Tag: prose

Practice

I see lots of people. Every day, everywhere. This is what’s good about working in San Francisco while broke. You won’t find free parking. You’ll find trains, buses, and people.

This time a young woman. Twenty-one or so. She bounded down from the upper level of the train to stand near the exit doors. There were a few of us there already. People who burst out in front or linger until the end. A preference for either side of the curve.

She was slight, lithe. Eager in a bouncy way. Flat blonde hair, track jacket and jeans. Most notable was a pair of black lace-up Chucks that extended to mid-calf. She turned around just after she had arrived to raise her foot onto a step and tighten the laces on her shoes. Whether from ritual or necessity, I couldn’t tell.

She looked out at the doors on both sides, as I did. You don’t know which is the exit until you’re right on top of the station. It’s a gamble to stake a claim on one door. That was my general approach, and I had a decent average. She chose to remain in the middle and react to the exit when it became certain. Like a caged animal, she paced a couple steps between the two. She needed off.

It was a long wait. My gamble didn’t pay off and I was stuck at the back of the lead group. She naturally moved to the front. It was clear she was the only one about to explode.

The door opened. She was yards ahead of me in a few seconds. I know nothing of form, but hers was narrow and efficient if I ever saw it. I walked along and caught the final glimpse of her when I walked toward the station exit. She was already at the street, running between traffic. Going God knows where and getting there quick. Just running.

It must be a hell of an experience to run. To be made of limbs and motion. Until then, it’d never seemed of value.

Practice

I see lots of people. Every day, everywhere. This is what’s good about working in San Francisco while broke. You won’t find free parking. You’ll find trains, buses, and people.

This time a young woman. Twenty-one or so. She bounded down from the upper level of the train to stand near the exit doors. There were a few of us there already. People who burst out in front or linger until the end. A preference for either side of the curve.

She was slight, lithe. Eager in a bouncy way. Flat blonde hair, track jacket and jeans. Most notable was a pair of black lace-up Chucks that extended to mid-calf. She turned around just after she had arrived to raise her foot onto a step and tighten the laces on her shoes. Whether from ritual or necessity, I couldn’t tell.

She looked out at the doors on both sides, as I did. You don’t know which is the exit until you’re right on top of the station. It’s a gamble to stake a claim on one door. That was my general approach, and I had a decent average. She chose to remain in the middle and react to the exit when it became certain. Like a caged animal, she paced a couple steps between the two. She needed off.

It was a long wait. My gamble didn’t pay off and I was stuck at the back of the lead group. She naturally moved to the front. It was clear she was the only one about to explode.

The door opened. She was yards ahead of me in a few seconds. I know nothing of form, but hers was narrow and efficient if I ever saw it. I walked along and caught the final glimpse of her when I walked toward the station exit. She was already at the street, running between traffic. Going God knows where and getting there quick. Just running.

It must be a hell of an experience to run. To be made of limbs and motion. Until then, it’d never seemed of value.

Stucco

The mouse was the size of my thumb. It appeared as a Southward dart while I faced West, toward the San Carlos suburbs. A fast little dust ball. I looked in the general direction and considered that it was nothing. Some figment.

I’d gone too far South on one train and waited for another that would carry me North to Belmont. No book to read. Late summer dusklight behind the clouds. I don’t know what was in my head then, though it was something. I know it because I was pacing and wild-eyed. Searching everywhere. It was standing around at the station that had me noticing things, like that mouse.

It appeared again a few minutes before my train and paused in the open space between rain gutter grates. Right in front of a stucco wall. No discernible movement. Little brown shape, a furry lump.

“Howdy,” I said. I stood several feet away, in front of a bench. One of those wrought iron and wood slat deals.

The little mouse remained in place. I sat down and turned away when it seemed appropriate. I smiled at my absurdity.

I listened for the track rattle and hiss of an oncoming train. My ear has to point toward a thing if I expect to hear it. It means turning away to look at roofs and hills, missing everything in front of me. There was no hint of a train.

