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by John Grey The sun has barely risen and the old men are already in the park. Isabel's weeping for Jerry though Jerry should be weeping for her, because he's comfortably dead and she's uneasy in her living. Some kid in a car hasn't even finished with last night yet. He drives in circles, a wounded knight with a crash bar for a shield. A drunk waves the only weapon at hand...himself. He'll do anything to protect his demon. Jake's van rolls back into town, a dead buck floats atop it, antlers buckled, crimson chest. And it's only the first week of the season. He loves those wilderness places, just not the pale water ale they serve. When the bar opens, he'll jaw with the rest of them, will bellow like the moose he smelt but never saw. Two sisters, in their seventies, buy milk at the 24 hour convenience store. In the hotel on third, the permanent residents still sleep. A Russian immigrant dreams of Russia, a Polish priest, of Poland. At the breakfast table, a Spanish child asks her mother why her face is so dark. Because that's just the way it is, is her staple answer to this question. The old men talk up how nothing changes. Isabel and Jerry remain at opposite sides of the divide. The kid in the car is like this every Sunday morning. And when was the drunk anything but drunk. Jake's shooting deer even when he's drinking. And he's drinking even when he's shooting deer. Women in their seventies always need milk. So do people in cheap hotels need their ugly sleep. And the Spanish child is dark of skin because that's the color it's always been. If her mother didn't tell her that, she'd be somebody else's mother. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.
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