dmseay

A broken clock. Hands stuck on 6.  Microwave doesn’t work. The couch has springs coming through  cushions. TV lays on its side. He takes an aluminum baseball bat and starts swinging wildly at everything in sight. Turning in circles and missing all that he tries to hit. Bat is thrown down on the floor.

He opens the refrigerator, and a loud humming noise comes from it. There is nothing inside of it. No beer. No bologna.  Not any bread. Nothing but mold encasing the walls. The young man takes his thick finger and runs it over the green and black growth. He smells it and then tries to turn on the water, which has been turned off for a month.

Goddammit,  he swears. It’s all broken. He picks up the bat and begins beating on the faucet. You sonofabitch, he says. I’ll show you. He continues hitting the water spout. Come on now, he yells. Is that all you got? He gives up.

Tired. Beat. He sits on the floor and tells himself that all is OK. All is OK, he says over and over. All is OK.

He looks up and sees a painting of an old man praying over bread. He stares at it. He gets off the kitchen floor and walks over to the painting. With his forefinger, he traces over the picture.

All is OK.

Broken glass on the floor. Busted up dishes. A twenty-four case of Old Style on the countertop. He sweeps and then drinks. Sweeps a little more and drinks a little more. He babbles about his losses.

She was a good one, he says. Would’ve hung onto her if I knew how. He takes another drink. Broom in hand, he bounces the bristles on the linoleum floor. I thought I gave her everything, he stood still. Said she wanted freedom. I gave her freedom.

The old man looks outside, and it’s  snowing. Winds shake the pines. He drinks again from his can.

We used to celebrate Christmas.  Alone. No kids. Maybe she secretly wanted kids. I don’t know. We tried in the  beginning, I guess. Just screwing all the time. And then there was nothing. He sits on the torn couch. His knees bend up to his belly.

Then there was that one I met on the road. She was really something. A real looker. Took me for all I was worth. Emotionally, that is. Thought I really loved her. Hell. Maybe I never knew what love was.

He goes back to sweep. He sings Lush Life by Billy Strayhorn.  He stops and throws the broom across the kitchen.

And then you’re alone.

A bottle of vitamin D on the coffee table. Books lined up next to it. Medicine bag filled with pills sits on the end next to a typewriter. He sits on the couch surveying the objects. Whiskey in a shot glass in hand.

The radio is turned on. It’s the birthday of Dizzy Gillespie. Twenty-four hours of the trumpet player on WKCR. A tribute to his genius.

He hums along to the music and looks through his brown bag. Ten different kinds of prescription pills ranging from medicine for mental illness to diabetes. The old man downs bottles of each. Swallows them with another shot of Sazerac, places blank paper into the typewriter, and writes, THE END.

Lawnmowers. Fathers yelling at kids. Unhappy housewives. Hummingbirds suck on sugar water.

The grills will be burning soon. Overcooked steaks. Corn on the cob. A watermelon diced. Vodka and cranberry in a tall glass.

Music plays. It’s all pretend. Dogs  barking behind fences. Swimming pools above ground. The smell of chlorine fills the air.

And, as miserable as they are, mom and dad are proud. They pulled off the American dream.

I drove out to see her. It’d been years. Saw a picture of her, a snapshot of how she used to be; tall, tanned, and blonde with green eyes. Looked like emeralds in the night. Shining under streetlights as we talked just before going back to our spouses; best kept secret in town.

She kept saying she was going to leave him. Said she was going to leave all this behind; the car, money, house, kids. Just take off. She was kind of selfish that way. Always looking out for her own interests. No matter how crazy it was. She always followed through. Nothing stopped her. I always admired that.

Annie died about a year ago. We had a proper funeral for her. Will, our son, sang her favorite song. Ginger, the youngest, said the eulogy. I walked around thanking folks for coming. Made sure the trays of beef and chicken were hot. Annie always hated a cold meal.

A few months had passed, and I heard from her. First time in twelve years. Said she got my number from a friend of ours. Told me how sorry she was about Ann’s passing. I told her thank you and pictured her in my mind how she must look now.

She said her hair was now gray. Long, but gray. No surgery, still had the same body. Maybe a sag here and there. But, pretty much the same.

I asked her if she still had green eyes? She laughed. Told me some things never change.

His hands were as hard as the jawbone of an ass. He had this rhythm when he punched. Danced around the ring, too; an unstoppable force.

I would watch him destroy opponents on Friday nights at the armory. Amongst the cigar smoke, cans of beer, cigarette butts on the floor, the cursing, and the screaming, I cheered him on.

Come on, Joe. Knock him out, I yelled. Get him. Get him, I screamed over fat men talking trash. Kill him.

The armory was no place for a twelve year old boy to be. My dad knew where I was, but mom didn’t have a clue. It’s our secret, Dad said. If mom asks where you were, tell her you were doing homework at a friend’s house. He laughed and gave me a ten spot. Years later, I wound up paying it all back when I took care of him in his final days. Life comes full circle.

Joe was undefeated. No one was even in the same class as him. The heavyweight was in a league of his own. Except one night, he didn’t look so hot. Fast Eddie was giving him a beating. I remember watching in horror as a childhood hero went down in the ring, bleeding, slow moving, holding onto the ropes till the towel was thrown in. It was not Joe’s night.

I told Pop about it later. He told me that some nights are like that. In life, eventually, you lose. But if you get back up and prepare for the next match, you’ll be fine. He patted me on the back and drank his Schlitz.

