1/23: Krazy Kevin

Last night I eased my sore fingers into a game of Scrabble with the new couple working on the farm. Evening and nightfall at the Southernmost tip of the country bring only plaintive solitude. The sun falls and only a slow breeze comes alive- all else submits. There was nothing to ask for in the kitchen- dinner and company were already there.

And then footsteps sound in the darkness, shapes approach the screen doors, and instantly a party of men materialize. They drift in from the front and sides, which is why they're called drifters after all. Kenny is suddenly on the bench inside smiling at us, his new friend Max has collapsed into sleep in the corner, Hans is waving hands broadly through quiet air and embarking on strange stories, and most bizarre of all is the new character, Kevin.

He was obviously young and limber, wearing typical tight and brown Hawaiian skin. But his hair was white; white as polished silver and glowing with grease, and his eyes were burning blue like small flames. He seemed to fling away the night, now lighting up the room with his artificial luminescence, and cryptic, ageless energy. He was side by side with Hans, and yelling just as loud into the same story.

We were so bewildered we had not even dropped the plastic letters from our palms. Kevin was already far into his story. He and Hans were both laughing and gasping severely.

"Dude, it was a state of excellence," Hans cried.
"Dude, it was a state of excellence," Kevin repeated.
"Dude, what was it?"
"I've been around the world. Around the world seven times. Seven times! I've never seen anything like it."
"I swear I wouldn't believe it if someone told me. If someone told me I swear I wouldn't believe it."

The blabber continued for many minutes, far away from the point. They used more absurd words than were on the scrabble board. We chattered with the jesters for a while and let them rattle their jaws and roll their eyes. IN the end Kevin left us with one parting doctrine of Tigger:
"Sometimes you've got to stumble and bumble before you can trounce and bounce around."