The beginning of another chapter

I apologize for the length.

December raced across the while plains pulling the last bits of weathered flesh from the skeletal frames of the oaks, trying in vain to strike the group gathered around the mailbox screen printed with a pair of cardinals. The snow had a purple hue to it as it fell before the sirens, like night’s haze under a full moon.
His hands were steady now, regardless what consequences might come over the next week. Even now as he recanted the events for the officer questioning him. The only unsettling affair was the officer’s lack of eye contact, but he understood when he looked back over his shoulder. There, framed so quaintly by the Christmas wreath adorning the door, he could see his father standing face to face with the other officer, saying what he could only imagine to be a line of defense for his actions, but now his hands were steady, as steady as this snow fall on the 25th.
If he needed evidence, the boy told the officer to go back around the corner and look in the recycling bin. He assured him there were at least three bottles of vodka and two of Kaluha. He loved white russians. Between the officers questions the boy would ask repeatedly if they could take his father away, even if just for the night. It was more a plea than a question, and he didn’t dare tell the officer about the alternative he was considering...

His brother wasn’t home, he had left earlier that evening to go play with the latest video games they had received as gifts. He stopped looking for something to do in this town a long time ago, not out of spite, but out of fear for what might happen in his absence. He was assured it would never. He sat, patiently waiting for seconds to come and go, ushered on by tales of family and togetherness. Laid out on the other bend of the couch was his mother who was snoring just louder than the television. When he was bored with reading the closed-captioning he would watch the snow fall within the wreath. His mother insisted that he leaved the light on for his brother, but he wouldn’t be coming home until the day broke. It was best that way, one of them ought to find some happiness.
All the specials on television left him wondering what one is to do if they don’t like their families. The few people whom he had come to confide his trust in didn’t understand. They all regurgitated the same rehearsed response: They’re family.
Ten o’clock came with Scrooge finding a heart, and the boy rose to find some rest, tapping in succession his pockets out of habit to account for his keys, wallet and phone. Each resounded response and he moved silently to the bathroom. He hadn’t noticed how cold his feet were, nor did he ever and as such never wore socks around the house on the uninsulated floor.
It would take a few minutes for the water to heat up, so he began his nightly routine: his shirt fell to the small chair behind him they had bought at a garage sale, and he leaned in to inspect the sides of his nose for blackheads. They were small, but always there to be excised. He kept at them until the steam from the sink started to condense on the mirror occluding his search. Filling his hands several times he soaked his hair and began rubbing his callous hands into his cheeks. Every night it was the same, he watched the water drip down his shoulders and chest, wondering why he was standing here.
From amidst the pile of clothes behind the door, he found where his shirt had fallen and pulled it back over his damp frame. As he passed through the kitchen he passed his father who had awoken to the sound of the water turning on. Though the electric water heater was efficient, it was significantly louder than the gas boiler it had replaced and could be heard throughout the house. His father was still drunk despite having gone to sleep some hours earlier, but placable in his grogginess. They each said good-night in passing, but the boy stopped out of sight in the dark hallway to look back upon his father pouring himself a screwdriver by light of the refrigerator. It was the beginning of his nightly routing: on the counter stood the small assemblage of pipe and the zip-lock bag. He would be up for the next hour listening to his father choke down the surreal.
When he opened the door to his room he made sure to keep the knob turned so the latch would remain silent and not wake his mother. He didn’t undress, but rather sat down on his brother’s bed and began petting the dog who occupied it in his absence. She looked up at him when he sat down as the cheap metal frame shifted under his weight, but returned her head to the pillow as he took hold of her ear and began to rub the soft coat between his fingers. He was the only one in the house who couldn’t manage to sleep through his father’s lungs attempt at flight. Perhaps it was because his head lay on the other side of the wall from the throne he dictated from. Still, the coughing was better than the bursts of excrement that sounded as if they would crack the porcelain. It never failed that they would come together though, night after night it was the same symphony while he planned his own line of flight from this, somehow. At the moment, his only comfort was that he would soon be returning to Boston, some 400 miles from the repercussions of his father’s drinking. No wonder he had problems with hemmoroids.
The small house on the Erie canal was much quieter than the house he grew up in back in the city. There were ambulances, cars, accidents, drunks, fights, the white noise of the city. He could sleep in that embrace, knowing the world was flawed. But here, it was just his mother’s snoring, or his brother’s talking in his sleep, ocassionally naming the capitals of states he was fairly sure he wouldn’t know when he was awake. And now, over the rumble of his mother’s slumber he could acutely hear his father’s actions.
The stainless pipe clanked upon being set down on the sink and the Bic lighter bounced lightly but noisily as it fell to the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up, but focused his attention on the zip-lock bag, making sure to tightly roll its contents while forcing the air out of their container. He tucked it back into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and stretched out to pick up the lighter, the porcelain creaking as it shifted about it’s loose base. The roll of toilet paper spun some 20 times, and then the bowl groaned as the weathered frame rose, his feet scrambled heavily in find a foundation to balance their lumbering master. Chiming out the end of the marathon was the well worn belt buckle as it ascended to find it’s place beneath the familiar paunch.
