Paul Kilzer posted:

Lying in his bed, Jerome awoke with a start. Sitting up he noticed
a huge man sitting at the foot of his bed; The man's odor overwhelmed
Jerome.

        "Ahhh, you are awake. I have brought a cart for you."

Looking where the fat man's arm was pointing, Jerome saw an old Mission-style
wagon lashed to a mule standing at the foot of the bed he has been
assigned in the Fairview Recovery Center.

        "How did you get in here?"
        "The same way we will leave. It is time to go."
        "Whaddoya mean, man, I came here to get better. I gotta stay here
for a while."
        "It is too late for that, amigo, look behind you."

Jerome turned and looked. He saw himself lying in the bed, perfectly still.

        "Oh. Okay. Where we goin'?"

        "You are a strong man Jerome, I would have had to use this on a 
lesser man," he said pointing to the number 19 canvas headsack hanging
>from  his belt.
        
        "Yeah, yeah. Where are we going?" Jerome asked as he walked to the
cart.

        "It's time to join your old friends."

        The cart was a simple affair, a platform mounted on an axle with
two wheels. Uprights and a rail circled the platform and two poles emerged
>from  under the platform, stretching forward to be lashed to the mule's sides.
The whole cart was painted a bright sky blue. A blue awning was mounted on
poles above the platform. All the upright poles were festooned with blue
crepe paper streamers and flowers were wired everywhere. Begonias, magnolias
and roses covered every inch of the cart that wasn't wrapped in streamers,
and even some that were.

        As Jerome climbed into the cart he asked the fat man, "Who?"

        "Too many to count," the large one replied. "One named PigPen, a
young man named Dijereedoo, a long hair named Kieth, the list is long."

The large man took the the rope bridle of the mule in his hand and started
walking. Walking in circles, the fat one lead the mule. As they passed 
through the walls of the recovery center they rose into the air, each turn
of the spiral farther from the ground. As they rose higher Jerome felt
his spirits lifting and his worries falling away. 

Jerome looked forward to seeing to the friends he had been missing all these 
years.

                              R.I.P.
                        Jerome John Garcia
                             1942-1995

                   "The Blue Cart Awaits Us All."