dmseay

there was never a sound out of ’em….not a word…not a beep…nothin’…he’d just sit there in silence…lookin’ at the phone the whole time…waitin’ on it to ring…he wanted that phone to ring…

but it never rang…no calls ever came through…sometimes it’d look like he was ’bout to reach out to someone…he’d pick it up…look at it…study it for a little bit…then put it down…go back to lookin’ at it….

369-0416…., he’d mouth the numbers…,369-0416…, silently he’d repeat that number at times…lips barely movin…just ‘nough to make it out that these were numbers….put his finger on the digits as his mouth motioned…,369-0416…,could never complete the call…

everybody in town wondered what happened to him when she went away…his body and soul were taken over by this quietness…this awkward quietness….women would say hello to him…men would tip their hats…but there was no response…just kept lookin’ at that phone…waitin’….waitin’…

just waitin’…

the apartment was pitch black…no running water…bills had been skipped…a cat in the corner made noise all night long…howling in darkness…wanting for food an’ water…a cup of kindness was out of the question….no matter how loud she meowed…nothin’ was comin’ her way…

an’ a portable radio played jazz from ‘cross the river…in the night-time when the skies were clear you could hear Trane…Miles…others comin’ over the Mississippi at 2 or 3 in the mornin’ as cigarette smoke rolled out from under her doorway…a whiskey voice sayin’…,shiiiiit….shiiiit….where i put my loosies….where i put my loosies…,coins in a can for a few more tomorrow…an’ the next day…an’ the next day….there was always another day…..

strange phone calls could be heard at all hours…., I do it for $50…that’s right…$50 an’ I’ll give you whatever it is you need…whatever it is you want….,she’d coo…., naw I come to you…I come to you….you mobile…we do it in your car…that cool with me…cool with me….,an’ ten minutes later the door would shut…the knob would turn ….an’ the cat would meow….

out into night…down to the corner to be picked-up by an SUV…a mini-van…an old Volvo falling down an’ down an’ down ….slummin’ in South St. Louis…, you got rubbers…no glove no love…,she’d tell the boys from the burbs who’d come into town for a little strange…somethin’ the wife wouldn’t dish -up….secrets…these secrets…a life-time kept in secrets…

an’ by the door that cat would wait….,meow…meow…meow…., goodnight kitty….goodnight…..

it is two-thirty in the morning…WBGO plays jazz as i drink from Dionysus’ cup…looking out at a street corner ‘cross from a church…where parishoners go on Sundays to hear the word of god…a message of hope…

a baby was carried with ribbon in hair to her baptismal…a Mexican bride blew kisses to a crowd…elotes sold from a steaming cart…a communion for us all…

this corner where dope is dealt by homeboys lookin’ to get ahead…if not for a little while…cars pull-up slowly…windows rolled down…a transaction takes place…as guns blaze throughout the night…pop pop…pop pop pop…how we long for daylight…

and i watched the child bleed on that corner ‘cross from the church…to run from guns when all children should be in bed…or reading the good book…what has that brought us…

that corner…in a Midwestern city…where the workers at Falstaff were promised two cases of beer a day…you keep-up your end of the bargain boys….keep up your end…and labor got along with management…management got along with labor…on a handshake…a handshake…

i look down from my window…drinking a glass of red…it is dark…too dark…

light will not come for some time…

it’s 3 in the morn…and i am alone…in the past there were wives…lovers…drinks in communion at the neighborhood tap…those days are gone…they left with youth…

wanting someone to roll-over next to…under covers…a laugh…some snores…rhythms rolling ’round with a woman found years…an’ years…ago…who reaches out too…with naked arms…naked arms…

wanting to call…needing to hear that whiskey voice…wandering if she wants…if she wants…or have fears cast those desires to dust…forfeiting love…turning away from romance…where is truth…where is truth…

this night-time hour…darkness….it will pass onto another day…a walk…prayer…talking to myself…about her…about her…revealing all out loud to blank walls…a typewriter…telling the story once again…once again…

it’s 3 in the morn…and i am alone…

how much change was in the dryer….

nothin’ pop…

heard somethin’ rattelin’ ’round in there…

it was nothin’ dad…nothin…

you can’t fool me…them dimes was dingin’…

fifty-four cents…O.K. …two quarters an’ four pennies…

sounded like more than that…

what’d it sound like…

I’d say a couple of bucks…dimes…nickels…few quarters…

nope…fifty-four cents…thats it…

hand it over…

what’d you mean hand it over…

it’s mine…that change is mine…

this change is yours…

yep…I use it for Pepsi…

well…it was in my pants pockets…

in my dryer…

your dryer…

yes…my dryer…that money is mine…

you’re kiddin’ me…

give it here…

huh…

I mean it…

here…take it…lousy fifty-four cents…

now go look in the lint bin an’ see if there’s any more in there…

you go look…

you can’t do that for your old man…

i’m leavin’…

fine…run off like ya’ always do…you’ll be back…

don’t think so pop…

oh yeah…you’ve said that a hundred times…ever since you left the first time…comin’ back with your tail ‘tween your legs…you’ll come back…

goodbye dad…

hey…check that lint filter ‘fore ya’ go…check it…bet there’s five dollars in there…

goodbye…

never do what I ask ya’ to…never did…runaway….go-on…see ya’ in a week or two…you’ll be back…you will…

he’d sit alone in this dark old house…day-n-night…just sat there in his LazyBoy…feet up..
some crocheted Mexican blanket on ’em…colors of aqua an’ terra cotta…

