I just said goodbye to a friend

I just said goodbye to a friend

His wife died late in the Fall

It was snowing

His son returned that Winter and told him he felt it was best for him that he move to 

Washington State to be with him

So he and his wife could better care for him

What I asked

I knew he had cared for his wife during her long illness

I knew his heart broke when she died

I often saw him sitting in his studio after her death

He wasnt working

The potbelly stove was cold and unlit 

I never saw him in his studio when he wasnt feverishly at work with his paintbrushes 

and oils and the stove grinning with flames

He was more fun to watch than cartoons

I had known him since I was eight and took on the neighborhood paper route

I knocked on his Prairie Avenue door late one winter afternoon and introduced myself

Im your new paperboy  Is there anything I can do to make the Chicago Tribune

and the Chicago Sun-Times delivery better for you

I know you know young man that I only receive the Trib

Yes sir  but I also said  Though you might be better informed if you knew both sides 

of the story

A smart guy huh

Yes sir I read both papers myself

(and I did  I read them as I walked my delivery route pulling my red wagon stacked 

with papers behind me)

He bought a subscription to the Sun-Times

Young man

Yes sir

Do you cut lawns

I do I said I cut lawns Edge sidewalks Rake leaves Shovel snow too

He told me if I would like to make a couple of bucks to come back on the weekend 

and I could cut his lawn

Yes sir

We shook on it

I stood on the street curb and watched his face through the cab window as he and 

his son were to drive to O’Hare for their flight to Seattle Washington

I had to look up Seattle in my National Geographic magazines

It looked like a pretty place  A place where he could paint his landscapes again

He called them impressionistic

As the cab pulled away he waved wistfully

Behind his eyeglasses he was weeping

I hadnt seen a man cry before

He really touched me

Men didnt cry

I cried as I walked home

We had talked before he left about seeing each other again

We didnt

It wasnt that we didnt mean it

But he wasnt well and I was only twelve

I liked him best whenever we talked outside together

He knelt on one knee and called me young man

He said that was called mutual respect

He said You know inside me  Im no older than you

2329,  Twosday,  1  1. 13

she sat in the sun under a white visored cap

the wind fingered and lapped her clothing

stirred her stringy hair that could use a healthy wash

she sat still

her eyes transfixed

watching things that werent going on around her

or hearing their sounds  the abrupt laughter  the murmur of conversations  the clatter

of silverware at china plates  the poking stabbing fork play  the slight grind of knives

when brutally sharp knives would have been elegantly efficient

or the comic animated harping of cellfones demanding attention and compliant diners

deftly turning aside ignoring the people they sat to eat with

she sat in an ivory pool of sunlight and like a plant at photosynthesis absorbed what 

no one around her wanted

the patio surrounding her was shaded with overlapping colored-canvas umbrellas and  

hugging the facades of the eateries were long sharp awnings

a white paper napkin escaped a distracted diner and tumbled and did somersaults and

got caught up on the wheel of her chair

a sympathetic flag waving in the silver air

truce

surrender

she did not acknowledge it

the air stilled

the dining clamor rose

she blinked  and suddenly the curtain came down on whatever it was she was watching

she was disturbed

snapped from her reverie

with the flip of her ruddy arthritic thumb

she switched her electricity on and rode out of the melting sunlight

the napkin escaped again

and fell and laid still

holding a spot that no one seemed anxious to take

people walked around it

no one stooped to pick it up

                                             and he remembered when people once wore white scarves

over their nose and mouths to avoid contracting the Black Plague during the Middle Ages

under the cries:

Bring out your dead Bring out your dead!

1406,  Wednesday,  12  6. 13

a young man entered the coffee shop

he sported a tattoo around his ankle

an unseeming kind of tribal thing

                              but as white as he was  under a mop of illcut ashbrown colored hair

atop an unathletic gait

hed not be part of a self-respecting tribe any time soon

                                                                                                                if ever

he stumbled on the doormat inside the door

and the offense in his eyes

as his shades fell off the back of his head and broke on the tiled floor

by their glaring offense

the mat could have been a snake at ambush

he tried to recover 

                            but was strewn across the vestibule like the remains of a nosedived

airplane crash

I watched the imaginary snake crawl off smiling wickedly

flickering its forked tongue  as if licking a refreshing 3-scoop cone of colorful fruit sherbert

1440,  Wednesday,  12  6. 13