dmseay

It’s four o’clock in the morning. Christmas lights shine on the trailer in July. A Ford up on concrete blocks.

The porchlight is on. A million mosquitoes fly around it. Cigarette butts soaking in a bucket of rain water. The grass is yellow.

He drinks his coffee in the dark. There are no lights on in the home. The black liquid, from the day before, is cold. He stirs it with his finger, then sucks the tip. The old man takes a sip. Bitter, he says. But it’ll do.

Cars and trucks go up and down Highway 10. Mostly semis coming and going to and from the truck stops up on 65. Names like Pilot, Love’s, and an adult shop called The Lions Den, dot the interstate. The old man listens to the soft noise and continues his morning routine of cold coffee and loneliness.

This hermit sits in his easy chair with cigarette burns in it. He lights a butt from the ashtray and begins to sing while picking up a piece of short rope on the dingy carpeted floor. The song he’s selected is Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

Now everything is easy cause of you, he sings softly while making the rope into a noose.

I’ll light the fire, he continues singing and places the noose around his neck. While you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today….

There’s no such thing as peace anymore. Nothing is tranquil. I yell out for solace. But all I have are more grievances. Noise. I want to escape noise. Guns fired. Sirens screaming down below. Cars with no mufflers. A city bus applying brakes. Children crying. Drunks in the alley. Garbage trucks stopping every five minutes down my street, dumping trash; beer bottles, metal popcorn containers,  wooden tables crushed, bed frames busted, old toys kids have outgrown; how sad is that.

The worst is the screaming of lovers down the hall. Either yelling in ecstasy or voices raised to the level of murder. One moment fucking and the next pulling weapons. Threatening each other. Hitting one another. Bodies bouncing off walls.

And here I sit, wanting peace. Thinking to myself, you never had it so good.

I’m not going anywhere, he said.

Staying?

Yeah.

We fight too much, she said.

Right.

If you stay, we’re just going to argue more. Every night. Always. You say something. I say something.  It gets mean, she fumbled through her purse for a cigarette and lighter. I’m tired of it. I ain’t got no more fight left, she raised her hand and the waitress came over. You got any matches?

This is non smoking, the server said. You have to go outside.

No smoking in a bar? You got to be kidding me. Can’t smoke anywhere anymore. They’re taking away our rights. Right?

Sure, the redhead walked away.

I got a lighter. Let’s step outside, he said.

In the cold? Are you nuts?

Yes, and yes. Price you pay for sin. Bible says the body is a temple, he laughed.

Right. Have another drink. She shook her head. You know at Curly’s you can smoke.

Yeah. On the deck, you can.

I could’ve swore they let you smoke inside.

Nope. Only on the deck. Come on. Let’s go outside. I could use one myself. 

OK. Wait. We got to quit fighting.

Yes. Yes, we do.

I love you.

I love you too.

Children played in the front yard as I drove by; throwing snowballs at each other. Dad was shoveling the driveway. Mom looked on behind a fogged-up glass door. Candles were in the windows.

I lived there as a child. I remembered cold days like this. But the driveway was never cleared. Snowballs were never thrown. There was no glass front door. Just an old house in the middle of the street; shutters falling off.

My dad would be gone for weeks at a time. He drove a semi all across half of the country. Delivered cars from the Midwest to the East Coast. Used to tell stories about Boston and New York. Dreamt I would see those towns one day. Still haven’t. 

This town. It keeps you here. Locks folks in. People never leave. They’re just like me; drive around thinking of the past; high school football games, first job they ever had at the Kroger store , going off to college only to come right back; pulled in like a rope was around them. 

Some day I’ll leave this town. Some day.

A candle burns. I light a cigarette from the flame. Black smoke quickly disappears.

Cans of beer are opened by the two of us. Together, we sit on a busted old couch with springs exposed, holes in cushions, and tiny cigarette burns. A small transistor radio plays bop jazz into the night.

We sit there listening to Ornette Coleman play a long disconnected song with high notes and screechers, low tones driving home a message in the language of avant garde. He reaches into the Styrofoam cooler and grabs two more Black Label beers. The red cans are still cold. Ice is beginning to melt.

Is this heaven? I ask. Or are we in some kind of hell? My friend looks at me.

Shhhh. I’m listening, Paul says. Please be quiet. I know this song. I’ve heard it before.

Sounds like a mess to me, I tell him. A wonderfully satisfying mess.

Shhhh.

The song ends, and Mingus begins Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. Horns slather over the small room. Even on a small radio, the sound is big.

No, Paul says. This is as close to paradise as we’ll ever get.

Smoke rises, and the candle becomes a pile of orange wax. It is dark. A college kid’s voice comes over the air, saying, That  was Charles Mingus with Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. And before that was Ornette Coleman playing Focus on Sanity. Time is 2:43 in the A.M.

A cigarette glows in the dark. Men talking in an alleyway. Trucks parked off to the side. Old broken down Fords on their last leg, rusted Chevys waiting for scrap, filled with junk, busted televisions, soiled mattresses, torn lampshades. Voices are heard from a small group of Mexicans, drinking beer and laughing at jokes in Spanish. A voice from a window above tells them to pipe down. It’s four o’clock in the morning.

