Snippet (Luck of the Draw)
Apr. 8th, 2009 02:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaI sat in a folding lawn chair on the roof of my apartment, looking up at the sky, with its dark blue width and the wispy beards of cloud, who covered the face of the half hidden moon and then uncovered it again when the wind blew hard enough to move the sky cotton far, far away. I guess I should actually say I sat in an unfolded lawn chair, because sitting in a folded lawn chair would be a might uncomfortable.
The lawn chair, banded in yellowed strips of white and faded strips of blue webbing had been on the roof when I moved in, three years ago. I found the chair, folded and leaning up against the freight elevator, which is a monstrous tar spattered and brown rusted metal cube that grew hot enough in the summer to roast a frozen turkey in. If Thanksgiving came in July, I have a feeling that nobody in the building would be using their ovens, and we would all have a communal dinner of freight elevator roasted turkey and corn dressing up on the roof.
I found the chair, as I said, when I moved in, and I was curious enough, or perhaps larcenous enough, to open it up and look at it, see what sort of shape it was in. Some of these lawn chairs tend to tatter in the lightest breeze, as if giving up to the elements even before the elements realize there's a tasty lawn chair nearby on which to nibble. When I moved in, I had no furniture. I was 48 then, and I had left a life behind me that... well, it's not something I like to talk about. Let's just say that the results of some of my actions created situations where I had to hit the floor running flat out, and all I had was my clothes, my head and my life. I count myself lucky on that account, most of the time.
The lawn chair was in near pristine condition. The joints were clean and free of rust, and it unfolded with that aluminum sigh that says, "I'm ready. Sit down and rest a spell. Hot, ain't it?" It scrapped a bit when I sat it down on the gravelly tarpaper of the roof and a card fell out of it from somewhere. It was a card, about the size of a 'Get out of Jail Free' card, but it was white with blue lettering.
"For Night Gazing.", the card read. It was written in crisp blue ballpoint, each letter digging a slight trench where the writer had pressed the pen down. I secretly imagined (because who would I tell?), that the card had been written with the original yellow Bic pen, which to this day remains my favorite of all the cheap pens ever made. For some reason no other color strikes me as did the sunny disposition of the original Bic. Not the white, with its pale rounded barrel, looking for all the world like a finger bone from some odd calligraphist, nor the blue, which is far too easy to lose. The yellow Bic Stic is the only truly cheap pen for me, with its happy banana color and the black letters on the side declaring who it was and what it was. It was a BIC STIC, pure and simple. Made in the US of A, by God. Or by Bic, actually.
"For Night Gazing." Well, there it was. The lawn chair, or, in this case, the roof chair, was not a simple piece of furniture to be used at a party with some guest plopping their webbing ripping multi-colored shorts covered rear ends that had seen far too many short ribs. This was not a chair to be used for sitting near a poolside to watch over stuffed half-naked swimmers or waders or dog-paddlers.
This was a Night Gazing chair. It said so, right on the card. And that was what I used it for, because it said so, right on the card.
So the night that I got the orange 'Get out of Jail Free' card in the mail, I climbed out my second story window (yep, I'm a second story man), and shinnied up the heavy cast iron drain pipe that ran from roof to ground and hugged the wall with the tenacity of a daddy long-legs on a lace curtain. It was a heavy black pipe, probably five or six inches in diameter and could conceivable be used as the lever that Archimedes wanted when he bragged he could move the world, if he had a solid enough place to stand. In the three years I've been climbing from my apartment to the roof, the drainpipe never once complained, or if it did, it grumbled silently to itself so as not to offend anyone.
I would like to think that the writer of the chairs card did the same thing, shinnying up the drainpipe, like some mad reverse thief in the night. Twice I've been caught by my neighbors, Mrs. Twiggins, who lives above me in her quiet and prim solitude, and Mr. Konasas, who, with his wife, Mrs. Konasas, keep a tidy little apartment that always smells faintly of cumin and curry.
Those aren't their real names, of course. I would not want to embarrass them because they are nice people, and they are my neighbors. I point them out here because, both times as I would make my ten foot climbs to the roof, they saw me outside of their windows and both times they smiled at me and nodded, as if they knew some deep, deep magical secret and approved of what I was doing. Not only approved of it, but knew why I was doing it.
I wish they had let me in on the secret. I figured I just did it because the freight elevator was damnably noisy and at eleven at night, it is just rude to wake folks up with the sound of an elephant being dragged by its trunk down to hell through a three-inch hole. Still, it tickled me to know that my neighbors approved of me slinking up to the roof on occasion to sit in the roof chair and watch the clouds obscure and surrender the night sky.
