Johnny Appleseed standing by the side of the road, thumb out, wearing a coonskin cap. No it is not what people are expecting and yes he likes it anyway. His legs tired, his clothes worn.
Paul Bunyan tiptoeing through the city denting cars and carrying twenty thousand oranges. People passing him do not look up, they get on the subway and act like no three hundred foot shadow has been cast. Lovely weather nasty traffic gun violence. His head down, bag cast over his shoulder.
Johnny Appleseed's sign reads "Montana or Bust" in permanent marker on corrguated cardboard. Running from a suburban backyard, a woman chasing him with a piece of firewood, seeds spilling from his satchel onto the patio.
Paul Bunyan sitting in a park being ignored by women.
Johnny Appleseed wandering back to Leominster, Concord, to Boston, riding the subway and looking at his reflection in the glass. People around him laughing.
Paul Bunyan wading knee-deep through the San Francisco Bay, then walking steadily toward Las Vegas with two bags of forty thousand whipped cream canisters. His head down, twenty foot veins showing through the skin of his neck.
Johnny Appleseed sitting in a park being ignored by women.
Paul Bunyan running out of deliveries and heading for Canada pursued by helicopters. They are leaning out the windows, waving subpoenas. Cities are rising in the valleys left by his footsteps and collapsing each time he crosses the horizon. A trail of flaming ruins cuts across North Dakota and the helicopters are multiplying, the men growing angrier, waving their arms more and more frantically. Stopping to wash his face in the icy waters of the Upper Hudson.
One of the women bites into an apple and throws it at Johnny's feet. Staring at it mournfully.
Paul Bunyan lying down on a nice clean stretch of freeway with his six-ton pillow. Trucks honking, backing up across the Midwest. Road flares being lit.
Johnny Appleseed lying across two seats of an Amtrak train, his lips forming an unmistakable phrase, over and over. They are making small advances, flashing their headlights in anger and pushing him over to the side of the pavement.