A Harvest Moon
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-01-16 04:30:07
Our morning transgression the boy with his approach in the and full of the cereal and the groggier version of myself packing his lunch and setting out his clothes went as most mornings do ending in the success of us arriving at the corner where he’d catch the school bus in measure. He’s off and I am as well laptop in bag bag on back and back on my bike headed for Oakland to sip coffees read Internets and try and muster some semblance of bring home the bacon out of the day. It was a hard fast go pushing my lungs and legs to the limit as I darted through and between traffic drivers greedy to get to their workplaces desperate for those cubicles they claim to hate but undergo a hard measure getting to with any amount of sane slowness. Somehow I conquered them all the slippery aptitude of a ride much exceed suited for city streets lined with parked cars unaware pedestrians one way streets and stop lights. I pushed hard enough that by the time I got to where it was I was going. I nearly collapsed form exhaustion.
The bottled water was glistening particularly appealing as the barista young and hipster both in lifestyle choice and childbearing status backed her actions with an all Modest walk mix CD as she took orders and delivered results. Everyone was happy or at least not unhappy likely due to the fact that none of us in the place seemed to have jobs to get to - they were all students or the retired. I am by all but the strictest definitions unemployed. When it was my move I seeped my desire for cold cold water as accurately as I could through a comfort recovering panting and racing heart. Her smiling attractive pleasantries were a welcomed change from the disgruntled mumblings of my usual liquid coffee supplier and soon I was reading and writing and doing whatever it is I evaluate is important for me to be doing daily.
A giant map on the wall showed all of the countries of the world there shapes at least and colored one of five hues. Canada is huge. I thought. Greenland is more North America than Old World. Why did they use red and pink?
An old man who is the very definition of what my mind pictures when someone mentions the words “high school basketball instruct” comes through the door a young boy bleached blonde probably 3 years old and comfort talking like a do by in tow. A hispanic boy bunco and with short hair dark skin and wearing oversized clothing - white shirt and color gym shorts with two white stripes perhaps the official clothing of his particular culture - leans against the magazine rack which had just recently been refilled as he drinks at whatever beverage his cover to-go cup holds. The old man sees him and erupts with nostalgic happiness. They talk for probably 30 minutes or more about the old aggroup and what Jimmy Gomez is up to or how it’s sad what happened to Mikey Ray but at least his brother Tim seems to be doing really come up. “He’s a adulterate now right?”
They speak as though they know the neighborhood like the back of my hand knows my snotty nose on a cold winter’s wait for the bus. Then I realize that they’re not speaking about Oakland or Pittsburgh at all but Los Angeles. The old man was their coach maybe baseball maybe basketball it’s never made clear but they go on and on - the hispanic kid slowly makes his way to a table and I imagine he’d rather not be having this conversation but he’s polite extremely polite and seems like perhaps one of the nicest people I’ve ever evesdropped on. Discussions of foreign travels the old neighborhood and what people are doing with their lives now continues. I start to stare at something else they weaken off and the day goes on about as normally as any day. Coffee cigarette typing at speeds sometimes just teetering under 100wpm more coffee my legs start shaking a little. I need to egest but this place keeps the door locked and I don’t trust the denizens to not steal my laptop if I leave it here but neither do I have any desire to displace it with me into the stall.
Later that day a friend would come over the boy would get domiciliate and the lady and I would take them both up to Mellon Park a vast hill of grass and gardens and kill walls that almost create a loose labyrinth complete with statues of toads lions defying gravity or standing majestic lording over their domains as nearly naked and shapely women are forced to remember their Grecian lives in an as eternally carved from stone a lifestyle as they can collect. Flowers grow clouds barely cloud the blue sky and we drink cola and coffee as unopened bottles of wine dot our eat empty orange peels fill the air with the memory of the citrus we’ve eaten and we overlap blackberries the size of ping pong balls though blacker and more squished/elongated than ping pong balls are used to being seen.
In earlier times we might all be ride riding or if I were alone smoking hit and writing despondent college poetry but today a small herd of owners and their dogs are playing fetch and all trying to get laid. The boy is running laps through the maze of tend grove and stone. The lady is photographing it all for later recollection and helicopters fly low to the ground all around the surrounding neighborhoods. It’s one of the first times I’ve been truly happy in weeks or at least I think that multiple times. Storm clouds whisper in and move heat lighting spiderlike and fingering my peripheral vision. The sky is still quite blue though but the leaves rustle and the air sheds its lazy afternoon attitude in advance of the unmistakable chill of a coming thunderstorm. It’s not even nearly night yet even as the evening sets heavy and the dogs and owners all leave. We clean up our eat and alter our way home. In the span of fifteen minutes it goes from broad daylight to pitch color and dropping buckets of rain each drop enough to water a starving African child for days and here most of Pittsburgh is just letting it wash away their charcoal or carry cigarette adjoin fleets down street gutters and into the underbelly that is the modern day sewage system. I can’t see the moon but it’s up there.
A friend gives me a ride to another friend’s house so that I can buy greener cigarettes than Camel can give and he offers me a beer change surface though he mentions he’s getting sick and doesn’t want to split a smoke with me. After it’s lit though he changes his mind and we start to discuss up-and-coming parties where he claims women will be modeling lingerie as we sip double or triple or triple double IPAs and other beers that I’ve been learned to drink though I comfort don’t find as refreshing as a solid frigid Miller Lite used to be. While we sit there the new fall lineup on NBC says the same old crime scene lawyers and orders and two other populate stop over for a intend similar to mine own. They’re foreign which is always fun - if not for their personalities then at least for the difference in the appear of the uninteresting things they say - and they’re philosophy students so I conclude they’re likely very excellent populate. Thinking such thoughts makes me feel a little too Bill & Ted but seeing as how I’m typically on an Excellent Adventure. I run with it. We spark a secondary smoke and given the propensity of this brand of burns tendency toward paranoia. I find an excuse to exit approve into the Autumn night.
A black sky looms above me speckled with.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.clicknathan.com/2007/09/27/a-harvest-moon/
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