Cards are an interesting thing. Probably one of the most interesting things ever invented by man or woman... humankind. Cards are the roadmaps of the heart and of the mind. They tell you things you never thought you'd know and take you to places you never thought you'd go. Hey, that rhymes. I'm a poet, and yes, I do know it. And that rhymes, too. I just try to not brag about it. That'll get you shot in some places, and it has.
There's a group of people on this planet who carry cards that have map coordinates on them. These coordinates are written by other people, who have hidden away... things at those coordinates. I forget what that group is called. Anyway, if the members of this group track the coordinates to the exact place, the very spot, the X marks the spot place, and then follow the directions that accompany the coordinates, they will find those hidden away things. Then these folks leave those hidden away things right where they found them, and make a little log entry in their moleskine book saying "I found these hidden away things on such and such a day and year at such and such a time". Then they will pick up another set of coordinates and go to another spot on the planet where they find other hidden away things.
Crazy people doing crazy things, and all because of words and letters on a card. It's sort of like using a lawn chair for night gazing on the roof of a three-story brownstone, where you have other twelve story buildings leering down at you, as if you were the crazy person. There may be people in those twelve story buildings looking down at me while I sit in the lawn chair and gaze at the night sky with its occasional jet flying from hither to yon. If there are other people in those twelve story buildings, I don't see them because the windows are all shiny on the outside and dark on the inside, as if they have hidden away things and I don't have the card with the coordinates to find them.
I did have a card, though. In fact, I had two, if you count a tag tied to a bus locker key that was stamped with the number 13 on it as a tag. You might count that as a card. You might not. I did. It was made of paper and it had writing on it, ergo, it was a card. A message. It was a sign from the mind and heart of someone else, and carried coordinates to an exact place where something was hidden away. A place called Murphy Station held a mystery, and I've already told you how I feel about those.
Heck, I had three cards, if you count a key stamped with the number 13 on it as a card. It, too, had a message to deliver. A locker named 13. A coordinate.
A single drop of rain splatted with a tactile and audible 'thunk' on the very top of my bald head while I was contemplating the Universe of cards and coordinates. Another drop fell and tried to shove the first one out of the way because there is only so much room on the bald spot on top of my head. I looked up at the night sky and sure enough, the clouds had eaten the moon. Poor moon.
I stood up and folded the lawn roof chair and it merrily let me without so much as a squeak. It was a good chair; perfect for the role it had been assigned. I carried the chair and put it in its place, leaning on the massive turkey roaster of the freight elevator. More raindrops, jealous of their kin sitting on my skull, decided to join the party. As there were too many for me to stop and count, and why would I, I had a decision to make. Was it worth it getting wet climbing down the drainpipe, or should I take the screaming, squealing box of death down to the second floor?
Not really much of a decision. I loped across the roof and clambered over the edge, holding onto the thick black snake of the pipe. Interesting thing about thick snakes of pipe in the rain. They get slick. Really, really slick. My fireman's pole trip down to my apartment window was as exciting as watching your life flash past your eyes. My life, anyway, and I really don't like re-runs.
I bounced jarringly against my windowsill, which barked at me because it felt it didn't deserve to be woken this way, and my right hand lost its grip. I swung out into space and slammed my back against the wall, giving me an instant chiropractic adjustment I probably didn't need. Fortunately for me, my left hand was less traitorous than my right and held firm, so I was able to slowly, like the sands of our lives through an hourglass slowly, swing my way back to where I could climb in my window. My windowsill was crying from the disturbance and shock of being rudely crashed upon. Maybe it was feeling sympathy for my almost short trip to the alley below. Or maybe it was the rain. The sill stayed mum on the subject.
Back on safe ruggy firma, I closed my window and lowered the blinds. Lightning flashed at me, as if the heavens where having a good laugh at the little human who almost became just another normal ambulance run. I laughed back, shaking my fist at the blinded window, and saying to the outside world, "I've made it this far without falling. I think I can go a bit farther!"
It was a rainy night, for sure and true. It was going to be a rainy day. Perfect for a trip to some coordinates tied to a key to find hidden away things.
The lawn chair, banded in yellowed strips of white and faded strips of blue webbing had been on the roof when I moved in, three years ago. I found the chair, folded and leaning up against the freight elevator, which is a monstrous tar spattered and brown rusted metal cube that grew hot enough in the summer to roast a frozen turkey in. If Thanksgiving came in July, I have a feeling that nobody in the building would be using their ovens, and we would all have a communal dinner of freight elevator roasted turkey and corn dressing up on the roof.
I found the chair, as I said, when I moved in, and I was curious enough, or perhaps larcenous enough, to open it up and look at it, see what sort of shape it was in. Some of these lawn chairs tend to tatter in the lightest breeze, as if giving up to the elements even before the elements realize there's a tasty lawn chair nearby on which to nibble. When I moved in, I had no furniture. I was 48 then, and I had left a life behind me that... well, it's not something I like to talk about. Let's just say that the results of some of my actions created situations where I had to hit the floor running flat out, and all I had was my clothes, my head and my life. I count myself lucky on that account, most of the time.
The lawn chair was in near pristine condition. The joints were clean and free of rust, and it unfolded with that aluminum sigh that says, "I'm ready. Sit down and rest a spell. Hot, ain't it?" It scrapped a bit when I sat it down on the gravelly tarpaper of the roof and a card fell out of it from somewhere. It was a card, about the size of a 'Get out of Jail Free' card, but it was white with blue lettering.
"For Night Gazing.", the card read. It was written in crisp blue ballpoint, each letter digging a slight trench where the writer had pressed the pen down. I secretly imagined (because who would I tell?), that the card had been written with the original yellow Bic pen, which to this day remains my favorite of all the cheap pens ever made. For some reason no other color strikes me as did the sunny disposition of the original Bic. Not the white, with its pale rounded barrel, looking for all the world like a finger bone from some odd calligraphist, nor the blue, which is far too easy to lose. The yellow Bic Stic is the only truly cheap pen for me, with its happy banana color and the black letters on the side declaring who it was and what it was. It was a BIC STIC, pure and simple. Made in the US of A, by God. Or by Bic, actually.
"For Night Gazing." Well, there it was. The lawn chair, or, in this case, the roof chair, was not a simple piece of furniture to be used at a party with some guest plopping their webbing ripping multi-colored shorts covered rear ends that had seen far too many short ribs. This was not a chair to be used for sitting near a poolside to watch over stuffed half-naked swimmers or waders or dog-paddlers.
This was a Night Gazing chair. It said so, right on the card. And that was what I used it for, because it said so, right on the card.
So the night that I got the orange 'Get out of Jail Free' card in the mail, I climbed out my second story window (yep, I'm a second story man), and shinnied up the heavy cast iron drain pipe that ran from roof to ground and hugged the wall with the tenacity of a daddy long-legs on a lace curtain. It was a heavy black pipe, probably five or six inches in diameter and could conceivable be used as the lever that Archimedes wanted when he bragged he could move the world, if he had a solid enough place to stand. In the three years I've been climbing from my apartment to the roof, the drainpipe never once complained, or if it did, it grumbled silently to itself so as not to offend anyone.
I would like to think that the writer of the chairs card did the same thing, shinnying up the drainpipe, like some mad reverse thief in the night. Twice I've been caught by my neighbors, Mrs. Twiggins, who lives above me in her quiet and prim solitude, and Mr. Konasas, who, with his wife, Mrs. Konasas, keep a tidy little apartment that always smells faintly of cumin and curry.
Those aren't their real names, of course. I would not want to embarrass them because they are nice people, and they are my neighbors. I point them out here because, both times as I would make my ten foot climbs to the roof, they saw me outside of their windows and both times they smiled at me and nodded, as if they knew some deep, deep magical secret and approved of what I was doing. Not only approved of it, but knew why I was doing it.
I wish they had let me in on the secret. I figured I just did it because the freight elevator was damnably noisy and at eleven at night, it is just rude to wake folks up with the sound of an elephant being dragged by its trunk down to hell through a three-inch hole. Still, it tickled me to know that my neighbors approved of me slinking up to the roof on occasion to sit in the roof chair and watch the clouds obscure and surrender the night sky.
Cards are an interesting thing. Probably one of the most interesting things ever invented by man or woman... humankind. Cards are the roadmaps of the heart and of the mind. They tell you things you never thought you'd know and take you to places you never thought you'd go. Hey, that rhymes. I'm a poet, and yes, I do know it. And that rhymes, too. I just try to not brag about it. That'll get you shot in some places, and it has.
There's a group of people on this planet who carry cards that have map coordinates on them. These coordinates are written by other people, who have hidden away... things at those coordinates. I forget what that group is called. Anyway, if the members of this group track the coordinates to the exact place, the very spot, the X marks the spot place, and then follow the directions that accompany the coordinates, they will find those hidden away things. Then these folks leave those hidden away things right where they found them, and make a little log entry in their moleskine book saying "I found these hidden away things on such and such a day and year at such and such a time". Then they will pick up another set of coordinates and go to another spot on the planet where they find other hidden away things.