The little mouse sidled up while I listened. It was there on the concrete a couple of feet from the bench when I stopped listening for the train that wouldn’t come.

“Hello,” said the mouse.

We waited minutes and I wasn’t sure that I’d heard anything. Nobody uses that word anymore.

I was scared, so I began to hum. Something sad to bring that up to the surface. I hoped my clever sadness would scare away the mouse without the need for shoos and foot stamping.

Instead, the mouse crept closer, and it sat beside me on the wood slats. Its little ears moved. They were dangly flaps of skin and fur about the size of pupils.

“Are we going to sit here?” it asked.

“Yeap.”

“Your train’s going to be here in no time.”

I looked at the station LED sign. My train to Belmont was 5 minutes late.

“Just a few more minutes.”

We remained quiet for a while. I scanned the roofs ahead, looking for crows. They were usually good for some head tracking, though not that evening. They tend to cluster around acorns in late summer.

“I think this is a rare opportunity for you,” said the mouse. I finally turned toward it. It must have been a baby, small as it was. I couldn’t possibly take it seriously.

“I made a mistake,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The mouse brought its front paws together and rubbed its nose. “You are missing out on something that may never come again. I’m a thing far different from you, and you have nothing to discuss? You greeted me after all.”

“Impulse, that’s all.” Then I hummed the sad song again and waited.

The mouse looked ahead, as I did. “I’ll leave you to it,” said the mouse. It stepped back toward the grate on the North side of the platform. It blinked into one of the small holes. Back into its hole.

The train arrived. I was at my destination in two minutes.

Weeks later, I searched for a particular taco truck on the streets of Oakland. I skulked along an empty street and encountered a huge rat crossing from one sidewalk to the other. No Hello, no acknowledgement whatsoever.

Stucco

The mouse was the size of my thumb. It appeared as a Southward dart while I faced West, toward the San Carlos suburbs. A fast little dust ball. I looked in the general direction and considered that it was nothing. Some figment.

I’d gone too far South on one train and waited for another that would carry me North to Belmont. No book to read. Late summer dusklight behind the clouds. I don’t know what was in my head then, though it was something. I know it because I was pacing and wild-eyed. Searching everywhere. It was standing around at the station that had me noticing things, like that mouse.

It appeared again a few minutes before my train and paused in the open space between rain gutter grates. Right in front of a stucco wall. No discernible movement. Little brown shape, a furry lump.

“Howdy,” I said. I stood several feet away, in front of a bench. One of those wrought iron and wood slat deals.

The little mouse remained in place. I sat down and turned away when it seemed appropriate. I smiled at my absurdity.

I listened for the track rattle and hiss of an oncoming train. My ear has to point toward a thing if I expect to hear it. It means turning away to look at roofs and hills, missing everything in front of me. There was no hint of a train.

The little mouse sidled up while I listened. It was there on the concrete a couple of feet from the bench when I stopped listening for the train that wouldn’t come.

“Hello,” said the mouse.

We waited minutes and I wasn’t sure that I’d heard anything. Nobody uses that word anymore.

I was scared, so I began to hum. Something sad to bring that up to the surface. I hoped my clever sadness would scare away the mouse without the need for shoos and foot stamping.

Instead, the mouse crept closer, and it sat beside me on the wood slats. Its little ears moved. They were dangly flaps of skin and fur about the size of pupils.

“Are we going to sit here?” it asked.

“Yeap.”

“Your train’s going to be here in no time.”

I looked at the station LED sign. My train to Belmont was 5 minutes late.

“Just a few more minutes.”

We remained quiet for a while. I scanned the roofs ahead, looking for crows. They were usually good for some head tracking, though not that evening. They tend to cluster around acorns in late summer.

“I think this is a rare opportunity for you,” said the mouse. I finally turned toward it. It must have been a baby, small as it was. I couldn’t possibly take it seriously.

“I made a mistake,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The mouse brought its front paws together and rubbed its nose. “You are missing out on something that may never come again. I’m a thing far different from you, and you have nothing to discuss? You greeted me after all.”

