Armless Eddie rolls a joint with his feet as sun sets, Stillwater Park’s benches moist from the day’s sweat. Eddie works it eyes closed, toes like knitting needles. The new Stones single spins Crespi Blvd into a two-lane jukebox, backbeat rattling garden apartment windows, Jagger strutting in the streetlight shadows. Barefoot Judy pulls the doobie from Eddie’s feet & tucks it tight, sucking it down the spine, lighting & taking a hit before passing it. We admire her technique & we fantasize about her despite what we think is a goatee growing off her chiseled jaw. You make a grown man cry, we sing in mock Cockney harmony, Mick & Keith got nothing on us, burned out 11th graders in the year’s 10th month – the one FM DJs called Rocktober not because Petty or Seger or Springsteen released new records, but because they thought it was funny & stoners loved it. Sun drops lower, night falling like embers blasting salty soundwaves. We wear Levi’s cords with holes in the knees & Dark Side of the Moon t-shirts with holes in the sleeves. We wait for the DJs in their double-entendre voices to tell us the temperature reads 69 degrees. Ha-ha! It’s 69 in Rocktober, dude!!! Armless Eddie throws his head back, a gusty guffaw. We expect him to clap but he doesn’t have hands. We go to high five him before stopping ourselves. Armless Eddie sticks his right foot in the air & yells Low five! & we’re like weeds in bloom, free & scattered in every direction.