The short glass filled to the brim with ice had been sitting on the top of the sink since it began, and was sweating with condensation, letting loose a small shower as it was lifted from its resting place and spun in a circle. Its contents swirled about in an attempt to cool the drink more, but the remnants of the ice let out a series of hollow thuds as their diminished weight collided with the sides of the cheap glass. The young man thought about the wonderful sound the ice made when it hit the sides of the crystal tumblers he bought himself to drink from; they were precious enough to think twice about throwing them across the room. The ice continued to spin, and in the monotony of time being counted out the young man saw himself staring into mirror on the other side of the wall he was facing, spinning the cheap, ill-cut short glass, watching the water run down the surface, wondering how he ended up there.
The glass was still resounding its whirlpool of ice when the door opened. Still as his father’s heavy feet fell in line and his crooked toes made their way back through the kitchen. “At last” he thought, “I can sleep”, but the foot fall stopped short of the appropriate door. The ice was still spinning, faster and louder now.
“Nance” he heard quietly
“Nance...” again, louder.
The spinning stopped.
“Nance!” Forcefully. His pulse quickened as the dog still sleeping beside him woke suddenly, but laid her had back to rest when the young man’s calm hands found their way to her neck. He knew this tone too well.
A half snore, half response came out loudly as her legs flailed under the pile of heavy sheets and sleeping bags. She searched frantically for the glasses she left on the coffee table, the thin scouts bouncing around in all directions.
“Nance...” again, reserved and calm.
“Yes dear?”
“Why don’t you come to bed?”
“I’m comfortable here, and I was sleep...”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Why won’t you let me sleep here? You can’t sleep while I’m snoring in the room, and my back feels better out here on all these pillows.”
“Didn’t I just say I wasn’t asking?”
He could hear her drudgingly pull the blankets back and swing her feet from the Thinsulate cocoon. They all slept with a sleeping bag for a comforter because it was never warm at night. The wind would thread its way through the cracked walls and laugh in its high pitched whine while the furnace could never gain any thermal gound. The ice was spinning faster with each sleep-laden step towards the light of the kitchen shining behind her husband. When she moved to step around him towards their bedroom, he cut her off by stepping heavily in her path. They were face to face and his bloodshot glazed eyes bored into hers that she kept half shut. The spinning stopped.
“Why can’t you move any faster?” he asked calmly.
She tried to utter out something but it was quickly silenced.
“How many times have I asked you that?”
“Can we just go to sleep?”
“Was that the question?”
“No...”
“How many times have I asked you to move faster?”
“A lot.”
“Give me a number”
“I don’t know...”
“Nance, it’s not a hard question. Just take a guess. Would you say its been a few hundred?”
“Yes.”
“A few thousand?”
“Maybe...”
“So what you’re telling me is that I have asked you maybe a few thousand times to move fasterr, and you can’t do that? Why do you think that is?”
“I... I’m not sure...”
“You’re not sure why you can’t follow simple directions like move faster? Do you think maybe its because you’re too fucking stupid to do anything that I ask you to?”
“Mike...” she let out meekly.
“Answer the fucking question Nance... Are you too fucking stupid to anything that I’ve ever asked you to do?
“Of course not...”
“No?! You’re telling me that you’re smart enough to not follow simple instructions? Maybe I’m missing something but you couldn’t even get the ham right, and all you have to do is pull it out whenever the thermometer says so. But you’re too fucking busy calling up your sisters instead of paying enough fucking attention to make my fucking dinner, and yet here you are telling me you’re not to fucking stupid to follow directions?”
She looked up with wet eyes that were now open, and pleaded “Can we please just go to bed?”
“We could have but since you can’t fucking move fast enough I’m going to have to try and figure out why I’ve been telling your to do the same fucking thing over and over and over, but it never gets done.”
Her eyes fell back to the flow as the tears started welling up in her eyes. They caught the light casting over the shoulder of her husband casting subtle refractions on her cheek. She couldn’t see into his eyes, only the silhouette he cast within the door frame.
“So what? Now you’re not going to say anything? I don’t know why you can’t just sleep in the room in the first place, its not like we even have sex anymore, so you think the least you could do is share the same bed with your husband and lie there like a dead fish.”
“It’s hard to be romantic with someone when they treat you like this.”
“Oh, that’s it, huh? Nance, the only reason I fucking treat you this way is because you’re too fucking stupid to do anything that I fucking tell you to do! If you would just pay attention and do the simple things I fucking ask you to do I wouldn’t have to yell at you like this! But you’ve been too fucking stupid to do a lot of things, like listen to me when I tell you to not get the fucking dog’s nuts cut off. But you thought you knew something and it would be a good fucking idea to go ahead and do it any ways and now we’ve got that cranky little bitch who tries to bite me every fucking morning.”
“Are you ever going to get over that? I’ve said I was...”
“Does sorry bring the dog back and put his nuts on him?”
“...No”
“Then no, I’m never going to get over it just like you’re never going to pay enough fucking attention to do what I tell you to the first time like making a decent fucking meal.”
He had back away from her face enough to make room for his hand to move between them. The curved, brown and broken nail at the end of his finger was stolid and unwavering in its extension. His drink splashed over her worn out robe unintentionally as he pushed the weathered digit into her sternum and asked wryly “Or are you?”
“Mike, you just spilled on me...”
He looked down slowly, and upon seeing that there was mainly ice left in his glass he looked back up and said plainly “Well then, I guess I need another drink.”

