Highballs

They sat there, deep in thought and sipping rye. The street had seen much better days, heard finer sounds, though, endlessly, the sun had worked its magic on their faces and set each night, reminding all that curfew did apply. Well, this was Tennessee, the land that Jack had made into a paradise for men, who whiled away the time avoiding splinters through due care on rough-hewn benches that had borne the best, the flabby cheeks of blacks and other hues; all lovers of the drink they still, in strange defiance, did call Rye. The day Jack Daniels died the streets were bare, and not a whisp of air, nor could one see the usual flimmer rising from the asphalt's heat. A sudden change had come, descended like a foreign god and conquered for a moment of their warp of time a snippet that would be, forever missed there, in their silent afternoons. Today, the day he died there would be words, thrown at them by the man who'd join them on the streets on Thursday afternoons, if he had managed to prepare the sermon for the Sunday, come. He'd earned his dues and they moved over gladly to accomodate his ample hips for, as a learned man he would at times give overproof advice, his tongue a bit too slow and not without a flaw as he would tumble back into his North Dakota drawl. Jack is long gone, of course. He sat with them just once, and that was when they put the man into the dusty ground. The man who had been crowned by those whose bosoms he'd carressed Gentleman Jack. He had a heart they said as big as his first vat next to selfsame he'd stood through many sleepless nights to guard the sour mash and keep the rodents and the flies away from what would be the best in spirits from the hills of Tennessee.