and the T.V. was on…pictures flyin’ through air into his living room…no sound…just pictures…this man tryin’ to sell a car…some woman firmly holdin’ onto a bottle of Bud…Discovery Channel…History…lips movin’…only lips movin’…

said he wanted nothin’ else from life…just sit in silence…drinkin’ a Pepsi…eatin’ fried bologna…didn’t want visitors or friends or insurance salesmen stoppin’ by…wanted to be away from the world…far away…

so he was left there…in the quiet…keepin’ himself company…sometimes mutterin’ out loud ‘ bout a wife who’d died…a boy livin’ far away…

the phone would ring throughout the night…just ignored it…let it be…’ventually the old man unplugged it…better off talkin’ to no-one…no-one…

he’d sit alone in this dark old house…just sat there in his LazyBoy…feet up…some crocheted Mexican blanket on ’em…colors of aqua an’ terra cotta…

used to lay in cut grass when i was a kid… smell…a freshness to it…soft…made an outline of my body…some kinda’ fetal position…lay there like a baby in the evenin’ till mom called me in for a bath an’ bed… that grass was green…just as green as a Crayola…green as paint put-on with brushes by Mexicans in white clothes with colors splattered all over ’em…

an’ it would start to get wet when the sun was goin’ down…not as dewy as in the morn when dogs were barkin’ off in the distance and cars were startin’-up to take folks to work…factories…grocery stores…offices…but it was wet…it’d be wet when people drove -off an’ wet when people parked in their gravel driveways at night…car doors closin’ …screen doors openin’…you could hear chimes in the breeze…

didn’t wanna’ leave that grass…it was safe…a cocoon of some type…my mind would wander to far off places…dreamin’ of takin’ off on some exotic adventure….some cave with diamonds flashin’ all over….some enchanted forrest with a lushness ’bout it an’ a sun that would never stop shinin’…never get dark….

never bein’ called in for a bath an’ bed…

she grew tired of him…his crazy life of takin’ off at a moment’s notice had gotten to her…one day here…next there…just drivin’ aimlessly…way he led his life…no direction…

said she wanted somethin’ more stable…somethin’ to come home to at night after she’d worked all day…someone rubbin’ her feet while she watched T.V. …some man givin’ her a neck rub ‘fore she fell asleep…said that’s what she wanted…

an’ he wanted to give her all that…wanted to…but he couldn’t sit still…always movin’…1…2…3… go…an’ he’d be off…galavantin’ ’round the country like a rooster in a barnyard…chest out…stomach pulled-in…struttin’ through cities ‘cross ‘merica…gettin’ no-where…no-where…

she grew tired of him…his crazy life…just got tired of it…so…when he came back one day he saw she was gone…vanished in mid- air…like a popped balloon…all of her was missing…just a note was left behind…,I’m breaking up with you…Sorry…

he looked through her drawers…cedar-chest…closets…not a stitch…nothin’…just a picture of the two of ’em dressed-up in some wild West cowboy clothes holdin’ onto a bottle of Jack Daniels…both of ’em smilin’…

both of ’em smilin’…

an’ we’d move from place to place…not like Gypsies though…not in the middle of the night…

‘member all those moving vans pullin’ up in the driveways of our different homes…Harmony Grove…Lexington…Mt. Juliet…Cave City…Batesville…never stayed in one town for more than a year or two…always havin’ to pack-up an’ go ’cause of this job here…an’ dad got let go there…better opportunity in the North…always a reason…always a reason…

said goodbye to my friends at the end of the school year…never knowin’ if i was gonna see them in the fall when the footballs would be flyin’ an’ there would be a chill in the air…the fall was always comforting to me…it meant we weren’t movin’ for a while…two or three seasons of stayin’ put…

i liked that…those falls in the South with carnivals an’ rodeos…baked beans in a kettle with hotdogs floating throughout…always some kinda’ music playin’…nothin’ too sophisticated…just straight ahead rock-n-roll or a country song ’bout some woman breakin’ a man’s heart…i’d listen while sittin’ on the tailgate of an old station wagon…just listenin’…hearin’ deer hunters in the woods guns goin’ off…a locomotive runnin’ through town…

at night-time under starry skies you’d hear nothin’…maybe the hum of an old pick-up crankin’…every once in a while…a dog barkin’…but nothin’…only silence…comfortable silence…not an eeriness ’bout it…good for the soul…made ya’ think…think ’bout why we were leavin’…

an’ in the summer mornin’s when the dew was heavy on tall green grass…’fore the afternoon’s heat…we’d be movin again…just like that…just like that…

not like Gypsies though…not in the middle of the night…

we knew this was gonna’ happen to ya’…soon as ya’ quit high school…soon as ya’ left town so long ago…swearin’ you’d never return…sayin’ things like…,I hate this town…I hate you…I hate this an’ I hate that…, just filled with hate…said you even hated america…how can a guy hate america…but you said you did…

look at where ya’ live for Christ’s sakes…with a bunch of blacks in a black part of town where they never mow their lawns an’ gunshots go-off at night…how do you live like that…in some roomin’ house on the southside…Jesus…do you even have your own bathroom…

an’ you don’t work…what is it you do…just make-up stories…they’re all made-up…none of ’em’s true…your mother an’ I didn’t want this for ya’…now you were never the smartest but we figured you’d do better than this…livin’ in a single room occupancy with a bunch of old black men who smoke reefer and drink till all hours of the night while their women are out whorin’ ’round town…you got a woman that whores ’round town…do ya’…

your whole life is just un-american…you got your wish…you are not an american…sure…you live in this country but your not a part of this country…don’t you watch the news….don’t you wanna’ better yourself…

well…nothin’ else I can say…
just un-american…un-american…