he had driven up or walked up that
business park parkway to El Camino Real hundreds of times while his wife was
alive
and hundreds of times since she perished
while inside the car its
headlights shone up into the air as it climbed an embankment to the street
its headlights painted a street
pole across El Camino atop which a streetlight was mounted and took center
stage glaring at him through the windshield
he usually lowered his eyes not
to sacrifice his night vision and under his breath he bitched city management for
its poor placement the streetlight every time reminding him of architects who
drew buildings but not having to live in them they often overlooked errors that
an astute carpenter might recognise as apparent and obvious although if the carpenter was as slack as the
architect then in turn the errors might be seen by a possible buyer who would be
put off and confounded how it was that between two professions they didnt
see(or didnt care) to correct the errors and built it anyway
apparently street and city
officials wouldnt be exiting the business park during the evening
all this shit was irritatingly apparent
to him only because he spent six years drafting in industrial arts through
junior high and high school and ten years afterwards realising buildings and
homes from blueprints bringing them up out of the earth from foundation to erecting
sticks walls storeys and roofs his bitter
irritation with haphazard rote and their deficit not to step back and away and look
to really see then catch and remedy
their mistakes
his experiences in construction rarely
seemed capable of escaping their destiny to be a link in a chain of blame
when he walked home out of the
parkway he could sidestep and ignore the lamplight the belligerent sentinel who
watched in the dark cyclopean single-eyed a monster or something monstrous in
the world
there was much monstrous in the
world he didnt need a reminder for as
often as he left there he was imbued
with current events politics news(a newsboy who hawked papers and also
delivered a morning route every day) he didnt need a push to see the monstrous You dont have to tell me the worlds been
shaved by a drunken barber*
but during those hundreds of
times before his wife perished the streetlamp burned
it glared it nagged
and dependent on his mood if his mood had legs though he typically was
able to exhaust himself in the gym while away his angst dislodge any residual horseshit
from his day contending with people the damn thing could be annoying
or niggardly
when he drove he often amused himself by burying
the light behind the rearview mirror and pausing before taking his right he took
account of his restless shadow his head and shoulders cast onto the backseat
the mirrors shadow like a gun barrel to his skull blunt
or an odd antenna
he humoured himself whenever he
could
he was one of the jokers Dylan
wrote of and Hendrix sang
however after his wife
perished
his jokes were bitter acerbic often sarcastic
and sardonic
they shared a very deep connexion
he bolted upright in bed
awakened
by a surly SNAP
Whos
there
no
one was there
he
listened to his heart pound
he
listened to his breath lay over it like cheap frost
then
it wasnt as if he sat in bed at all
but was suspended
there
and not there
in
the dark bedroom growing more and more black
staying
the nights light and breath from entering through the screened window
Papa
his
daughters voice
his daughters
voice in the doorway
he couldnt see
he
couldnt see her at the doorjamb
Papa
then he saw her silver tears in her eyes
silvereyes
the silver streaking her cheeks
fearful eyes
Papa
hecroaked Yes
Sweetheart
The phone The hospital
he didnt need either
he knew
he knew she was dead
he knew the call was a formality
an informant calling
he was supposed to be a cog in it
Tell them well be right there
hed never been hit so hard so hard
he boxed sparred he made
Chicagolands Golden Gloves semifinals
never sohard
and yet had the
breath to screamNO
NO
even though he knew better
and since she perished
often when he rolled up on El
Camino
braked to hold the car on the
incline
the streetlamp snapped off
its element coil suffering a duulll
burnt red
the first time it shut off he was
walking up the parkway
it arrested him
he was thinking of his wife
he stood and looked up at the lamp
stared into its blacker self
into the blacker space vacated
with nowhere to be
his daughters had moved away and
were into their lives as they should be
with nowhere to be
he stood there waiting
he was oblivious that traffic never
passed on El Camino Real that cars didnt come up behind him
he waited
then the light blinked on again
within a minute
never more
Odd
though it became less Odd the
more it happened
if he was in his car and made his
righthand turn he watched its blackness through his sideview mirror
it flashed back on before
he drove a hundred yards
Flash Hello Soon
it happened at different times of the night
itd
be burning bright then gone
BLACK
he couldnt tell if it mocked him
or teased
and when it happened it elicited
a mutter or a groan they
were particularly rare because he wasnt one to talk to himselfdidnt bray
or try to sort things out aloud
he didnt converse with himself
those words and ideations he left
unspoke
he let them to sort themselves
out on a page or pages of a letter to his daughters his parents
his sister
or when he wriote
2000, Monday,
20 2. 17
0941, Twosday,
21 2. 17
1104, Day-between-Two-Ts, 22 2. 17
1428 days left or
<
* Meet John Doe drunken barber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ool_2XNScVQ
Star-Spangled Banner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoZXu-nlbzo
Dylan/Hendrix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY
