the call came early that morning…’round three…I was up…drinkin’ coffee and waiting on the sun…always waiting on the sun…there’s nothing like watchin’ it come outta the black of night…cracking the dark…makin’ a beautiful orange color in the sky…it became my daily ritual…used to watch the great ball of fire come up in New York City each mornin’ as I’d walk out of the drop-in center on 30th…after contorting my body in a metal chair all night it was the sun that gave me hope…that bright star gives me hope…
she said she wasn’t comin’ home…said she was done with the whole thing…knew I’d be up…figured it was a good time to tell me…I listened to her…it wasn’t even difficult for her…she didn’t stammer ’round or nothin’…just out with it clear as a bell…,I’m leaving you…, she said…, I can’t take any more of it…, she was sure in her words…
I don’t know honey…I can never count on you to be there for me.., the emerald eyed fairy said…, one day you’re here in town…the next you’re gone on some bus windin’ up in Dallas…Nashville…used to get collect calls from Montreal…just tired of it…, I listened…,It’d be one thing if you were stable…but you’re not…all this runnin’ ’round…like some kind of Mexican bandit…surprised you haven’t robbed fillin’ stations or banks…maybe that’s next on your list…I don’t know…, I assured her it wasn’t…
then there was this eerie silence ‘tween us…neither one of us knew what to say…everything she said was true…I was always plannin’ on some kind of escape…just wantin’ to pack my book bag and leave…feelin’ trapped all the time…never able to keep down a job…it was she that put food on the table with her third shift trick down at the factory…she never wanted that…she had dreams of bein’ a mom…we tried for the longest damn time…it just never worked out that way…
so…she called me on her break to tell me she wasn’t gonna come back home till I was gone…said…,Take your time decidin’ where it is you’re off to this time and when you’re gone give me a call…, that’s what she wanted…
I told the redhead I’d oblige…she told me there was a couple hundred bucks in the dreser drawer I could have…, Hey…maybe you should head out West this time…try your hand at bein’ a cowboy or somethin’ like that…, she laughed…, I mean…you get up at all hours anyway…with your coffee and cigarettes…maybe you could be a real Marlboro man…, told her we’d see ’bout that…
we got off the phone and the sun was comin’ up…that sun that gives me hope…I watched it peek through the clouds…watched it break like an egg over the city…looked at it…realized dreams come true…dreams come true…
dmseay 