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Craig Kirchner |
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Roomful of Navels You moved in next door. I introduced myself. You hugged me and adjusted your cap. I watched the awed crowd at the Acme as you mimed Deniro in 'Taxi' and was with you when you'd U-turn your VW at yellow lights instead of making a decision. I was the only neighbor who knew you let the dog out and got the paper in bra and panties, explaining over coffee that you didn't leash Lassie either and besides no one's up that early. Pickles and milk for breakfast, mescaline for lunch. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, be the first on your block, by the way its best with jazz. Sat entranced watching 'Once upon a time in the West' but read all of Kafka, Kierkegaard and Sartre. And then there was 'the room'. Three boulders and a sheet of slate coffee table where you studied your round rock collection and hung hundreds of drawings of navels - covering the walls and ceiling, self portraits, you said, but no two were alike. They boarded up your house when you disappeared, the neighborhood pretended you never happened. I'm working now and have my own place. The drawing you gave me is on the door to the freezer and I think of you like 'getting a beer' often - or when someone mentions conformity. There are polished stones in the fridge next to the pickles. Fast Food They were sitting across the aisle in McDonald's. I had meant to read some 'Mules of Love' with a Filet-o-Fish and the card carrying people watcher in me took over. Who would admit to eating at or wanting to write about McDonalds, but if writing is to reflect its time the Golden Arches are hard to ignore. They're now into McIllions served and feed more people every lunch hour than live in Australia and New Zealand. No one will ever tell you they like the food but find someone who hasn't eaten it. The couple appeared to be in their eighties; she with fragile, pale, liver-spotted skin, thick bifocals and stand-up off the forehead white hair like the silk on fresh shucked corn. Dressed in a sleeveless lime green blouse, long white skirt with green and red polka dots and a plastic pearl necklace with alternating beads of the same colors. He was ruddy, a too-red face under a gray crew cut; a tan knit with a zipper placket and Montgomery Ward's shorts, socks to the knees and tan Hush Puppies. They sat facing each other, but their eyes never met and I'd swear they never said a word. She chewed her fries slow like cud, he sipped his senior-discounted coffee, and the stereotypes kicked in. Dressed for an early dinner date. Helped one another out of the apartment. Going back home to TV [no cable], the afternoon news, in bed by dusk. At that age how sweet to have someone to do for and have done. He got up slowly and disposed of her trash. They left with the smallest of steps. Ellen Bass grinned at me from the back of her book with a slight curled lip at such pre-judgments, wondering why fast food and not the sushi bar. The reason I am scribbling all this on disposable paper napkins is that our exiting lunch-liners exchanged pecks on the parking lot, she with her hand on his cheek, and drove off in separate cars. I glanced back at Ellen and assured her That we'd just had an extra-value meal that didn't need super-sizing. Dreamboat I dreamt last night of Dreamboat, going the wrong way on the Baltimore beltway, choking on carb-flooded gas, over-heating over first date curfews as we left the 'drive-in' already an hour late. 'Dreamboat' - because the death trap '60 Falcon [appropriately black and white] was not only my first car but the first on the drug store corner. Made him a celebrity like child hood dogs named Vicky or Sport or rich aunts named Helen. And yes definitely a 'He'- lost half the time on the make the other. Anyway He's straining brittle-bone balljoints and bald tires, keeping right white buck and pedal to the floor straining to spot that landmark… that "yes we know where we are" building or corner - all the time switching channels, constantly on alert for the right hot tune or 'Wild Thing' or anything by the Stones which was always right. Your father home cursing hippies to your mom would have been loading his gun and waiting in the driveway if he had seen the feature from our back seat and the coming attractions in your hair. |