dmseay

I listened to the rain for hours; hitting windows, bouncing off rooftops, shimmering in the blue haze of a streetlight.

Parked on College Street in Montpelier, Vermont. Watching couples kiss as they walk out of bars. Running in the rain. Taking cover under tweed sportcoats, slickers, blue jean jackets. I see them in the glow of neon signs; red, yellow, blue, green. They are laughing. Why can’t I?

Midnight gets lonely. Leonard Cohen sings Hallelujah on the local public radio. I listen, keeping my eyes on the rain. The music goes in and out as thunder claps in the Northeastern sky. Water falls harder. I am by myself.

My girlfriend loved rain. We made love to its rhythm. In the morning light, we slept. Funny how things change.

She left him long ago. Didn’t even say goodbye. Wore a red dress. Had a flower in her hair; a yellow sunflower. Shined off her brunette strands. She just got in the car and went. Hadn’t heard from her in years. Papers were never signed.

When a woman says goodbye, she means it. But what if they just leave? Are they keeping a door open? he asked himself these questions. He wondered if she’d return in the autumn when the seasons changed. If he’d see her again in a white sweater rolling in the leaves. Kissing on park benches.

People asked where she went. Some said they saw her tending bar down state. Others told him to move on. Cousins and kin folk said she was no good. Told him they’d seen this coming for a long time. He just smiled. She’ll be back, the old man said. She’ll come back. Maybe she’ll come again in summer when pines are filled in full. Green needles are prickly. She’ll take my hand, and we’ll walk through the woods amongst oaks and cut hickory for a fire at night. She’ll be back, he said.

Winter came, and death was all around. Frozen brown grass covered in ice. Bare trees and sickly people. He waited until spring when tulips bloomed. Year after year. Telling himself she’d be here any day now. The table was set long ago. Two plates and fancy silverware with wine glasses waited for her arrival. A bottle of red was never opened.

She’ll come back, he said. When the winds die down and there’s a calmness. Yeah, she’ll be back.

Cold in the apartment. Listening to Les McCann and Eddie Harris. Lamp’s on letting off a little light. Not too much light.

Blinds are closed. No one sees in, and I do not see out. Only shadows on the walls and floor. A cactus stands in the window. Tomorrow, it will breathe in sunshine. Night will be over.

No sleep. On WKCR, they’re playing twenty-four hours of Monk. I keep switching back and forth between the tribute/ birthday celebration and old albums I have lined up on my bookcase shelf. Porgy and Bess by Miles Davis, Blue World by Coltrane, Sunday at the Village Vanguard done by Bill Evans Trio. My thumbs are getting dusty. Some of these I haven’t heard for a while. Yet, they have always been there for me in times of need. Loves lost, friends who’ve died, blue days, broken heart, they have saved me. I will forever be grateful.

There is silence outside. Drunks have gone home. Cars parked along the avenue. Leaves fall from trees in the midnight breeze. I hear a train coming through town. It mixes well with Monk playing Straight No Chaser. I pour myself a whiskey. Too late for coffee. Maybe too early. A shot of whiskey cures all; straight, no chaser.

The blinds were open. Everyone could see their business. A young, shapely wife walking around in nothing but a tee-shirt. Some dude smoking a joint and cleaning his shot gun; always holding that gun. And when he wasn’t holding it, the thing sat in his lap while he watched television all day long. Talk shows about people cheating on one another. Chairs flying around stage. Women crying and clawing each other’s eyes out. Cat fight TV.

At night, when he went to work at the factory, she’d sit in front of the glass sliding door naked, polishing her nails firey red. Adding lipstick of a bright pink, and brush her hair out. Boys around the neighborhood would watch from behind shrubs. One boy claimed it was better than his dad’s Playboys. They’d sit in wonder the whole time.

Every evening, except the weekend,when the moon came up, an orange Charger would pull into their driveway. This tall black man with long twisted hair would get out and go inside. Car stayed there all night until early in the morning when he’d come out and drive away. Same time every Monday through Friday. They’d blow each other kisses as he pulled out of the gravel driveway. A sweet goodbye.

A gunshot was heard around midnight. The dude’s rusted pickup was behind the Charger. A boy said he saw him walk into his house with the shotgun. Said he got it from his rack on the back, cracked, window, and then slammed the door. The boy also said he saw her lover lying there on the back deck of the house. Morning revealed a pool of blood on the wood.

A light is on over the stove. Smeared grease. A cinnamon scented candle burns on the kitchen countertop. The dog sleeps under a metal table. He measures out coffee, one scoop at a time, adds water, and waits.

Out of the kitchen window, he sees the sun come up. It dances above the first frost. A squirrel scurries cross the backyard. Coffee is almost ready. The fat man puts sugar in a cup and adds creamer. He pours the dark liquid and stirs with an old spoon his mother gave him. She’s long since gone. Leaving behind the trailer, he lives in by himself. No wife, girlfriend, or children, just him alone doing what he does every morning. He blows out the candle.

Daylight is not kind to the lined face man from Fort Wayne. The shades are pulled down. He doesn’t want to see outside. And, he doesn’t want outside to see him. Cigarette burns on carpet. An ashtray over flowing. His hound kisses him and licks his ruddy face. Soon, it will be dark.

It is now night, and streetlights shine down on asphalt. Moms are yelling for their children to come home. Dinner time. The middle-aged man sits at the kitchen table eating a TV dinner consisting of fried chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, and an apple cobbler. An Old Style sweats in his hand.

He listens to the local college radio station. Jazz is played by kids who are learning about Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball, and Bird. His roly polly fingers tap to the beat of Ray Brown’s bass line, feeding his dog scraps of bread by his side. The fat man has always shared with his fellow man.

