Recoil

Small towns can be rough. Especially when you've fucked up and rumors abound. Even years later, somehow you're still a marked man. I am getting used to the peculiar phenomenon I like to call the "slow recoil." You meet someone, they seem to enjoy meeting you, then, maybe at the end of the conversation, something flicks on in their eyes--a look of surprised recognition--then, almost as quickly, the light goes out. And the next time you see them, there's no connection whatsoever—maybe a smile or a few words, but you can see that they have placed you, remembered what they heard about you, and have decided to leave you alone. I don't blame them, really, though it disappoints. You got to do what you got to do. Nevertheless, it's a brutally subtle exchange that does quiet damage to the heart.

Electric Fence

A friend writes in his morning lines, “Light, there is so much of it. Even the wind is full of color this morning.” I read a book on Miles who says, “Prejudice and curiosity are responsible for what I have done in music.” Last night on the golf course before dark: clear, windless. The day’s heat evaporated, leaving the night sky free and light. Clouds standing on treetops like a summer hat. We didn’t stay out long, just enough to stretch our legs. Today we drive down the Parkway to Graveyard Fields for a picnic by the falls. The river dropping down through the stones in thrown cupfuls. The trick is to be at peace with the world. Or at odds with it, bristling like the neighbor’s dog at the perimeter of its electric fence. Prejudice and curiosity. Wind full of color. Coming upon who you really are. Voyaging out in the day, returning home safe. Light throwing itself at the window like a sparrow.

from the archive

Treading Water

About through a nine-day holiday break. Haven’t shot myself yet. Don’t know how to use guns. Have spent more time with a leaf-blower in my hand than I normally care to. Trying to cut down on drinking is like shouting after a horse galloping past, "Slow down!" Ten days out from oral surgery and my damn molar still hurts. Just learned of a young woman's suicide. She was overseas, unhappy, on her own. My boy is making a timeline for the Muslim Caliphates and Medieval Europe; our dog is chewing on his pajamas as he copies down notes from the computer. Took Ali out for dinner for her 46th birthday. The hostess sat us down at a tiny table by the front door, next tor bar. I told her I had secured the reservation weeks prior, that it was my wife’s birthday, etc. She apologized and told me all the other empty tables were reserved for parties of 4. She’d just seen me hug the owner, an old friend, who I refrained from calling over so to make the woman pay for her transgression. Luckily, the owner saw me fuming and went over and solved the problem. The gin and tonic had some sort of pear and spice in it. The rain has glazed the driveway. There was a short morning meeting of crows by the golf course this morning. They filled a small tree with their jabber. Then they flew off to their designated spots. There’s a neighbor who lives on the corner up the hill whose property feels and looks like country life—dog tied to stump, tractors in the lawn and a car half apart in the driveway. Country music blares on the tiny radio. When we cleaned out drawers in the front foyer this morning Ali found that she owned a dozen handbags. She just went shopping with a friend; I warned her that I would throw out any new handbag that came through the door. I spent the morning deleting all extra spaces after sentences in an old essay of mine. Quite an accomplishment. Just so I don’t go back and re-space the sentences later.