| Seven
This was me moving through the city short of breath, my arms tight about this dude's waist. Baby scratches at the bottom of his neck, tiny cuts behind the curve of his ear. His careless barber or him restless in his barber's chair? I held on tighter and tried not to think. I watched the sun-down streets repeat themselves, half listened to him talk of the past. We turned a corner and I said a little prayer. We pulled onto Murk's block and I sighed. There in the middle of the street, sat a big gray Escalade. There, just across from us, a bunch of stunned looking people stood, crowded in front of Murk's open front door. The motorcycle stopped. Somehow I climbed off. Somehow I walked over to where everybody was standing, but paused before climbing the little front stairs. My mind sort of wasn't right and the air was just plain wrong, cool and unheavy like it was the fall, not like it was supposed to be then, at the end of May. Just then I felt myself falling although I stood perfectly still. Just then I was certain that I'd been letting myself go to ruin. I remembered that it was my first time out of the house in days, that I had not taken a bath or shower before leaving. I realized I didn't have on my bra, that I was just standing there in a white t-shirt and jeans and sandals that showed my ashy feet. There I was, at Murk's door, looking like a bum all because you had gotten the best of me. There I was, come to claim your far gone brother, looking like a fool. Page seven |