My angel is in a sour mood. Has been all morning. Not her regular sour, her bitter, tart, refreshing, mind-clearing sour. Oh no. That’s for when she can’t find something or other and she looks for hours and I come home and find it – her purse, the cat, what have you – right away. That’ll rile her some. Or when people for whom she has great distaste fail to invite her to a birthday or a wedding. Robs her of the chance to turn them down ever so politely. My angel is polite.
These things will make her sparkle and shine, pout her lips, stomp her feet – no more than twice per foot – and make her entire being glow. There is no glow now, the air around her is dull. For the life of me I cannot figure out if she knows that I can see, sense all these things. It’s not important, that’s for sure, it’s just, to see her this far from fine troubles me. My angel calls me silly for wanting everything to be good all the time. If she weren’t my angel she’d call it naïve, stupid and maybe even fascist. Now that’s the power of love for you.
She looks like she’s about to cry, I know she isn’t, the air tastes different then. She’s clutching her coffee cup as though it were a space-walk tether. Sour, sour, sour. Haven’t seen this in a good long while, usually connected with death, her mother, the cat that would go missing, it’s how she deals with grief. One of the stages. My angel looks me straight in the eyes and says something mean. Cold. Meant to provoke me. I know a fight won’t make anything better. Our eggs are coming up, I can see the apronned waitress on standby at the counter. Food usually helps. But this isn’t usually. Is her body betraying her? No, no, that was two weeks ago. Angel, let me help you. She manages a smile at the woman in the apron, like a ray of mild sunlight in a hurricane. Façade.
She’s dull and sour. Like gastric acid. Lye. Tequila on an open wound. A batch of tart candy that’s been recalled due to some infant deaths. Usually, this isn’t usually, but usually it’s just a matter of letting it pass. So I look out at the street. It rained all last night. Relentlessly. Without relent, I suppose. Lack of sleep, is that it? I always go to bed with the secure knowledge that the moment my head hits the pillow I’ll be asleep. My angel tosses and turns for hours. The unfairness of that might finally have gotten to her. Angel, angel. Drenched asphalt, trees heavy with fat droplets, bushes soaked and sweating as the sun finally deals with the clouds. Morning traffic moves slowly by the window we’ve been seated by. We’re living, breathing billboards. C’mon in, some guy and his surly angel like it, why shouldn’t you? Try the french toast, it’s a family recipe, really old, the secret? oh, can’t say, one must have some leverage in life, ha, yes, more coffee sir? Sure, I’ll drink to the world. Morning traffic edges… is that, is that blood? My angel hasn’t seen it, won’t waste her time with it. A handprint? Couldn’t have been. Nevermind, nevermind. Buck up man. Ask her, go on. Could explain a lot you know.
“Are you pregnant?”
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You’re him. You don’t know it, but I do and I have to live with it.
I am myself and I only have to live with that which is discovered.
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And then there’s the rain. Don’t even get me started on the rain. That time in Lisbon. Drenched to the bone. Everything so slippery, the ground turning to mud, the asphalt getting that extra coat, only looks like it of course. All you can do is shuffle along making little goals, setting them rather. “It’s time”. Well of course it is, I know that, no need to tell me. Even with the wipers off the clock shines clear. Now would actually be good. Well, I’ll have to stride, no other way, can’t ever let anyone know it bothers me. Quebec, it had started when we were crossing the border - long ago, it’s been seven, no, wait, nine since then - and I had to do the whole wall-crawler routine and while I was getting ready I said something, nothing much ‘I hope I don’t slip’ I think it was. Didn’t even say it like I was worried. They all get deathly quiet like I’ve said something too absurd to believe. And then Cochlann turned around, or was it Langley, and said, let me see:
-Never let anyone know it bothers you
Like I wasn’t talking about the weather. I had to make some comment. Younger. Before I can even start Langley interrupts with
-Never. Let. Anyone. Know.
