Coffee
Years before cancer spread in the marrow of his bones and he sat quiet at first and he told me to drink it black, I sat with him for his morning coffee for the first time and I could tell his curiosities were sitting just under the surface of words. I lit a cigarette and he didn’t lecture, and he didn’t lecture when his son came to him and said, Dad, I’m gay and I’m HIV positive. He took a sip from his mug and started in now, and his response to his son then was, Why didn’t you tell me sooner?
“I sure do wish they’d get this corn knocked down. I can’t see a thing.” He smiles. “I remember my mother saying that every year around this time. She hated not being able to see across the fields from her garden in the mornings. She said she felt like she couldn’t see God.”
“Memory is a funny thing, ain’t it? I was reading the other day about the molecular mechanism of memory formation and how each memory is a literal act of creation. A literal act of creation! What a phrase, huh? The color of the trees for example. Our eyes take in that particular color, the rods and cones and what not, and our brain creates a particular mo- lecular structure to reflect that color, that shade of that color. Fascinating stuff! Now, where it really gets good is in the recalling of that memory, that shade of that color. Each time we recall it, we attempt to rebuild that initial structure as true to the original memory as we can. But, we can’t do it perfectly. Time and mood and how much sleep we’ve had the night before and are we feeling insecure or sad or ecstatic. It all plays a part. So, each time it gets rebuilt a little differently and the more we recall it the more imperfect it becomes. They was saying that if you met a young lady at a party and hit it off and at the end of the night you walked her home and said goodbye and kissed her and never thought about that moment for thirty years, you’d remember it more true to how it really happened than if you had thought about the kiss every day. Whatcha think about that? I tell ya, there are folks in this world that have made us all more enlightened because of their pursuits and I am thankful for them.”
The train rolled through after a while and I wondered if my recollection of the dream I had about my mother—his daughter—was less true to how the events unfolded those many nights leading up to her death, the dream where we sat in the dark in the grass near the tracks and she was silent until the train came upon us and she began to speak but I couldn’t hear.
The last time I joined him for his morning coffee I brought it to him so he didn’t have to walk too much and I brought him a blanket because the cancer had taken the mass of him that used to make me think him immortal. I told him, “I was reading the other day that there are three deaths, not one. The first death is when your biological processes cease. The second is when your organic matter, your body or your ashes, is laid in the ground. And, the third is when someone says your name out loud for the last time. Whatcha think about that? I tell ya, Papaw, there are folks in this world that have made us all more enlightened because of their pursuits and I am thankful for them and I don’t think you have to worry about death because I’ll say your name out loud every morning and I’ll teach my children to do the same and I sure do wish they’d knock this corn down. I can’t see god.”
Window
The way the rows of it ran along with them like some creature striding with legs infinite and his forehead against the window watching the race was his favorite part. He didn’t mind the smell of his father’s cigarette or the warm breeze through the window let down a little up front. He wouldn’t know until years later that they divorced because his father didn’t love himself and because he never had a concept of home and went looking for it everywhere. He wouldn’t be mad when he found out, he would get to know the feeling too.
“A lot of rain lately, I reckon. The harvest is late. We’ll stop at the store when we get into town and pick up a few things.
“Son, what do you think it is to be a man in this world?”
He’s ten and he shrugs his shoulders.
“Well, I’m not sure either, but I’ll tell you what my old man told me. He said, a man should be strong, simple, and quiet.” He smiles. “He didn’t mean strong of body. He meant strong of mind. He didn’t mean simple as in plain. He meant simple as in requiring little outside of yourself for sustenance. He didn’t mean quiet as in volume. He meant quiet as in listening more than one speaks. “Whatcha think about that?” His father swung between quiet all day in bed and dancing around his apartment listening to records with bourbon in hand.
“You know, Son. I was reading the other day about space and time and I have to say, phew, a lot of it makes my head spin in a way I can’t control.”
He’s ten and he shrugs his shoulders.
“And, they was saying that even if the likelihood of life arising on one of these space rocks we call planets was one in a billion, the vastness of our perceivable universe is such that them odds would predict at least a hundred thousand earths.” He slaps his forehead. He smiles.
He sees his dad’s mouth form the word wow.
Escape
Bare feet hard on the soil between the rows of corn motionless in late summer Louisiana dark and his breaths increase and deep, come and go bouncing between the stalks like humming into the fan blades. He remembers his mother’s voice doing the same calling from the house and how he felt like the child king of some forest kingdom, as free as he hoped the months of planning would make him. He didn’t plan on the harvest being late. It would slow him down but he would still be miles away before anyone noticed. He had been preparing his speech during the hourless days behind the bars and how he would lean his face against them at night when the only sounds were far off wailing of mad men and think about being in the car with his dad.
They hadn’t come to visit and the kids were crying and she wasn’t when they led him out of the courtroom.
“Listen, people make mistakes and we have to take responsibility for them and learn from them and move on and ensure we don’t make them again, right? Well, look, I made mistakes and I sat everyday in that cell and took responsibility and I went looking for the feeling of home everywhere when y’all were right there in front of me. I ain’t asking for forgiveness. I’m just telling you that I’m here and I’ll show you every day that a man is not beyond redemption in this world.”
That’s what he’d say and when he did the kids would cry and she wouldn’t.
Awe
His neighbor asked him to keep the trunk in his garage while he was away and not to look in it and not to ask questions.
“My buddy will be dropping by tonight to get it, his name is Los. He just got out and he’s gonna be staying with us for a while until he gets reacquainted with everything on the outside.”
When he opened the door the largest man he’d ever seen was there silhouetted by the only street light for miles.
“You must be Los.”
He watched him easily drag the trunk across the street and then reappear.
“You got time to burn one?”
The two men sat in chairs rocking and overlooking the field of corn and the floor was scribbles of sidewalk chalk pictures of cats and the children’s names with backwards facing letters.
“A lot of rain lately. My great grandmother used to hate not being able to see out. She said she couldn’t see god.”
They sat in silence for a while. He didn’t want to push him to talk if he didn’t want to. His neighbor said it had been fifteen years he’d been in there. He supposed that changed a man and sitting there with it terrified and fascinated him.
They passed the orange glow back and forth.
He could see his curiosities were sitting just under the surface of words.
Listen more than you speak.
The large man said, “Ya know, man. When you live out years in a ten-by-ten and get a few hours in a space a little bigger, surrounded by fence, you get to thinking about the vastness of time and space. How much time has existed and will exist? How much space is out there? It’s wild. A man has a lot of time to think when confined and I’ve come to the conclusion that redemption has a lot to do with the staying in awe of things, having that childlike appreciation of everything big and small that is beautiful around us and in us. Think about it. Out of all the space that’s ever existed and all of the time that’s ever existed you and I are sitting in the same space right now in the exact same time. Ain’t that something?”