“Impulse, that’s all.” Then I hummed the sad song again and waited.

The mouse looked ahead, as I did. “I’ll leave you to it,” said the mouse. It stepped back toward the grate on the North side of the platform. It blinked into one of the small holes. Back into its hole.

The train arrived. I was at my destination in two minutes.

Weeks later, I searched for a particular taco truck on the streets of Oakland. I skulked along an empty street and encountered a huge rat crossing from one sidewalk to the other. No Hello, no acknowledgement whatsoever.

Because life is hard, and the bedroom is for sleep.

“I haven’t had health insurance since leaving California at the end of February.”

I said this out loud. It wasn’t meant for anyone.

The blood ran down my arm as I walked back toward the dried creek bed south to where I’d parked the jeep. I’d packed a spare set of everything and thought I could use the water to wash off the blood and dirt, then change. Blood doesn’t come off easily. I was accompanied by the sound of dried brush and dirt underfoot, and a dry chill.

I noticed a hawk circling above a mound along the ridge line a half mile or so from the creek. I was reminded of that line from Jeremiah Johnson about the hawk and the musselshell. It ends with something like, “Hell, he’s there already.” I thought it would be great to hear that at any memorial service that might be held in my memory.

I said it as I walked, unsure of whether I’d actually spoken or just heard it in my head.

“Hell, he’s there already.”

I cleaned the wound and replaced the t-shirt with a long sleeved nylon shirt that I sometimes use to go for a walk when it rains. It served to hold the bandana I’d tied around my forearm. I rested for a moment and watched the sky change from red to purple through the cracked windshield I’ve been meaning to replace for years.

I ask myself questions. I feel it is necessary. “Is peace of mind a worthy pursuit? Is it worth sacrificing, or holding above all other responsibilities?” Sometimes there is one answer, sometimes another. Most often, there are several.

When I checked the messages on my phone I became tired of it. The phone itself, I mean. It lacked features I wanted. It wasn’t enough. Right then, it became my focus. I wanted a new phone. I kept it on the dashboard as I drove along the 84 to remind me of my purpose.

The mall was still open when I came back into town. I discovered the location of the AT&T store just past the Teavana and a storefront full of bra’d mannequins. The benign nature of mall architecture made me aware of the dust that trailed me and the weeks’ worth of scruff on my face. When I entered I had the good fortune of receiving help from a new employee. She seemed kind, serious, and for lack of a better word: genuine. She wasn’t constantly in the sales pitch mode, which I observed in most of the people around her. Unsurprisingly, those same people were obviously falsely tanned, overly hair-streaked, or gelled up to the ceiling. Their grins and chipper words unsettled me. I do not begrudge any man or woman that certain desire to excel and earn more or look better, but there are ways of going about it that I like and ways that bother me. I cannot explain it as anything more than personal preference and experience.

This is all to say that this salesperson—Vanessa, who’s tangible as the sand and trees—helped me feel better through her easygoing approach to sales and kind yet serious demeanor. I was left with a bit of old wisdom. No man is an island, but some men float out there for so long that they forget the feel of the sand or the sound of wind rustling the leaves. The sound of voices can be a shock. I wished, for a few moments, that I could know her better. It would have been easy to engage her. But, I decided I couldn’t afford to fuck it up. It was not a time to seize an opportunity.

This all ends in an expected fashion. I bought the new phone, left the mall, and drove home to shower and sleep.

It can’t all be what I want it to be.

“Land ho.”

Because life is hard, and the bedroom is for sleep.

“I haven’t had health insurance since leaving California at the end of February.”

I said this out loud. It wasn’t meant for anyone.

The blood ran down my arm as I walked back toward the dried creek bed south to where I’d parked the jeep. I’d packed a spare set of everything and thought I could use the water to wash off the blood and dirt, then change. Blood doesn’t come off easily. I was accompanied by the sound of dried brush and dirt underfoot, and a dry chill.

