I
wandered out of the house late on a
Sunday afternoon, the kind that seems like it’s made of the
wasted scraps of the week pressed together, a rich
compost of boredom. The
city I was born into had become a
town again, bleeding
rust and
broken dreams. Strangely noble in defeat, the people on the streets are the
steadfast in their denial of depression.
Old Detroit steel parades on hard scrabble roads, and the pale yellow lines are now
sun blasted suggestions.
Somebody should write a book about this place.
But who would
read it?
Down the
curb, across the
street, up the
alley, across the
tracks.
Creosote smells like
burning industry, but the
weeds tell the truth. The
signal doesn't stop traffic more than once a night, usually for the
cross-country express. We used to be the
destination.
Buildings never lose their original
tenants. The medical center spews
50s aluminum promise. The office tower glowers in deep 70s
orange. Smoky spirals of
blue green terracotta tiles pepper the library beside the church,
imperial and ancient, fresh from
1883.
Florescent humming and big schoolhouse moonfaced
clocks watch the book piles.
Mildew smells like
education.
I wander to the
aestheticly ill-fitting computer desks. They clash like a
UFO sticker on a
Van Gogh.
He sat hunched over his computer screen, in much the same way a prison inmate hunches over his tray in the cafeteria. I was afraid to ask what he was writing. But, it was that or sort through the
dusty shelves to learn why the
Soviets would kill us all, or keep up with the latest advances in
cake decoration.
I took the desk next to him.
He stopped his
frantic typing. Frozen like a
prey animal inches away from
snapping jaws.
Turning his white crested head, he pinned me,
bug-like, with his steely glare, cresting his
half-crescent glasses. The hazy blue of a
cataracting eye made me shift in my seat.
You know that scene in
Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the crates in the warehouse? Where they stash the
Ark of the Covenant in a plain wood box and tuck it away from world? This face was like that room.
Grandfatherly. Possessing of
forbidden knowledge. As
imperial as the church squatting down the street. I felt the blood being pulled to my
cheeks. I did what I had to do: I
asked.
"Excuse me, but I was
wondering..."
"You want to know what this is,
don't you?” he asked,
poking his
cardigan draped arm toward the screen. I hadn't noticed he was missing a
hand.
"Actually,
yes." I offered up a sheepish grin.
He
frowned.
"Everyone wants to know until they
find out".
And he was
right.
inspired by a catbox topic