Thursday, February 12, 2004
SOUND_CONTROLLED
TOY CAGES
Repair the Earth
Let little Birds
Singing
Made in China
Day like a leaf floating down
a bumpy stony brook
It doesn't come to you until you're well into it. Out of bed slightly late, dozing garbled news on clock radio. Errands, important not difficult. Bike to bank with short time to spare, skip the lubricant, pedals creaking loudly, bike complaining of nearly four weeks inattention. I'm sorry machine pal, it was the depths of winter, no more, say look at that late afternoon Sun! blinding. good, right? creakcreakcreak I hear ya!
Bank teller keys in same numbers over & over, another teller comes over to correct something, just enough hesitation, touch of anxiety - hmm something wrong with my account? wait, say nothing. Relief, I realize she's a trainee working alone, perhaps first day.
The customer in front of me at Dunkin Donuts counter is seriously English-challenged, yet his boss sent him in with a big order & too many duplicate coupons ... only one per order sir. He understands nothing. They give up quickly. He pays a dollar for four medium coffees & a cappucino. I don't even think he paid the dollar. No tip, either. My cappucino (with coupon) tastes suspiciously like Latte, too creamy, no espresso bite just under surface. Oh well. Filipinos with sweet tooths, if you're not assertive upfront they dump in half a cup of cream & four sugars before the coffee is even poured, & call it a "regular."
Walk into Walgreens, pick up sale flyer, big ugly cashier says "sir you have to leave the bookbag with the main cashier." Actually, it's a small maroon artists studio-pack, planted solidly in the middle of my back, & it's holding my checkbook & a large money order & a cheap cassette player & not so cheap earphones, I hand over my backpack only in downtown Elizabeth stores where they put it in a numbered cubbyhole & give you a claim tag, never in Rahway, never even been asked. This IS annoying. So I take the sales flyer & stand by the door in plain sight looking it over for anything I might actually want. About the time I conclude there's nothing this week, it's all Valentine crap, the big ugly cashier comes over AGAIN, & asks me AGAIN to deposit my bookbag. I have no patience for this, I come here a lot. Nothing I want this week I say, & the cashier says coolly, "well thank you very much sir," & although I'd enjoy slapping this one silly or saying out loud you make yourself ugly from the inside out('cause we all know God don't make ugly), I reassure myself that the twisted soul will either quit or be fired by next Wednesday. I'm a 55 year old guy riding an old bicycle, wearing a bright orange ski hat. I'm not going to pull it down over my face & drop little bottles of laxative suppositories into my cappucino cup, a better hiding place than an obvious bag.
At the market. Goya beans 2cansforadolla, cheap lettuce & broccoli, & these items I do cram into my backpack, then head for the post office, straight ahead ride down the smoooth Milton Ave. sidewalk, dusk, my orange cap clearing the path of commuters homebound from train station.
On the last leg home, I stop by the dollar store for a browse, & thinking back - it seemed like a struggle, this short journey - I then recall the tall cranes, much higher than the Methodist Church steeple, where the downtown double deck parking garage is being built, seeing a deep blue sun-has-set sky through those open steel frames. & the pretty Chinese checkout lady at the market smiling at me. & the French silver coin someone left on the glass desk counter at the bank, & I left it there, too. & the sun pops up again in the Southwest, & on Elm Street near the Mayor's house I distinctly heard two birds, one in a tree on each side of the road, singing a springtime tune. Yes, it was definitely that sort of music. & in the dollar store, surrounded by red hearts, feeling sad because I have no Be My Valentine Sweetheart again this year, I find the cheap wooden bird cage windchimes with the two little birds inside & the battery compartment on the bottom, & on the box it says:
SOUND_CONTROLLED
TOY CAGES
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