Music continues to play. Eddie Gomez is playing with Jack Dejohnette and Keith Jarrett. Jarrett whines over keys hit by his bony fingers on the song Autumn In New York. The fat man laughs and claps to Jarrett’s howling. A squeaky young voice comes on and says, it is 3:00 a.m. The fat man rests. He closes his eyes for a couple of hours and dreams.

Trash burned out in the backyard. Pieces of black ash floated in dawn’s light. A dog tied to a pole barked as cars drove by. Gutters falling off the side of the house. Paint chipped. His rusted Ford pickup sat in the driveway on concrete blocks. The old man looked at all of this. What a lucky man I am, he said. Lucky.

The trashcan was overflowing. Cans of beer in a cooler on the front porch. A bottle of Wild Turkey hidden behind the toilet. His wife inside making dinner; pinto beans and cornbread. She looked at her husband swinging in a chair under a tree. What a lucky woman I am, she said. Lucky.

Years ago, the Harvester plant shut down. Assembly stopped. A lot of people moved on. Left town. He took a job at the local grocery store. She worked in the elementary school’s cafeteria. They put in their time; not much to show for it; two bad backs from lifting boxes of food, washing dishes, mopping floors; there is nobility in work. Is there not?

At night, they gave thanks before they ate. Asking for forgiveness and telling God how lucky they were. Lucky. Lucky.

He snuck out in the middle of the night. Quietly, he placed some clothes in a gym bag and walked out the back door. A streetlight cast light on the middle-aged man as he walked over frozen snow crunching under his boots. I’m done, he whispered. Time to leave yesterday behind.

And what was yesterday? A sexless marriage? Nagging wife? Ungrateful children? Work that was unrewarded? All of it, he muttered with a cigarette dangling from his lips. All of it.

The husband could not wait for a divorce. He didn’t tell her of his unhappiness. Money was left for them. That’s all they cared about, he laughed. Buy this, pay for that, he said, standing, waiting for the bus. They’re all children waiting to be changed.

Going downtown, he noticed all the shops and bars closed. Places he used to go to. The bookstore, where he bought Moby Dick had a light on inside. The owner often slept there. The middle-aged man would miss talking to him about literature, politics, and life. He waved at the store as the bus went past. The downtown diner was open. The fat man went there every Saturday to write in his journal over cups of coffee during his younger days. Now, he could write all the time if he chose; the freedom of being alone.

As he walked into the Greyhound station, he saw her there along with their two teenage children; the boy yawning and the girl looking at her phone.

And the wife? She had her arms outstretched. Saying, welcome home.

Christ Lives was spray painted on a brick wall facing the alley. Bums sat underneath the graffiti, drinking cheap bottles of red, proclaiming it to be the blood of Jesus. Old moldy bread chunks torn apart represented the savior’s body.

They read from the book of John. Prayed and crossed themselves. Sang Amazing Grace. Drank some more wine. Gave thanks.

The mission had nothing to do with their kind. Heads of the church said they were drunks. Uncleansed in the eyes of the Lord.

Whores walked by. Men fished in the dirty river. Vagabonds turned two fish into twelve. There was no bed for them to sleep in. A stone for a pillow.

And they begged just as preachers beg. Clothes in rags. Lice in hair. Prison tattoos. A life nearly over. Waiting. They were just waiting.

The two stood apart from each other; looking at one another across a room. Refrigerator hummed and colored pictures of naked women hung on the walls. Their eyes were focused. They did not make a move.

A gun was on the table next to the old man, and a butcher’s knife was held by the son. The radio played an old Tom T. Hall song. The father hummed along. It was a song that went, And I love you too….the boy’s hands were sweating.

Go on boy, dad said. Come at me. I’ll shoot you just like I did your cousin. Blood don’t mean a thing to me. Just as soon see you dead, he told him. The old man picked up the gun.

You had no right to kill that boy, the son said. Not even out of high school, he yelled.

Shhh, Pop said. That boy was stealing from me. He’d come over here and make nice, then rob me blind. Meth heads. All they do is ruin things. Families, communities. This trailer park was a lot different before they started cooking that shit up. Kids played on swingsets in the park. Now they don’t come out at all. Moms walk them to the bus stop.

He needed help.

Horse shit. That’s what they all say. And we’re supposed to feel sorry for them, the boy moved in closer to the old man. He could smell the beer on his breath.

Put the gun down dad.

Put that knife down, the boy shook his head. I guess what we got here is a real Mexican stand-off, the old man laughed.

You shot him in the back.

He was getting away.

I’m going to walk out of here. Are you going to shoot me in the back?

Have you stole from me? the boy shook his head. Then you got nothing to worry about.

The boy opened the door. Tossed the knife on the table. It bounced to the floor. The old man picked it up. His son looked at him. Asked, do you believe in forgiveness? the old man whispered no.

He shut the screen door behind him. Got in his Dodge. The old man watched him drive away.

I looked at him and saw nothing. No hair nor face, hands, and feet were missing, too. Just an outline was all that existed. But, I felt his presence. His warmth wrapped around me. A soul I could not deny.

How long? he asked. How long have you been waiting? the spirit looked right through me. An eternity? I nodded my head in silence. Has it been in fear or love? again, silence.

These days of waiting. Long days into night. Death insight. Looking through to the other side, but scared to make that jump. It is the leap of faith, he said to me. Letting go of this world and entering a final destination where troubles are cast aside and love abounds, invisible arms reached out to me. Make that jump, he cried. Do it.

Asleep for so long. Wanting to see. To walk again. Overcoming death in this life. These dark days. Where hour upon hour the flesh is toyed with. Evil lurks.

But in the valley, it is green. New beginnings, the ghost whispered. Your days of longing will be over.

Will they? I thought. Will they? If only I could take that leap of faith.