I noticed a hawk circling above a mound along the ridge line a half mile or so from the creek. I was reminded of that line from Jeremiah Johnson about the hawk and the musselshell. It ends with something like, “Hell, he’s there already.” I thought it would be great to hear that at any memorial service that might be held in my memory.

I said it as I walked, unsure of whether I’d actually spoken or just heard it in my head.

“Hell, he’s there already.”

I cleaned the wound and replaced the t-shirt with a long sleeved nylon shirt that I sometimes use to go for a walk when it rains. It served to hold the bandana I’d tied around my forearm. I rested for a moment and watched the sky change from red to purple through the cracked windshield I’ve been meaning to replace for years.

I ask myself questions. I feel it is necessary. “Is peace of mind a worthy pursuit? Is it worth sacrificing, or holding above all other responsibilities?” Sometimes there is one answer, sometimes another. Most often, there are several.

When I checked the messages on my phone I became tired of it. The phone itself, I mean. It lacked features I wanted. It wasn’t enough. Right then, it became my focus. I wanted a new phone. I kept it on the dashboard as I drove along the 84 to remind me of my purpose.

The mall was still open when I came back into town. I discovered the location of the AT&T store just past the Teavana and a storefront full of bra’d mannequins. The benign nature of mall architecture made me aware of the dust that trailed me and the weeks’ worth of scruff on my face. When I entered I had the good fortune of receiving help from a new employee. She seemed kind, serious, and for lack of a better word: genuine. She wasn’t constantly in the sales pitch mode, which I observed in most of the people around her. Unsurprisingly, those same people were obviously falsely tanned, overly hair-streaked, or gelled up to the ceiling. Their grins and chipper words unsettled me. I do not begrudge any man or woman that certain desire to excel and earn more or look better, but there are ways of going about it that I like and ways that bother me. I cannot explain it as anything more than personal preference and experience.

This is all to say that this salesperson—Vanessa, who’s tangible as the sand and trees—helped me feel better through her easygoing approach to sales and kind yet serious demeanor. I was left with a bit of old wisdom. No man is an island, but some men float out there for so long that they forget the feel of the sand or the sound of wind rustling the leaves. The sound of voices can be a shock. I wished, for a few moments, that I could know her better. It would have been easy to engage her. But, I decided I couldn’t afford to fuck it up. It was not a time to seize an opportunity.

This all ends in an expected fashion. I bought the new phone, left the mall, and drove home to shower and sleep.

It can’t all be what I want it to be.

“Land ho.”

Nightcall

We were practically alone. In fact, we had been for roughly twenty minutes. We sat and faced an empty screen, occasionally turning toward the other to emphasize a point or convey a smile. They were the forward-facing talks of familiarity and a kind of intimacy, nearly whispered, patiently shared. There was silence, too. Some of it spent thinking, some of it spent thinking ahead. Two young men entered the theater shortly before the previews began. They began to talk. They broke into our serenity like cheap hoods smashing a car window. I began to worry that they would speak during the film, which is not acceptable and would have required intervention. I chose that theater for a reason. Crowds ruin moments. They quieted down. I sat relieved.

As Gosling kicked off the film I was taken back to my days in Los Angeles. The night driving was all I had on some nights. Life was simpler and more easily denied. I could drive forever, down one street and up another. La Brea would take me from Hollywood to Torrance and up into Palos Verdes via Hawthorne. I often drove to Long Beach on surface streets. On a good night, there would be crowds of girls standing out in front of clubs, all long-haired and short-skirted for my egotistical convenience. These are moments I kept among the others of relationships and a yearning for some girls that went unfulfilled. I drove far enough to drive them into distant memory, leaving only the silence of the music on the radio.