The Collective-I thought this would be appropriate for what we are doing here. Just ignore the fact I am writing this for class.

If we are to parallel the history of economy and social development with the progression of art form, then it should be said that the most contemporary form of art is the “most developed and complex” art form to be born to date; it is a form, in all its most brilliant and satisfactory varieties, that gives “insights into the structure and the relations of production of all the vanished social formations”—to make it applicable in this particular case, the previous conceptualizations of art. It could be said, then, that art in the present form is a collection of all previous things that have survived and helped to create the current mode of art. Marx gives the example of the human anatomy; whereas “the human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape” (Marx, 105). This is useful in understanding what remnants of the previous forms of art has remained a part of art, now. To use the example of the human anatomy and the evolution of our species, the “intimations of higher development…can be understood only after the higher development is already know” (Marx, 105).

It is imperative to the understanding of what we have now, to be aware of what “nuances have developed explicit significance within it” (Marx, 105). Art of now has pieces of what was. It would be almost impossible to discover a form of art, or any structure of social order, that hasn’t developed out of something formerly believed to be the most desirable or supreme order. That is not to suggest that an art cannot be fresh and appear to be new, but to recognize that most all human action and creation is a product of itself. If we are simply, to look at the evolution of man from ape to a “I think; therefore, I am “ sort of being we cannot deny the significance of the former species and what impact and lending value it has on the successive species. This can be true of anything, really. From one moment to the next, we process information and make choices based on what variables are or have become a part of us and that next moment have developed a different, but collective, understanding of what is.

A difficulty does arise when making this claim and, that is, what exact art form in this historical moment can we say is the most complex and developed form. That difficulty is art takes its form in many ways across a myriad of medians. So, in order to proceed with this accusation, we must begin to define what is the most applicable form of art to label supreme. And that is not an easy task for one must take into account all of the social influxes of our moment. It may even be a task that has any amount of answers. So, let’s take a specific form and trace its pieces of the past to ultimately define what art is at our current historical moment. And that’s not say that the aim is to ignore a specific median or create any sort of law in regards to what art can be, but the goal is to establish what is the significance of art in our time. Art has always been a display of the human experience and the question becomes: what of our time has influenced art and how does that art accurately reflect our collective human experience?

the start of a catalogue

in all of us, the waking world, we sing with the sweet
angelic stammering of the poor , old, lonely Spanish bum
sitting on oak bench in the bomb of golden dawn and the
busy pepper-blue suit swinging mahogany leather briefcase
before noon as a device of Time and the faithful little Italian
fella’ stacking newspapers for the morning clientele in the backroom
of his convenient shop and for the warm mother awake boiling
bottles above the steam of hot steel pot rubbing bags of ice on
the big bruises beneath her eyes and public bus operator too late
too care

Delays

So, I apologize for this not seeming like a serious venture, but in addition to the general delays, I was hit by a car last Friday on my bike. I'm fine, just don't remember a thing and am trying to restrain myself from strangling the bureaucrats who won't tell me a god dam thing. I'm pretty much in a perkocet coma these days, and there is an ever increasing amount of shit that needs to be taken care of.

Maybe a January 1 date? Or just keep posting stuff to give me something to read since I can't do much else of anything.

Cheers,
Michael

In Short

In short, Meredith was tired and underappreciated. “Life has not been kind to me,” she thought as the steel wheels groaned in front of her. She imagined the joy on the face of her high school friend Jeanie, whose rich husband made love to her in their mansion five nights a week. “Nine inches! Can you believe it? He even let me measure!” In her self-deprecating, sullen defeat, Meredith ran through her mental rolodex of successful high-school friends, grammar-school friends, and church-friends. Becca, from Mrs. Wentworth’s geometry class, had gotten a Masters from Columbia and now lived on Wall Street and sipped Martinis in clubs that required written invitations for admission.

A vulgar gurgling brought Meredith back to her own reality. The reality of a fat, alcoholic husband who’s greatest pride in life was being the starting quarterback his freshman year at a Junior College. At night she could hear him in the basement den regaling his friends of his sexual exploits during that sole year of “higher education”. He didn’t even bother to whisper or wait until Mary had gone to bed. His snide remarks imprinted themselves in her brain while she stewed in front of the television. After a time, she began parroting her father’s contemptuous speech. “I don’t WANT to eat the broccoli! You should, you are the fat one!” Meredith’s initial anger would then fade into sobs, whereupon she would run to the only room in the house where she was free from persecution. This provided only temporary relief however, for the unwarranted hatred she felt soon gave way to a vacuum of dependence that drained what little humanity or pride she still desperately clutched. For fifteen years she had stifled the gurgling and wiped the spit bubbles from her son’s mouth.

At first it wasn’t bad. She had received an outpour of praise and sympathy from her friends. “It’s so noble of her.” “What a sacrifice.” Where were her friends now? They realized what Meredith hadn’t. Thomas would never get better, he would never walk, he would never feed himself.

Earlier that night she had looked at him in the dark glow of his bedroom that was little more than a hall closet. Hearing her panting breaths behind him, he squirmed in his chair to get a look at her. When his efforts were not met with immediate success, he began thrashing his gnarled arms and the terrible, guttural gurgling came. It was the closest he ever came to speech. Meredith dreamed entire dreams of only the sound—like an enormous dying rat that would not die but instead writhed in pain for an eternity. She woke up in sweats, cursing that sound.

She said nothing, only sighed while she thought aloud in her mind, mentally annunciating each word that she couldn’t speak in the physical world. “If only my friends could see me now, feel what I’m feeling. If only Scott hadn’t been laid off.” Thomas began unleashing high-pitched shrieks. A steady stream of saliva poured down his chin and onto his shirt. Oh the buckets of spit she had cleaned in her life! Hundreds at least—enough to fill a small pool. Lately she had stopped trying. It was not so bad when he was an infant. All infants drool and spit, and at least then there had been some sentiment, however small, that it would stop some day. But now he was fifteen and small black hairs had begun to spring up above his upper lip, and when she wiped his mouth with a tissue she could feel them on the back of her hand. Soft black hairs not yet, nor ever to be, coarse with the violence of manhood. When it happened, the sensation would cause her to stop and dry-heave in disgust. He would only keep looking at her with blank eyes like baseballs. Sometimes he would cock his head to the side like a big ugly dog.

It bothered Meredith when he looked at her like that. In times of great stress, crazy thoughts would leap in her heart and she’d think maybe he enjoyed making her do these things, and that’s why he watched her with such intense fixation. Maybe he liked it.

She grunted under the weight of her load. The left wheel rattled. She looked left and right nervously. “I should have oiled it.”

Her husband had helped for the first few years, but one night she came home from the grocery store and through the kitchen window saw him hit Thomas when he wouldn’t take a spoonful of soup. That was practically the last time the two were allowed in the same room as each other. It was an implicit understanding; there hadn’t even been a fight. “In front of the window for all the neighbors to see?” was all she said.

