Tull
Aqualung
he anyone would
be at a loss if they attempted to affix any other I D to him
he lifted up his eyes glimpsing
forward from his Algren so not to walk
through anyone
staring back at him from the diminishing sidewalk between them
his black eyes were set deep in
his skull
peering
from anguished hollows
he was a stark man unsettling
knotted tight at his forehead he
wore a marl-colored bandanna
it
held his greasy hair up out of his sunburnt face and crosshatched eyebrows
under his wanton eyes sharp cheeks pocked with blackheads and many pustules which also rode the drawn gauntness at either
side of his sucked-in broken-tooth face
uneven whiskers ran under his
broke hawkish nose and thickened at his
pointy chin
it was impossible he might ever have been an attractive man
he wore a military khaki jacket it was soiled and hung off his rail-thin body as if off a wire hanger
liver-spotted ulcerated hands hung limp and
near-lifeless out of its sleeves
his filthy pants he had
no idea what color they were originally bagged at his knees and ridiculed what he dare call shoes bits of cracked and broken leather held
together with black electricians tape and silver straps of duct tape
and even as he returned to read his
book these details
reappeared to him seamlessly held fast in a raw snapshot that roiled madly
in his astonished eyes
reading he could
feel the old mans glare scald the top of his head taking his measure as it were with laserish
intensity and circumspect
when the distance he determined between
them had eroded and he readied to pass inside him to his wizened left leaving him the riot of street traffic he again lifted his eyes to the old mans as he
intended
Good morning he said to the gentleman boldly taking in his lackluster blackblue
eyes with his own unashamed
Hello
the
old man replied
they passed
he couldnt quite understand digest
or identify the timbre in the old mans somber hello
it seemed a hello
as
if the old man wasnt sure he would understand English
a hopeful hello
then it seemed a haunted hello as if the old man wasnt flesh
and blood but something else that the old man didnt pass him but passed a
phantom in his imagination
a fearful hello
a dont-hurt-me hello
a haunting echo of a hello a hello hello that was never returned
he walked on nearly the entire
block looking at a sudden page of senseless hieroglyphs
his mind beckoning him bitching him with every footfall to stop walking
and turn and look to see if he really passed anyone
he turned
the old mans disheveled form hobbled and staggered in the long blue distance
the old mans disheveled form hobbled and staggered in the long blue distance
inside his throat there croaked a
hello that he refused to emit
he tried hard not say hello
otherwise trying to encourage or invoke a goodness for the day
Good morning
otherwise trying to encourage or invoke a goodness for the day
Good morning
Good
afternoon
Good
evening
hello had never inspired him
but then he never heard a hello like the old mans hello
he strangled it in his
throat hello and hawked it out onto the ground with a companion of green snot and
yellowish phlegm
he spat out Aqualung
morning, Day-Between-two-Ts, 22 7.
15
0034, Friday, 24 7.
15