Drive began compellingly enough—in the middle of crime. It is like the start of any good short story. No time to waste. Get in, show actions but not the character, not yet. Demonstrate action and consequence before ever revealing the players. In this case, a silent type and a single mom, surrounded by varying shades of villain. It would be a lie to say I could not imagine myself in the Driver’s seat, nor think of the duality involved in tenderness and violence from a single source. She enjoyed the brief scenes of relationship development. I could see it in her curling fingers, caught by a fleeting glimpse as I picked up the soda water I’d paid far too much for. The leading lady’s son was probably cute to her. I thought their inclusion was necessary to make the mysterious man anything more than a sociopath.

She might just be a Ryan Gosling devotee. I didn’t ask.

The film’s progression gave me ample chance to provide an anchor. I extended my arm and she took it, briefly, during the over-the-top intensity of the latter half of the film. She’d finished her Coke and had no other distraction for her hands. We watched the series of events unfold and remained silent, allowing the pressure to build until the end. I remained still when the film ended. She remained still beside me. The young men walked out and together she and I waited for the flamingo credits to come to an end.

Afterwards, while eating tacos beneath the halogen of a midnight taco truck, we agreed that we liked some parts, but not others. Some of the important elements—tenderness, character, style—were introduced like fishing line, luring us in. Or driving us further along, as it were. But at some point, they pulled too hard. The filmmakers attempted to force it in and ram the style down our throats. All too aware, we pulled back, and they lost us. This is the way, sometimes. Lured in and driven away. There is, however, still something redeeming about the experience. It doesn’t work out the way we are led to believe. The only way to know is to venture in and find out.

I saw her smile on the drive back, lit by the pulse of the passing street lamps. There were many good moments that night and the next. I make careful note of all of them for the subsequent period when she is no longer with me. Earlier tonight, I was driving alone on a street I’d never seen. A song began to play in my head. I decided we’d always have Nightcall.

Nightcall

We were practically alone. In fact, we had been for roughly twenty minutes. We sat and faced an empty screen, occasionally turning toward the other to emphasize a point or convey a smile. They were the forward-facing talks of familiarity and a kind of intimacy, nearly whispered, patiently shared. There was silence, too. Some of it spent thinking, some of it spent thinking ahead. Two young men entered the theater shortly before the previews began. They began to talk. They broke into our serenity like cheap hoods smashing a car window. I began to worry that they would speak during the film, which is not acceptable and would have required intervention. I chose that theater for a reason. Crowds ruin moments. They quieted down. I sat relieved.

As Gosling kicked off the film I was taken back to my days in Los Angeles. The night driving was all I had on some nights. Life was simpler and more easily denied. I could drive forever, down one street and up another. La Brea would take me from Hollywood to Torrance and up into Palos Verdes via Hawthorne. I often drove to Long Beach on surface streets. On a good night, there would be crowds of girls standing out in front of clubs, all long-haired and short-skirted for my egotistical convenience. These are moments I kept among the others of relationships and a yearning for some girls that went unfulfilled. I drove far enough to drive them into distant memory, leaving only the silence of the music on the radio.

Drive began compellingly enough—in the middle of crime. It is like the start of any good short story. No time to waste. Get in, show actions but not the character, not yet. Demonstrate action and consequence before ever revealing the players. In this case, a silent type and a single mom, surrounded by varying shades of villain. It would be a lie to say I could not imagine myself in the Driver’s seat, nor think of the duality involved in tenderness and violence from a single source. She enjoyed the brief scenes of relationship development. I could see it in her curling fingers, caught by a fleeting glimpse as I picked up the soda water I’d paid far too much for. The leading lady’s son was probably cute to her. I thought their inclusion was necessary to make the mysterious man anything more than a sociopath.

She might just be a Ryan Gosling devotee. I didn’t ask.

The film’s progression gave me ample chance to provide an anchor. I extended my arm and she took it, briefly, during the over-the-top intensity of the latter half of the film. She’d finished her Coke and had no other distraction for her hands. We watched the series of events unfold and remained silent, allowing the pressure to build until the end. I remained still when the film ended. She remained still beside me. The young men walked out and together she and I waited for the flamingo credits to come to an end.