Crazy people doing crazy things, and all because of words and letters on a card. It's sort of like using a lawn chair for night gazing on the roof of a three-story brownstone, where you have other twelve story buildings leering down at you, as if you were the crazy person. There may be people in those twelve story buildings looking down at me while I sit in the lawn chair and gaze at the night sky with its occasional jet flying from hither to yon. If there are other people in those twelve story buildings, I don't see them because the windows are all shiny on the outside and dark on the inside, as if they have hidden away things and I don't have the card with the coordinates to find them.
I did have a card, though. In fact, I had two, if you count a tag tied to a bus locker key that was stamped with the number 13 on it as a tag. You might count that as a card. You might not. I did. It was made of paper and it had writing on it, ergo, it was a card. A message. It was a sign from the mind and heart of someone else, and carried coordinates to an exact place where something was hidden away. A place called Murphy Station held a mystery, and I've already told you how I feel about those.
Heck, I had three cards, if you count a key stamped with the number 13 on it as a card. It, too, had a message to deliver. A locker named 13. A coordinate.
A single drop of rain splatted with a tactile and audible 'thunk' on the very top of my bald head while I was contemplating the Universe of cards and coordinates. Another drop fell and tried to shove the first one out of the way because there is only so much room on the bald spot on top of my head. I looked up at the night sky and sure enough, the clouds had eaten the moon. Poor moon.
I stood up and folded the lawn roof chair and it merrily let me without so much as a squeak. It was a good chair; perfect for the role it had been assigned. I carried the chair and put it in its place, leaning on the massive turkey roaster of the freight elevator. More raindrops, jealous of their kin sitting on my skull, decided to join the party. As there were too many for me to stop and count, and why would I, I had a decision to make. Was it worth it getting wet climbing down the drainpipe, or should I take the screaming, squealing box of death down to the second floor?
Not really much of a decision. I loped across the roof and clambered over the edge, holding onto the thick black snake of the pipe. Interesting thing about thick snakes of pipe in the rain. They get slick. Really, really slick. My fireman's pole trip down to my apartment window was as exciting as watching your life flash past your eyes. My life, anyway, and I really don't like re-runs.
I bounced jarringly against my windowsill, which barked at me because it felt it didn't deserve to be woken this way, and my right hand lost its grip. I swung out into space and slammed my back against the wall, giving me an instant chiropractic adjustment I probably didn't need. Fortunately for me, my left hand was less traitorous than my right and held firm, so I was able to slowly, like the sands of our lives through an hourglass slowly, swing my way back to where I could climb in my window. My windowsill was crying from the disturbance and shock of being rudely crashed upon. Maybe it was feeling sympathy for my almost short trip to the alley below. Or maybe it was the rain. The sill stayed mum on the subject.
Back on safe ruggy firma, I closed my window and lowered the blinds. Lightning flashed at me, as if the heavens where having a good laugh at the little human who almost became just another normal ambulance run. I laughed back, shaking my fist at the blinded window, and saying to the outside world, "I've made it this far without falling. I think I can go a bit farther!"
It was a rainy night, for sure and true. It was going to be a rainy day. Perfect for a trip to some coordinates tied to a key to find hidden away things.
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Got to it before Capi!
Date: 2009-04-08 02:11 pm (UTC)...would be a might uncomfortable... might should be "mite".
This is my mother speaking out from inside my head, to roast a frozen turkey in more correctly is: in which to roasts a frozen turkey.
...their moleskine book No "e" on moleskin, I do believe.
Very nice....
Re: Got to it before Capi!
Date: 2009-04-08 03:32 pm (UTC)The clouds, being personified, and many on living things in my works and worlds are, are whos rather than whats. But technically, if I was writing formally, yes, it would be a which. Which is what a witch should know.
Mite, using four letters is a small, biting insect. Might, used in this sense is a possibility, such as "you might not eat that, it's purple."
As for Moleskine, it's an actual type of book. Ask Tim about it, as he carries one wherever he goes.
But yay you! I do so appreciate those that dig into the stories like this. Thank you ever so much!
Hugs and tons of love, and I'm hoping the bus station will give billions of decorative words, cuz I'm missing the interplay.
Re: Got to it before Capi!
Date: 2009-04-08 09:36 pm (UTC)I do likes it very much!
Re: Got to it before Capi!
Date: 2009-04-08 03:40 pm (UTC)You nabbed me there, for sure and true! It's those pesky prepositions at the end! Darn it. Thanks, Sis!
Re: Got to it before Capi!
Date: 2009-04-08 03:45 pm (UTC)Yeah, my mother had an English minor and she speaks out every now and again in my head.