Joe never fought again after that night. He never got back up. A few years later, I found out that big Joe had passed. Got shot in a liquor store by some punk who was holding up the place. Joe was just an innocent bystander. Died with a bottle of Colt 45 in his hand that was as hard as the jawbone of an ass.

Cigarette butts piled in an ashtray.  Crushed beer cans on the floor. Rain comes through unsealed windows. He places towels at the bottoms of the frames.

Water damage on the ceiling. Big brown circles mark spots. The dry wall is tearing apart. Photographs of naked women thumbtacked over holes. The old man sits in a recliner with foam padding pushing through the arms and seat. Springs are coming through the cushion. A bucket catches rain.

He’s reading Ralph Ellison’s  Invisible Man. Reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He lights a cigarette with a match and shakes it, throws it on the floor. Shakes the box in his ear. A few left, he says.

The old man remembers reading Ellison the first time. Race, politics, a country gone mad. Not far from what it is today, he laughs. Pages yellowing.

I wanted to be a communist when I was younger, he says to himself. I thought that was the best way. The romantic way, he laughs. He adjusts himself in the chair. Puts the book down. Lights another cigarette. 

He’ll be coming for me soon, he says. Maybe a year or two is all I have left. You never know. He stares at the damaged books stacked in milk crates. Dostoyevsky, Joyce, Miller, Ginsberg, Kerouac, to name a few. Yeah. He’ll come to take me soon. The old man coughs. And then all this will be gone. Dumped out in the street. Just like all the books in America right now, he sips on his Old Milwaukee.  We are done.

I took him fishing. He used to enjoy that. There, he sat on the river bank casting his line into the muddy water. A can of Pepsi in a holder on his folding chair. 

Do you remember when we used to fish? Dad  nodded. He pulled his line a little tighter.

Yeah. He said. We rarely caught anything when we moved north.

That’s right, I told him. In Arkansas, we got those big catfish and bass. Few  buffalo, too. But they were always so boney.

Must have been a million bones in those dudes. You could pick your teeth with them. He took a sip of his cold drink and reeled his line in.

Yeah.

I miss your mother.

I know. I know.

You never loved her. He cast  back out into the Kankakee.

What do you mean?

I could always tell. That’s why you left home so young.

Don’t start, Dad.

It’s true.

You’re all about truth, are you?

Let’s just fish. Shouldn’t have brought it up.

There was silence between us for a long time. An hour of quiet. Squirrels jumped out of trees. Birds flew over. Storm clouds approached.

We better get going, Dad.

I suppose so.

We did not talk on the ride back to town. I opened the door for him, and he got out, not saying a word. Fell asleep in the recliner. I placed a blanket over him and turned out the light.

He never woke up.

He carries a two by four. Swings  wildly. Talks to himself. Mumbles and shouts. Opens dumpsters while walking down alleys in South St. Louis. Looks on the ground for cigarette butts. His tee shirt says, Freedom Ain’t Free. A hawk soars above. Rats scurry.

Give me a twenty, the tall blonde kid asks the short fat black hooker hiding under the fire escape. Come on now, he threatens. I know you just got paid.

I ain’t giving you shit, she says as she swallows mouthwash. Go on. Get out of here. I’m trying to do business.

He laughs and unzips his shitstained pants. Go on. Take care of this business I got. He drops the two by four to his side.

Go on, Billy. Leave me alone.

Come on now. Give me a twenty. That’s all I want. I’m sure you got more than that, he shifts back and forth, side to side. What the fuck? I ain’t got all day.

What you got? A business lunch downtown? You a C.E.O. or something. Shit. Go on. The hooker begins to walk away.

Come back here, the junkie picks up his board. I said, come back here.

Fuck you.

You ain’t so important. You just like the rest of us out here, Billy yelled. He wants to run. Chase the girl down. But he’s too tired. Too weak.

More than you, she yells back. 

He spies an open dumpster across the alley. There’s no garbage in it. This will be his home for the night while whores walk Grand Avenue and cars drive by slowly.

There is music coming from the bars. All kinds of music. From hip-hop to soul and some old Lynyrd Skynyrd as well. Billy lies in the dumpster with his piece of wood. He sings along. Oooo that smell….Can’t you smell that smell…he closes his eyes and waits until morning.

They sat on the couch watching Shark Week. Seven whole days and nights of nothing but sharks on television.  She didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

Blankets were wrapped around her and a bowl of popcorn at her side; her left hand was greasy from the butter and salt. Her other hand held the remote. She would not let go of it; like some life line. The tall brunette needed it to exist. 

He looked at his phone every once in a while to see what the time was. Every fifteen minutes, he checked it. Nine o’clock. Quarter past ten. Eleven o’clock. Two hours had passed. And still, it was nothing but sharks. People in search of sharks. Divers in cages teasing sharks. There were even people dancing with sharks. It would not stop.

He grabbed some kernels, which stuck to his teeth. Tried to hold her hand like in the old days. Her eyes remained transfixed on the deep blue and its predators.

Isn’t this fascinating? She asked. I love Shark Week. Tomorrow night, a whole new show. I can’t wait.

Yes. Yes, it is true. Of all the cable channels we have, which cost over a hundred a month, we’re watching sharks. Yes. It is truly fascinating. I must admit, he looked at her. My interest in TV was starting to dissolve. But those sharks. Drew me back into a whole new world. 

Stop.

No. Really. Fascinating.

We could learn something from sharks.

Oh, I’m sure.

Yes. We can.

Like, how they mate?

We’re going to find out this week.

I can’t wait.