Meredith blamed her doctor. She blamed God. The influence of God, not the man himself. In her father’s home her family danced around her like crazed harpies. After an hour she offered up the possibility that no one wanted to mention. They seemed to shout at her stomach that had not yet begun to show. “No Way. No How. God does not save those types of women.”

Seven months later she wore a ring and carried a seven pound burden in her womb. “If only… If only…” she would cry in her bed, no longer hearing her own voice.

Now she paced furiously down the crumbling path, her mini-van barely visible three-quarters of a mile behind them. She forced her husband to work overtime for three months to buy the one with the special lift operator. Thomas smiled his big dumb smile and tried to grab the salty wind as it blew into his face. Water fell from Meredith’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks, emotionless stone facades. It had already been decided. There was nothing to it.

The old wheels got caught in the uneven pavement every fifteen feet or so and she cursed audibly each time. She pushed faster. Thomas bounced in his seat, loving the game and gurgling accordingly She slowed when they got to the pier. Old splintered boards and pipes jutted upwards and pierced the starless night. Houses and playgrounds had been razed by countless storms and reborn as massive piles of debris that seemed to possess some artistic quality. She thought they might make a good photograph. A black and white one. In fact, she was fairly certain she had seen one just like it in a museum that her father had taken to her when she was a child.

At the very last plank she stopped and stood beside her son. Not another soul was around. Even the hobos held to much pride to sleep in such a place. A single tear fell from the tip of her nose and mixed with the gnashing ocean thirty feet below.

That morning, her wretch of a daughter had been caught stealing gulps from unfinished beer cans. She had inherited more than a sharp tongue from her father.

Meredith took a deep breath. Her big belly that had borne nothing but abomination flattened temporarily. She picked up her son from his chair and struggled mightily to hold him over the edge. His great big baseball eyes looked upwards as he hung over the water and for once she missed his gaze. Suddenly the moon burst through a thin cloud to lend its light to the scene, and she gasped in horror at the reflection she saw in a shattered mirror at her feet. Just then, Thomas’ black mustache brushed against her neck, causing her to cringe violently and let her arms fall limp. The moon, who had been the only witness, vanished again.

something of the past

The sky was full of blasted-fire and ghosts of the revolution circled the spiny coast of Cape Cod. They had pitched a tent, beside the hand-sewn backyard fruit field--beneath the budded-leaves of a ripe peach tree--made of oversized cotton sheets and oak branches for beams. It grew from the ground, a teepee of sort, taut and strung tight like deer skin over drying posts. There was even a smokestack and jumping red fire. Smoke rose and scattered, among dotted-white stars and distant planets, in strange wavy shapes on the inky sky. It moved as fog would, mostly from the sea--some from rivers and streams--through the far-away hills pillowed with ground-weary dead leaves and dusty brush.

They sat and laughed and drank cheap, Spanish tempranillo from old, rich leather sacks and rolled around for hours in the dewy summer grass. Far-off the sun fingered through the troupe of fresh clouds, mighty fists against the failing midnight, and painted thick, pink strokes of virgin light across the canvassed sky. The soft-hum of bird song bellowed and blew in with the symphonic breath of of the velvet wind.

He woke, slid along the sly, wet Earth, and reached for her warm, sweet-olive skin. Like so many times before he poked at the mess of an evening. But the space she had occupied, once curled into sleep, was now dented with a slight and shadowy curve of her body. The rumpled mound of bed linen, tossed dirt and fallen pine needle, hid, pinned to a cold pillow, his ruffled-red flannel. He swung the shirt over naked shoulders and rummaged the cool, wet, July grass.

His eyes scratched at the half-lit horizon for hers. She sat on her grandfather’s dock, built of thin, grey slabs of wood; her feet dangled and hovered above the slow and muddy river that bled from the ancient waves of the Atlantic. A parade of baby black sparrows flew like torpedoes above the quiet water. There was sadness in her face. Tiny boats roared by with containers of dead fish, gutted and packaged on ice, prepared for an afternoon party.

“You’re up early.” He toyed with the tips of her fingers. She pulled them away and tied them in knot on her lap.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice was raspy, tired. She must have taken a swim or something. The deep and mountainous curls, that once flowed, were now flat and dripped into the river. He stood and stumbled about the small, square dock. The dock swayed as he walked one end to the other.

“How about some breakfast?” he asked.