Afterwards, while eating tacos beneath the halogen of a midnight taco truck, we agreed that we liked some parts, but not others. Some of the important elements—tenderness, character, style—were introduced like fishing line, luring us in. Or driving us further along, as it were. But at some point, they pulled too hard. The filmmakers attempted to force it in and ram the style down our throats. All too aware, we pulled back, and they lost us. This is the way, sometimes. Lured in and driven away. There is, however, still something redeeming about the experience. It doesn’t work out the way we are led to believe. The only way to know is to venture in and find out.

I saw her smile on the drive back, lit by the pulse of the passing street lamps. There were many good moments that night and the next. I make careful note of all of them for the subsequent period when she is no longer with me. Earlier tonight, I was driving alone on a street I’d never seen. A song began to play in my head. I decided we’d always have Nightcall.

Disclarity.

These last few years have been a matter of both physical and psychological winnowing. Nibbling away at the flesh to get to the bone.

It’s this thickness. It’s like standing in a vat of gravy. Wading in days-old soup. This sidewalk is walled in on both sides. Arms out, stout traveler. Cede your path to me. Rails press in until I’m through the door. These clothes, these fucking clothes. I kick my shoes off and step through the hallway into the large space I have allotted for music and books. Tearing the air apart with flails and hefty breathing. Out on the balcony I can still feel wood beneath my feet. I bend the front of my feet over the edge and it’s only one more step until I’m free.

I’ve never been good at countering baseless insults toward someone I care about. Any rationality I possess goes out the window and I get the urge to punch a motherfucker in the face.

No one discusses power. People fear it like the plague in an era that has seen officials take and wield the power that ought by rights come to the individual. This is as it should not be: in my hands.

Things mellow out when you accept that most of the people don’t care about you except for a small number who are inexplicably there for the rest of your life.

Someone explains a personal problem: “Alright. How do you plan to overcome this problem? What’s stopping you from overcoming this problem? How can I help you overcome this problem? If you aren’t happy with your plan it’s time for a new plan. Why haven’t you come up with a new plan? What do you want to do? Why aren’t you doing it? What will you do after you thought about it for a while?”

Just shut up for a moment. Can you do that? No one understands losing control of one’s mind. It’s this torture. It’s moment after moment of thoughts and fears that aren’t rational. This is what no one can grasp. Not even me. It’s fear of everyone, especially the people who love you.

Keenly aware of the risk with words. Fucking keen as a fiddle. Never know when a bunch of words said in earnest might be taken as a lie, do you? Nah. It’s bound to happen after too much saying. Tell me this, say that. Flat voice don’t make the words any nicer.

Contrapostal. You are fine. Let’s fuck.

I am not yet beyond hedonism.

No one believes when it happens again.

I suffer from this condition. Perpetually bad memory. I’ve forgotten many things. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to earn my first paycheck, money earned for my hard work. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be able to buy something for someone I love. I’ve forgotten the nervousness of that first time with a special girl. Holding her hand.

You like the things I write.

It’s the poet boys who ruin the women I love.

My initial problem with orgies, back in the olden days, was the awkwardness of it. The people who invited me to these things were friends. People I saw fully clothed on a regular basis. The thought of showing up, probably getting drunk and high, and then fucking some girl I’d be discussing U.S. History with the following week while surrounded by others who were also in the throes of coitus was too much for a repressed kid to handle. Now it seems like a healthy, zesty enterprise.

My father was never in a war, but he was shot in the back. He carries the bullet in his flesh to this day. He was beaten mercilessly as a child and forced to leave his home at the age of fourteen to look for work in a country that was unkind to foreigners and brutal to innocents. He could have died many times, he says. The only thing that kept him going was the drive to work and survive. Eventually, he became focused on family. His mother and once sadistic father occupied his thoughts. He sent them money as often as he could while he idled away in youthful indiscretions. These facts have been revealed to me slowly, timidly, with the passage of time. I do not know his purpose for telling me, but I suspect his age is beginning to catch up with him. He has to wear glasses, which he is not fond of; and his hands, the hands that kept him employed for decades, begin to fail him. Every now and again we discuss these matters of aging and adulthood. He interprets these discussions as self-doubt on my part. Searching for guidance from him, lost in a world he has never understood. He doesn’t know what I do, who I associate with, where I plan to go. He fails to understand the man I have become. The father becomes limited and human. The son asks the same questions of himself.

