I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive
The night was at that lost and lonely time when all the bars closed, the last stragglers were wondering home, and everyone was somewhere interesting besides me, or so it seemed. There was barely a car on the road, the gas station was the only flickering sign of life, and the darkness seemed to have swallowed everything and everyone, reluctantly to regurgitate them the next morning, which seemed like a hell of a long time away from here. I pulled into a Chinese restaurant called The Panda where two skinny Asians were inside sitting at a table, smoking cigarettes, having coffee I presumed by the porcelain cups they leveled now and then to their thin lips. The neon open sign was still burning. There was still time for me to get some crab rangoon. I could see them through the belly of a giant happy panda bear which was painted on the glass like a terrible tattoo. It was on Route 41, which led to nowhere and which came from nowhere. It used to be a diner, and someone said that a hundre...