A gun is pulled. Again, Spanish is spoken. Something like, I’ll kill you, he says. The window is shut.

He points the gun up at the window and shoots. Glass breaks. The three Mexicans laugh harder, cheering him on. 

Shoot again, amigo. Let him have it. They don’t want us here. Fire again.

The old man comes to the window frame. Yells, I’m calling the cops. Get out of here. Better yet, I’ll kill you myself, he says.

Within seconds, the old man is back at the busted out window, aiming a shot gun at the three down below. They hide behind their pickups. The old man reloads and shoots again. Sirens are heard. Lights shine in the other windows. Nighttime is over.

Dad drove me around at night after dinner. It was the same course every evening; took Broadway into town past the  Kroger store, fire station, used car lots, banks, Long John Silver’s, McDonald’s, and a law firm with a sign that said Lowmer and Green.

He’d turn onto Main Street and head downtown, where there was a couple of whore houses with names like Kings Manner and The Doll House at one end of the street heading into town and the other leaving town. Cars were always parked in back. Neon signs fluttered, open 24 Hours on both. My dad would say the devil lived in there as we drove on. I suppose he was right.

We always wound up at the liquor store out by the highway. Old vagabonds asked for change. Women in dark glasses went inside quickly. My dad rolled up the windows and told me to stay right there. I’ll be out in a bit, he said. Just wait.

I sat there humming along with songs. Old jazz on the public radio station. Coltrane, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, they played all the greats from the past, making me wish I was born in another time. Maybe another place.

He’d walk out, holding onto a brown bag at the top. Placed it between us. It was always between us. And drove back home without a word. Just jazz playing. Under streetlights and stars.

Rusted Ford out front up on blocks. Grass is yellow from winter’s anger. Piles of leaves with frost on them.

I heard you come in the front door, she said. Usually, come in the back.

Felt like mixing it up a bit, he told her.

Did you wipe your feet?

Everything is frozen out there. No need.

Well, take your boots off.

Too cold. My socks are thin. I don’t have those wool ones like you got, he looked at her.

Right. Always complaining. You want coffee?

Sure. He reached up in the cabinet and got out a bottle of whiskey. The kind with the turkey on it. Gobble gobble, he said.

Too early for that, she said.

Never too early. It’s almost noon. 

A loud siren blasted throughout the village, signaling that it was 12:00. They both covered their ears.

The wife poured him a half filled cup of coffee. He topped it off with the Wild Turkey.

You haven’t even gotten dressed yet, he said, looking at her in her robe with yellow chicks on it. It’s noon for Christ’s sake. I’ve already put in a day’s work.

What have you done?

Raked the yard.

Why?

Cause that’s what people do.

That so?

Yeah.

People live normal lives. They have jobs. They don’t live off the government.

I earned that money.

Right.

I can’t help it if my back is messed up. Not my fault I slipped.

I suppose.

Why are you like this? Angry all the time. Mad at the world. Pissed at me.

Tired of being poor, Ronny. This ain’t what I signed up for.

What did you sign up for?

I don’t know. Not this.

To have and to hold. Till death do us part. We agreed to that.

You were drunk.

Still meant it. Didn’t you?

At the time. Yes. Things change.  You’ve changed.

I’ve always been like this.

A drunk?

Don’t criticize my endeavors. You sit around here all day in that robe. Doing nothing. I at least go into town.

You go to the bar. Drink up your disability check at the first of the month, and then we ain’t got nothing for thirty days.

Do you eat?

Barely.

Looks to me you eat quite a bit.

Sonofabitch.

There’s people in China starving.

Silence.

He sat at the table, drinking his coffee and whiskey while she walked down the hall and slammed the door shut to their bedroom.

Young couples jogging. An old man walking a small dog. Violins play.

Snow falls over upper Manhattan.  Kids make angels with spread arms and legs. Horse-drawn carriages pass by.

The Dakota looms over the park. Tourists take pictures of where a man was killed. Strawberry fields forever.

I sit and watch as the sun comes out. Clouds part. This bench was dedicated to Ethel Goldberg by her late husband Samuel.

My rent is free.

You never cared, did you? he asked. Whether I survived or not. Keep on living or die on the spot, he told her.

That’s not true, she told him. I cared plenty. Watching you go through that was not easy. There were times when I had to step away.

You stepped away a lot. Went to the bar and kept on stepping, he laughed. You never came back.

I wanted to. Doesn’t that count for something?

The ghost shook his head. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a gold-chain watch. The face had big Roman numerals on it. It ticked every second.

See this? her husband asked. Peter gave me this when I walked up to  the pearly gates. The saint  said to keep this on me. Told me to keep track of time. Minutes, hours, spent walking this earth until it ends. The days will get shorter, Peter said. Time will run out. Before it does, make amends. Then you’ll have peace.

I see. You’ve come to say you’re sorry? she asked. What for?

There were times when I could have stayed with you as well. Times when I just left.

I appreciate that. I didn’t want to leave you there alone. With all the drugs I thought you wouldn’t notice.

No. I felt your presence and your absence.

I came back, and you were dead, she said. Came back, and you were gone. Wasn’t fair. I just needed a break.

Shhhh. It’s OK. I forgive you.

The watch kept on ticking.