A man is always in the shadow of one who came before him.

Forceful, violent, and unwavering. The word no one likes to say is rape, and with good reason. Unwilling participation voids the intimacy and reduces one person to a loser, forced to copulate by any means necessary, and the other to a victim in a culture that supports guilt and shame for the victim but not the attacker. And yet that sense of “taking” is undeniable. It is a sexual tour de force.

Sitting in a car not in my control, staring out the window. I am there a man in the sense that I am fully aware of the weather which I can feel on my crisp golden arm, see in each pair of bare female legs beneath khaki shorts and fluid floral dresses, and not feel a moment of hesitation nor florid thought about either. In that present I am aware of what is, and only now do I bother to interpret the scene.

All meaning can found in expunged fluids. Sweat, urine, shit, mucous, cum, and so on. I want to remember where these words came from.

In considering and writing about the past year (volumes at this point), I proposed that some people are little more than human databases. Anyone with working memory can remember facts, of course, but how to utilize them? How do we interpret the information and make use of it? In my case, the information is collected. Details that shouldn’t matter are filed away in a database for some future purpose that may never come and is almost never immediately accessible.

The valley between your hips and the wrinkles of your armpit. I could live here. I could dwell in this place, in the present, and forget the sunrise ahead. It could be lying in the darkness of blind certainty. The tremor of melancholy would do little to shake me.

Relax. It’ll better or it’ll get worse. You’ll find your way there regardless.

99W

I will admit to you that I expressed false interest in a For Sale property down off 99W, somewhere beyond Tualatin. I’m bad with names after the fact. What I can tell you is the day I showed up was a hot and humid day, so hot that the fabric of my t-shirt’s underarms and the space between my scapulae was significantly perspired upon. I parked my jeep in a gritty driveway that crooned when I drove along it. The foliage of the lone tree in the front yard should have been on its last summer legs, ready to give in to the coming fall, but it was bare, likely dead.

The man’s name was Greg. He was an older white gentleman, clean-shaven and sagging around the jowls. Greg let me into the farm house where several other people were already walking the halls. The paint was on the verge of collapse, swelled in some places and stained a curry yellow in others.

“You’re free to take a look,” said Greg. “Let me know it you have any questions.” I thought to ask about the tree, but given I had no real interest in purchasing the property I went on my way. I wandered the halls, weaving through an empty living room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. The toilet was immaculate, which made me wonder about the severity of its state for it to require replacement.

There was a smell of wood that became stronger in the foyer, nearest to the stairs. I lingered there for a minute, feigning interest in this wall and that, then wandered up the surprisingly noiseless steps. They were warped, scraped, and would take much work to repair, but as I would not be living there I put it out of my mind and moved up to the top floor. There were several open doors. I could see cardboard boxes stacked inside one of the rooms, what must have been the room above the front entrance. I sidled in, again as interested in the strength and state of the walls and ceiling as I was in eating okra, until I was beside the cardboard boxes. I looked back out into the hall and saw or heard no one. When I lifted one of the flaps I noted that it was a box full of colorful clothing. The box beside it contained the same. I thought of further intruding upon the privacy of the boxes. My senses expressed that it seemed in poor taste.

It was time to leave. I approached the West-facing window. I could see out across the yard, past the dead branches of the lone tree, and toward the vineyard that stretched along the rolling hills on the other side of the road. I could see a small tool shed beside the vineyard, and beyond it a large white building. I considered living in a house near a vineyard and the endeavor became fruitless to me. I thought of fields in Greece, razed and trampled. I turned back inside and thought about sitting down for a while, but I had absolutely no intent to purchase the place, and so I walked back down to the jeep and departed.