He always was saying that an awful lot, Cochlann was. That night I shuffled across roofs feeling equally scared and ashamed. He had that much of an effect on me. He was the one who taught me about cause and effect, about ‘the big picture’. Would have quit early on if it hadn’t been for Cochlann. Like a father to me he was. Or was it Langley? Got the job done up north, I’ll get it done here. I don’t need anyone but myself to believe in that, other-end-of-the-line is probably expecting an answer or some kind of action. Oh, brother! There’ll be some kind of action. Pass me the foils. This one is too heavy, let me see another. That used to make them laugh out loud, you’d think that all we could read were Forsyth books. Screw it. I always liked that guy, even if he was in way over his head. Cut his throat in a church would have been the way to go, but no, he had to be getting his mack on or something. Wimpy guy with pretty words. Couldn’t it let up for just fifteen seconds? Fourteen point seven eight and then the last bit for dramatic effect. Have to cut back on the drama. Never do three actions when one will suffice. Anyway, too dark to see it move now, the sun’ll rise on a brighter day though. I would guess. Back home it’s easy to tell, just look at the mountains, never needed a forecast. Well, almost never. Here the ocean is so close, messes up everything. Better to be on the water than by it. Islands, groups of islands, so much sunshine, bit of wind sees to that, clouds never stick around for long. Why does water make wind? Wonder if the Moon has something to do with it, gravity pulling the air along with the water? Probably not. More likely it’s a heat thing. Cold air, hot air. One rising while the other falls or some such science thing. Sometimes it will rain incessantly, can’t be true but all day at the least. Or monsoons. Rainforests. Humidity. Yeah, but it’s a dry heat. In the desert with my freshman friends. Joking ends with the A/C. Only dry until you sweat. Can’t abide that either. Cold’s never bothered me. I’m not prissy. I just work best dry. Sweaty palms are no good. If you spend too much time in the desert it starts getting to you, those flat clouds. Even I prayed for rain. Metal rusts mom used to say, she was wrong. All those cars out there, the sign, the bulge in my trousers, all get dry again. That would be dramatics. Let’s just say I’m not happy to see you. Clouds are nice. Great strokes of paint across the sky, broad brushes and fine pencils, the sun changing what they are, burning through them. Thick fog in the morning hours can be removed by the rising star of the east. Spinning in space, the world, the way it spins. Day follows night, endlessly, well, everything ends. Everything. Even the end ends. While it’s dark here it’s light somewhere else, that great wave of day and night and day, the curve sharpening or softening with the seasons. Dusk isn’t a global concept, some places the sun hardly sets, you get the red sky right next to the pale blue sky, signs of setting and rising. Here it just got dark, hardly any twilight. Electrical lights get more power that way, shine brighter. Temperature is almost constant, sure it’s warmest at mid-day, feeling all baked, but there’s no extreme drop like some places, the desert with my freshman friends. Can’t wear glasses in the rain either, not without stopping to dry them off all the time, lights reflection in small drops of water. Always brings tears to my eyes and clogs up my nose. Contacts. The Hagakure has some advice on rain, never passing under the eaves of houses, accepting the wetness. Tsunetomo obviously never wore a poncho. Never really got out of that cave. Easy enough to give weather advice from inside. But that’s the way it always is. Everything is relative, what’s true and wise to one person doesn’t have to be to me. I never minded being a plant. Society is what then? When it rains we all get wet. Longest arm moves the fastest, shortest moves slower. Wouldn’t take much tinkering to make the two change places. When time passes we all get old. But the watch doesn’t create or even maintain ‘time’. All it can do is try to give us a picture of an idea, but that idea is so deeply rooted, if I changed the arms around - hands, they’re called hands - anyone who saw the watch without knowing would have a short moment of utter panic and despair. There would be their life, slipping from them at the rate of one hour every five seconds. Life does that, slip away. How quickly doesn’t matter. But really we should all always feel like the hands are switched. Don’t answer, just press four for the beep and hang up. Don’t let him know it bothers you. Never rush art and never into the rain. So many people out there. Time to take stock. Not a second, nor an hour, to lose. Life on the line. Hang up. Get out. Out I say!
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