Magic Christians Chew the Rind

Monday, September 03, 2007

It was lonely awake on the bus.

[Work in Progress]

"I Can Hear Them Now, Even Here"

Tuesday, out of eggs; a trip to the grocery store, dodging awkward glances. I hear them when I crack one brown egg on the side of the counter, and I hear them when I'm whisking the egg in a glass bowl. TV's too loud. Turn it off altogether, it's making me feel stupid. It's evening, almost fall. I hear them when the thunder claps over the apartment. Forecast said rain, but until now I've seen no evidence of it.

A time before, though. This time before I was on the bus to Dallas. Some buddies of mine and me went on the bus together, a dollar two ways. We drank at the bars and met (but did not sleep with) many women. It was nothing unusual. The seats on the bus were nice, like airplane seats. The two other guys, my friends, slept through the ride home. The dusk looked like a bruise. We had a pretty good time, and I halfway wished those two guys would wake up and talk to me. It was lonely awake on the bus. It was not really that unusual. But driving through Dallas dusk! That's the thing.

I can hear them now, even here. I can hear the violin. There's a sudden collapse of the memory, an implosion of nostalgia that grabs the shoulders, and I can even hear the baby laughing. I can almost be right there, where I was on so many soldiering nights of my youth, smoking a cigarette on the apartment steps. Faint saw at first, then a quick beautiful swipe. Then it starts, the music.

I heard this poem once: "Why is fortune so capricious? / Why is joy so quickly done? / Why did you leave me? / Why have you gone?" And I think it's mostly true. When I hear the wild ducks leaving the pond where I am now, I think it's true. There's a place I'm going to one day. A violin swells in my brain and I know it's true. I don't claim to understand poetry, but I can recognize it when I hear it.

I stretch up and out against the kitchen wall. Shower's running, but it's too late. Ear against plaster, I stretch my fingers out across it and I know they're there. God, I can hear it as if I were in their room! And I can almost see them, the way music makes us almost see things. I have seen all of this before: an older Asian man, he's playing that violin to his child, a baby. His wife is making breakfast for dinner. Shower's on and I lower my head slow. I've played the stock market and I know about a gamble, but if there's something ever missing in the world it's men with families, playing violins to their children.

And sometimes I think of that poem even when I don't hear them, when I'm not even thinking about them. Every word turns over and shows me itself from every angle, and it's just got to be true. I know it's true when I wake before the sun's up, scared; when I'm alone in the supermarket, collar up against the cold; at home where it's so quiet I can hear a book sliding from its sleeve; when there's a paper headline I find interesting -- "YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN TEA AT HOME" -- and I put it in a box. (I'll eventually do something with all of them, but I haven't decided what.) There are things you just know, but there are people in the world we can never know, and it's mostly a shame that it's our only life.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home