They are cutting down trees with an official sanction, six orange trucks lined up nose to tail down the bike line of my street. The men are in jumpsuits, matching, carrying chainsaws and hackblades and wearing tinny little hats. They spoke to me, one of the identically suited men, asked me “Is your car parked on this street, sir?” They couldn’t begin their chopping because none of us had headed the warning, he said, that we weren’t supposed to park here today. I just smiled and said that i don’t drive, though i was inwardly thinking “No, i will not move it. I like the trees just how they are.”
Silly electric company with their flimsy power lines … can’t stand up to some branches and leaves.
stories
I woke up from surgery almost exactly eight days ago, and at the time i couldn’t feel any part of my mouth. The state of affairs made it nearly impossible to talk much or open my mouth up too far. Furthermore, as i’ve found in the past, i am an absolutely headcase when i come out of anesthesia – i’m very sensitive to small stimuli.
There i was, Monday morning without a fairly useless body part that i had grown to utterly despise, unable to talk, and wearing a dotted dressing gown. From somewhere down the hall music wafted past, and my softened brain sucked it in like a sponge. “Here Comes The Sun” was recognized immediately, though i couldn’t even begin to approximate the process of humming along. Instead, i immediately turned to my somewhat distraught mother and exclaimed “It’s okay mom, George Harrison is here with me.”
My mother apparently took my accompaniment by a blessed Beatle to mean that i was moving towards the light, and thus became even more upset. Of course, being a mother whose sensitivity to art was washed away by the brutal reign of the television and trickle-through exposure to N’Sync singles, she had already forgotten that my secondary reason for being so upset the last time i was in the hospital for a procedure was that George had just died.
I explained it to her later: Obviously he’s become my guardian angel
Her response? Something about a flying Beatle.
Har har, mom. Har har.
When we finally descended the stairs in search of PB&J and evening activities we had been lounging around since 10am, having only interrupted our reclining to go downstairs to make omelettes for breakfast followed by a short engagement with Classic NES. As we each finished our third half-sandwich our eyes locked across the table, neither of us blinking or moving an inch.
“So, Elise, some more Nintendo?”
“Well, Peter, i might be convinced to thoroughly whup you at Super Mario Bros. 3.”
“If by severely whup you mean ‘attempt to take advantage of a poor only child who never had friends to test his vicious head-to-head Mario Bros. skills against each and every day after school’ but – eventually – ‘fail in the face of he who is brave at heart and fleet of thumb’ … then, yeah, i’m up for a game or two.”
” … Boys are such dorks.”
Suffice to say that what was “a game or two” at 6pm somewhere around 10pm turned into “i’m going to go home for a change of clothes so that i can come back to beat the Piranha Plant World that you claim to hate so much.”
And then, of course, came 1am, when it was something to the effect of “See, if you time your jump to match exactly with the beginning of his parabolic arc you very nearly stand a chance of landing on his back and then boost-jumping onto the musical note box (which, lamentably, possesses no musical qualities whatsoever), which will bring us one level closer to ending the evil reign of the despotic ruler that is Bowser.”
Right. Not to mention 2:15am, which went a little something like “OH MY GOD, HE’S COMING THIS WAY! DEAR SWEET LORD PRESS THE FUCKING JUMP BUTTON OHGODOHGODOHGOD.”
Suffice it to say, i had my ass thoroughly whupped, and i got to beat Mario Bros. 3 level for level without a single warp flute nearly a decade and a half after it’s release. Oh, and, had an amazing day just sitting around in my gym shorts with Elise.
Perfect. Just… perfect.
I need to share this before my head explodes from the irony.
So, i’m in the record room, shelving records. It’s a big room, and i’m alone, so i have the new Sheryl Crow record blasting from the inventory computer. In walks one of my supervisory co-workers, who says hi and takes off his jacket. He fiddles with various records and gadgets for a minute, and then turns to me and proclaims, “I’m sorry, i have to turn this shit off before i go insane.”
I wasn’t particularly offended, as i know that my predilection for female singer-songwriters isn’t shared by all of my associates. However, this particular person is a big fan of “house” music, which can at times consist of a couple of thin vocals strung over repetitive dance beats for minutes on end. Good-naturedly i joked back that i, at least, enjoyed music with choruses and verses. He somewhat snidely replied that he enjoyed verses very much, but not performed by “whiny bitches who don’t have any soul.”
He ejected my cd and dropped a record onto the turntable. There were no sounds on it produced by acoustic or strung instruments, and the singer sounded as though she had been randomly selected from a pool of gospel choir drop outs. In other words, there wasn’t any soul – or, at least none outside of the canned and anonymous vocal.
I smirked; I’m sure Sheryl’s feelings weren’t hurt too badly.
Earlier…
Septa sometimes paints you a pretty picture, if you get far enough away from the constant hum and hustle of motors in the city. It’s their tracks that caught my attention . . . tendrils arcing out from tangled skeins of track that echo ever inward to create the swirling mess of 30th street station.
The pictures, though, it’s about the pictures.
I am in North Philadelphia, the cool not-quite-evergreen metal of a bench leaving alternating slats of cool and warm skin on the backs of my legs. I imagine that i must look silly – – all curled and cross-legged in my business attire, like a child at a party who’s tired out from playing with the adults.
Which . . . maybe i am.
Just now an older black gentleman walked down into the station, and the heels of his polished shoes rang out against the stairs like hollow wooden bells. He is in a suit so royal blue that i’m fairly convinced that it’s purple. He his with him an oddly shaped silver suitcase and a wide-brimmed hat . . . just now he was sitting on the former and adjusting the latter. For a moment he stood, lifted the case up to a ledge on the wall, carefully opened the clasps, and inside i could see the tell tale velvet that enwombs a shiny instrument . . .a saxophone, or clarinet. But, that peek was all i got, as he snapped it closed and set it back down after only the most cursory inspection.
I wanted to ask him to play . . . i would’ve given him all of my money. Here’s my train.
Funny… i meant to talk about the wooden station with it’s ancient awning, but now i’m headed back. But… i think i still managed to say what i was feeling.