“I’m not very hungry,” she said.

“I’ll make some coffee,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s alright. You know—” he said.

“I do know, Jack. That’s just it,” she said.

an anecdote.

"When are we getting in?" she asked.

“About a half-hour or so,” he said.

“Thank heavens. These seats make me sore," she said.

work in progress...

Charlie Clemons, a ripened man in the late years of his life, sat at a table facing the bedroom. A fresh-pressed blue linen shirt draped from skinny shoulders and was unbuttoned to reveal a hairless chest and ribs that poked through the flesh. He had dark purple skin, rough and calloused, and eyes that popped from cavernous sockets, strained and boiled red. The light entered from the over the waters of the bay far off to the east of the city. It bent around the buildings, which paraded across a concrete land. It bounced through the street and sidewalk off automobiles and streetcars. It came into his apartment and jumped along the floor and settled smoothly on his hands. He dealt out a game of solitaire from a deck of cards, shuffled with vigor three times over. The number three played out in ways that a normal mind couldn’t imagine. Many mornings after he left the apartment and made a few stops that were required as a part of his daily regiment he walked around the city to search out the refrain of three in apartment numbers, billboards, the birds in park, the rhythmic pattern of foot patter on the road—anything that provided the relief he desired, anything to release his mind from anxiety and sadness and the deafening madness perpetrating the deepest chasms of his soul. He wasn’t entirely unhappy and from those who weren’t directly involved with the everyday musings of the man’s life would say he lived in a relative comfort. He had a home, with the dressings of a humble existence. Some things even that would be a considered a luxury—like the bed in his room or the working kitchen or the radio or the books on the shelves. There were visitors on occasion. There was talk and drink and smoke and the playing of cards. They listened in to the radio for ballgames and music programs and everyone left late in the evening with the full and complete sensation of having shared something with another human being. But somewhere inside of him, somewhere unknown even to him, something was lost or gone or simply hadn’t arrived yet. The world was a blue fog.

Gloria had come from the bedroom about the time he was to finished his game. It hadn’t happened yet, but he played so many times that he got to know when a game was about to close. She had showered and freshly powdered her sweet and rightfully soft skin and had water in beads in her hair. The drops fell to the floor and slapped against the wood. When he watched her, the world seemed to operate in slow motion. He watched the water drop and gravity pull at the beads in an attempt to break them apart and the floor succeed in doing so when the beads hit the floor and splashed up in millions of tiny little beads. They had been together for more years he cared to remember. Not because he didn’t want to or because it had become something other than love, but because he didn’t measure what he had—what they had—as anything but what it was in that moment, the eternal moment.

She snuck up behind Thomas, who sat tired, almost sleeping on his chest and kissed him lightly on his forehead. There had always been something motherly inside her. It wasn’t an outward disposition. More of an eternal sweetness that moved from her to others like a soft wave would swoosh across the body as it waded in shallow water. She had wanted children— a whole house full of the little darlings—but with all that was trapped in her, this wasn’t a real possibility. “You feel awfully warm, dear, ” she walked to the sink and filled a pot of faucet water for tea. The stove fired like a blank round and finally lit a a loud and hissing blue. The only card left in the deck snapped on the table as it exited Charlie’s hand and, relieved, he smiled at her. Each morning for fifteen years he tried to beat his record. This wasn’t his morning, but with the game finished the day could begin. She reached over near the sink and snatched the cup that stored his teeth. Under a stream of cold water she rinsed the teeth and placed them, on a napkin, in front of him. It always took a few tries to get the damn things in his mouth.

“Ah, there we go,” as he tried to fit them in just right his face tightened and made crooked shapes. Charlie had lost all of his teeth a few years back and needed a false set to talk and eat and all. He hated the way they felt on his gums. It was like wearing a cotton cloth pinned around his waist—made him feel vulnerable and childish “Thomas, let me have some of that,” pointing to a glass of water. He gargled a sip to make sure they were snug. “I bet you wish I lost these,” Charlie said.

“Wouldn’t have to hear you go on and on all the time,” Thomas said. The words leaving his mouth were muffled. His head was loaded and droopy and raised on his chest with each new breath of air. Thomas was the kind of kid that would drop by the apartment for a few days at a time and then bust out the place with nothing more than a word goodbye. This got to be so much a routine that no one worried when he didn’t show up for weeks and months. When it got to be the time for worry he came knocking at the door tired and straggly looking, usually hunger and smelling of cheap booze or other such things that he never liked to talk about very much and neither of them even dared to question. He had somewhat of a short temper, but was a kind and gentle kid at the core of his soul. Charlie sort of thought of the boy lovingly and all. That vacancy was never spoken of.

