l i f e
flight delayed
contributions
christopher@30seconds.org
"Christopher are you ever home?"
The words came across the answering machine covered in the static of a bad connection and hundreds of miles. I picture a long wait on orange or blue vinyl seats. A payphone and some loose change. Currency better spent soon as it will be no good at all shortly.
I played the message several times hoping to get every word, but missing some. It was time for a beer.
I walked down Tate St., happy and sad at what I heard. I bought one horrible Budweiser and gave all my change to a homeless man outside. He wore an Army medial satchel over one shoulder. The lights were going down on Tate as I walked home. The air was hot and humid and I was still sticky from the days work in the rose garden.
Yeah I'm home sometimes...
It's just that this weekend I was tired of looking at the four walls. I had to get out. I left on Friday night and didn't really set foot inside my place all weekend.
I got back from Tate and sat in the circle window downstairs, leaving my door open to hear the Red House Painters drift down the two flights of stairs.
I was thinking about water. Vast spaces of water. I was tired and comfortable. I had relaxed to the point of not moving. Trance-like, I sat there, quite immobile and counted leaves.
Up two flights of stairs I heard my phone ring. I know it was my phone because it has bells, no electronic pulse, or digital ring. I stayed put. Whomever it was could wait. I was thinking about someone else. In my hands there was a photograph. A guy with a smoke. Self Portrait. In the light of the stairwell it was faint. Local, like so many photos are. Snapped in a moment of instinct to be tossed in a box...or mailed across oceans.
It all depressed me a little and I went back upstairs to write. But before that I checked the message light. One new one.
"Flight still delayed...two more hours..."
That close. I was two flights of stairs away when the phone rang the last time. I could have easily picked it up. I just didn't bother, thinking the caller was over all that water I was thinking about.
I put the photo back in the box with the others and thought at that very moment he was there and I was here. For once in the same time zone and I could relate clearly to the weather, the way the sky looked, the balmy southern night so typical for me. I could see the airport having been there myself. I knew the constellations were in the same place in the sky. As I stroked the keyboard I could picture him smoking. Pacing. Going home.
I was again waiting. Hoping for one more call. The one I would for sure answer. The one I'd be there for. The one I wouldn't let go. One more. Come on. Ring damnit , ring.
goodnight 5.31.98
