that's true enough I guess, but still, Holly is supposed to be a story told in a bar.

I usually tell those stories rather than hear them. Too bad, because there's a brotherhood in it. I think some day I'll be in a drunken Herna Non Stop, making up lies about American women to Czechs who don't speak a word of English. Wow. How about that for loneliness? Ah, but I couldn't do that unless I still had a sense of humor.

Someday Ryan will bring the wife and kids to see Prague and they'll ride the tram past Bertramka and he'll point out the old locked-up cemetary we passed every day on the way home. Oh my God! he'll shout. It's Johnny Bench! And sure enough, ol' Johnny Bench as we called him, the perpetually smashed Branik anti-commercial, sitting on that very same bench, 100 years if he's a day. And I'll be there next to him, nodding and belching Ano! whenever he seems to be making a point. Johnny Bench and me, his best friend, and maybe he won't even realize I'm not Czech.