“You’d miss it. Tell him—,” he said. Charlie walked over to his desk and turned on a box radio that was leaning on the wall behind the desk. His father had given him the radio the night he died. The room had been too cold and together they listened to the evening jazz station, curled up in the covers of his bed. The radio disc jockey had been playing Yardbird straight through. At the end of the set Charlie turned to his father. His eyes shimmered pearl white. . “I want you to have that radio, boy,” he said. “It may be the only friend you ever have.” A heavy wood chair was pushed beneath the desk. Although it was messy, it was manageable, and had noticeable use. There was an old Smith & Corona, a rusty soup can full of black pens and sharpened pencils, a matchbook, two perfect pink erasers, abandoned paper clips, bent push pins, and all his lucky pennies arranged neatly on the space not occupied by the radio.

“I’m not sayin’ a thing,” she said. “Can’t be the sort of woman getting in the way of men.” The water began to slap on the inside of the steel pot, getting ready to whistle. She brought three mugs to the table. As the water left the pot, it left a trail of steam in the air. “Sweetie you really don’t look good. All the color is almost out of you,” she said. “You make sure to drink that up.”

“She’s right boy. Look at them toes of yours,” Charlie said. He came back to his seat and pushed it back a bit so that his legs were stretched beneath the kitchen table. His shirt was still unbuttoned. The blue linen almost touched the floor.

“Huh?” Thomas said as he swept dirt on the floor into piles under his feet. His head rose and settled on his chest.

“Your toes, kid—they’re curling,” excitedly pointing his finger at the floor, his arm pulling and retracting like a piston.

“What about my toes?” He said.

“They’re curling,” Charlie said. He went to grab at his toes and pull them taut.

“So?” He said, as he pulled his legs up and into the pit of his stomach. Thomas didn’t like anyone to touch him, especially an old man, and especially Charlie.

“Rub some lotion on ‘em,” he said.

“What?” He said.

“It could keep it off for awhile,” he said.

“What?” He said.

“I’m just sayin’, kid,” he said.

“Here, make him happy,” handing Thomas a bottle of lotion. “Please, please stop all this talk so early in the morning.” She said.

“Make sure you get it all up between the toes,” he said. “How ‘bout some breakfast?” Charlie said.

“Excuse me?” She said.

““Darling, would you mind making us some breakfast?” He said.

“It will be ready soon.” She said.

“Don’t worry about me. I better get going,” Thomas said. “I’ve got things to take care of today.” He got up from his seat, said goodbye and walked out the door. They could hear him on the stairs. The door slammed and he went off down the street.

“I worry about that boy,” she said. The eggs were finished cooking. She carried the plates in one arm and set them on the table. The light had moved off the table and met on the ceiling, complete and absolute. In the light, her eyes were a strange and dangerous green.

“Yeah, he’s a piece of work. No one is ever going to set him straight. “ He said.

“That’s what they said about you.” She said.

“He doesn’t have a woman like you. “ He said.

“He could.“ She said.

“Not like this.” He said.

“You do.” She said.

“They’re ain’t many people like you and me anymore.” He said.

“Somewhere.“ She said.

“Maybe.“ He said.

“I sure do hope so.” She said, kissing him.

“What time is it?” He asked.

“Almost nine.” She said.

“I better get going. “ He said.

“Me too.“ She said.

Chapter 2

The big old moon died. All the trees had turned out their green. People had come into the city for the fall spectacle, but the color had long since passed, and they had gone away. November made everyone nervous. It was near winter—the long and indecent winter, a winter like nothing else, a winter of pure, white, snowy death. Not a real death or anything, like that, but a death of motion more or less. And if people aren’t really getting out and around and all there really isn’t any reason to live anyway. The branches would be naked, stripped for the cold. A false orange glow would permanently beam from family homes in square swatches onto the sidewalk. The sad sun would briefly sing in the dying day and then fall void of permanence. An empty light would then fill in everywhere.

