Out strolling the streets, running my own version of Friday night lights, the air carrying just enough of a taste of both warm and cool to keep me satisfied. Walk two or three blocks before I hear any sound: young voices carrying out from a third story apartment, seems like a video game's on in the background.
Their voices fade within a block, and then nothing more than the sound of my feet making their unsteady way up Chestnut.
Then the sound of car wheels rolling slowly.
"I got a couple of opinions that I hold dear
A whole lot of debt and a whole lot of fear
I got an itch that needs scratching but it feels alright
I got the need to blow it out on Saturday night...
...Trying to hold steady on the righteous path
80 miles an hour with a worn out map
No time for self-pity or self-righteous crap
Trying to stay focused on the righteous path"
Drive-By Truckers, "The Righteous Path"
I take a drag on my cig and look straight ahead. The wheels slow down.
I look out of the corner of my right eye. Cop car. I look again. He's looking me over. My heart starts to race a little. I assume he knows I'm up to no good. I keep walking, take another drag. Eventually he goes on by, and I exhale, and think of how differently it might have gone were I not a middle-aged white guy.
Make it down to the convenience store, about to open the front door, looking to get a couple of nightcaps, and I realize I left my money home. Shit. Now I gotta go back home, walk to the store and back, more time for the cop to run by me again. Still, no doubt about the choice here; I have already tasted those nightcaps, can't do without 'em.
I get home, grab a twenty off the dresser, head back out. A block out I run into some people coming out of a house party, heading to their cars. Across the street a young woman in green pants paces the corner. I take a left to avoid her, make it to the store, get me two tall cans and a pack of gum, and make it back home.
Sit down on the back steps, swaddled in quiet and darkness. I crack open one of the cans, take a deep swig. A little warmer than I'd hoped. Realizing I had better throw these puppies in the freezer for a few minutes, I get up and head inside.
&&&
I got this friend on Facebook, well, first off, I don't spend much time on Facebook, and also, this guy is more Sheila's friend than mine, but anyway. He's always posting these articles on radical politics. Sometimes ten, twelve, fifteen articles a day. Some of the titles look interesting and sometimes I click through and read, most of the time I think, oh, I will definitely get back to that one eventually. Usually I don't, but once in a while I do.
And I think about how my politics were radical in my youth, though I didn't act on them often enough. At 31 I went took a job working within the system, from the left, and while I didn't think that the work contributed to the sort of systemic change I thought necessary, I figured it might make things at least somewhat better, and it beat the hell out of working for the bad guys, the way I did working at the bank.
Left that job when the fates singled me out for sudden, single parenthood, and now, in my late '40's, I find myself less involved than ever. My wife and I both work full-time, because most of us really can't make it any other way these days.
We have relatively solid white-collar jobs and make what on paper looks like a good income, but we're always on the edge, paycheck to paycheck. We have four kids in the house, ages fifteen down to two-and-a-half, it's like feeding an army, as they say, and I am lucky enough to be able to go shopping each week and cook our own meals.
Sometimes, in quiet moments alone in the kitchen, as I'm chopping up garlic or oinions or broccoli or rep peppers, I think about the sadism of a bunch of rich guys lusting to decimate food stamps, I think about Paul Ryan and his lying comments about the kid with the brown bag lunch, and I just want to scream at the top of my lungs.
Ah, but what good what that do? What good do I do? Not much. I vote every election, read the news for a few minutes at work, lash out against ignorance when it comes out in plain view. I write personal shit here. That's about it at the moment. I get about an hour and fifteen minutes of free time every day, fifteen minutes in the morning before everyone gets up, and an hour at lunch. Almost every day I spend that lunch hour out walking. Clears the head to spend an hour with my random thoughts and my daydreams, and I need to get some sort of exercise. Gotta keep in shape for the kids, right?
&&&
An hour or so ago, I logged on to Facebook, thinking I might search out one of those articles my friend had posted recently.
The very first thing I saw when I got in there came from a guy I knew in high school. He's a vet, did several tours in the recent wars.
He said he came across a car accident on his way home from work today, and got out to help. He helped stabilize three kids and an older person. I thought the story would end there, relatively happily with all involved perhaps seriously hurt but with survival to look forward to. Then he hit with a gut-punch: "The mother was killed upon impact."
My heart sinks as I think of those children, coming to in a hospital somewhere, perhaps wondering where their mother is. My heart sinks as I think of the father, confronting his loss, and having to tell his children their mother is dead. I've walked that long mile myself, seven years ago, and if there's something worse in this world than looking at your babies and telling them their mother is dead, I don't want to know what it is.
&&&
I thought I might have some answers by now, but I don't. I still wonder if getting people to truly appreciate suffering might change things for the better. Hatred lies at the root of what ails us; perhaps empathy, rather than facts and figures, can dissolve that hatred. Perhaps.
And I got a full tank of gas and $92 in my front left pocket. Not bad. Believe me, I am not complaining. Tomorrow we're driving up to spend the weekend with Sheila's folks. The kids are pumped up, have been all week. On Tuesday, Riley said to me, "oh Dad, I wish we could just skip ahead to Saturday right now!"
In the morning, presuming it comes, I will shuffle out of my room and head toward the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on. On my way there, I will see a seven year old and a nine year old, two of my children, sitting, wide awake, smiling and eager to get on the road to Mimi and Pop-Pop's.
I know I will think of those children out on that highway today. I know I'll think of that dad. I'll look at those smiling faces and I will throw my arms around their necks.