The staircase that went to the street had marks of former occupants. There were signatures of forgotten lovers and old friends scratched on the paint of the walls. A stiff, sultry air fussed around the narrow space that was somewhat like a missile silo and slowed him as he walked. He got to the street through the side door of his apartment. He never liked to get out for the first time in the morning and be greeted by a busy rush of sidewalk traffic. Charlie stood in the alley between his own building and the one that came up close next to it and breathed in a pocket of cold morning air. The space that separated the buildings and created a view of the street was about twenty feet wide. He looked toward the street, the people flying past and off to work or school or wherever really. He took his time and stepped onto the sidewalk when it seemed safe. About ten steps from his apartment stood a roadside diner. It had been in the neighborhood for twenty years and he has been in each morning since then. He pushed through the glass door of the diner and poked around with his grey eyes, nodded to Joe—the owner—who sat on a bar chair behind the counter reading the sports page out of the newspaper and went forward toward the back of the short room. He saw his friend through the thin slit that allowed plates to held hot before serving below a clothesline of receipts. Since grade school the two had been inseparable. They met on the schoolyard playing a game of red rover, red rover and waved to each other in the way old friends did, sort of throwing up the hands in recognition each other. Ray untied his apron and came from the kitchen onto the main dining floor. It held only had a few tables. The men sat at the far end of the long bar counter, near the swinging doors of the kitchen.

“You watch the game last night? They had it. Goddamn Yankees,” Ray said as he threw his soiled cap onto bar.

“Hello to you, too,” he said, sarcastically. He had a raw wit to him and thought it necessary to jibe at his friend from time to time.

“It just makes me so—“ he said.

“ I know, I know. You’re gonna go mad, man,” he said. There are some people that get real worked up over baseball. It’s a sort of sickness that comes into someone in there youth. The feeling after a game your team losing is kind of like the feeling of when a girl walks out. Only the difference is there’s one hundred and sixty five game in a year.

“There’s always tomorrow,” he said. “If they don’t win then, then I got the day after that and after that and then there’s next season and the one after that and after that—“

“I get it, man. You don’t need to keep going on and on like that. Better hope they win real soon,” he said. “I don’t wanna see what happens to you on a losing streak. You ought to find yourself a real lady.”

“She is my lady,” he said. “There ain’t any use fighting it no more.”

“You’re getting too old to run around,” he said. “Maybe find a nice gal, settle down, and make yourself a real home.”

“Man, shut it. I will do all that when I am fine and ready. I still got some game in me,“ he said. “When that runs dry I’ll come ask you for some advice on the matter of settling down.”

“Look forward to it,” he said.

“See that girl over there?” He said.

“The pretty-eyed gal you hired last week?” He asked.

“I came straight from her place this morning,” he said.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Honest, man,” he said. “She’s a mad one. I got her all tripped up.”

“You’re terrible,” he said. “This is what gets you into trouble. What every happened to treating a woman right?

“She didn’t say nothing,” he said. “I mean, she seemed to like it all fine and well.”

“They never say nothing when you come on all sweet and proper,” he said. “You should want to treat her nice. That’s what being a man is all about.”

“You used to feel differently about that if I remember correctly” he said. “You had a different woman three times a day.”

“Really, you’re awful. That was a different time of my life, man. I realized something when I met my girl, ” he said.

“Guess it hasn’t happened to me yet,” he said. “Why do you keep coming in here each morning, huh?” He asked.

“I like you too much,” he said. “Need the entertainment.”

“I ought to cut you off,” he said.

“You’d miss me too much,” he said.

“Maybe so,” he said.

“Up to anything tonight?” he said.

“ “She could be keeping my busy,” he said.

“How ‘bout you two come ‘be busy’ at our place?”

“You cooking?” He said.

“Sure. Something nice.” He said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve had good company.”

“What about that boy you always have coming by?” He said.

“Thomas? He’s in and out,” he said.

“You should keep from worrying about him, man,” he said. “It’s only gonna hurt—“

“Keep that to yourself, “ he said. “You know why I do what I do.”

“Alright, alright.” He said, “But you really should—“

“Ray—“ He said.

“That’s all I’m sayin’,” he said.

“Good. Ring the bell after work,” he said. “Should I look for two of you?”

“I would,” he said. “You don’t see how she looks at me?”

“I do,” he said. “That’s why I asked.”

“She’s really something,” he said.

“Keep up on her,” he said. “You may have something good.”

“Maybe.” He said. “I better get back to the kitchen.”

“Go, go,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

He sat a little while longer and watched the people talk and eat and felt a loneliness move over him.