Closing time with people doesn’t always come with a dire diagnosis or an accident, or gunshots—or a stroke or heart attack. Sometimes it’s just a misplaced sense of tomorrow. "Where did I put it?" I’m getting the first real hints of that with my mother now. My sister wants her peace and hope. I’ve always admired her fight and energy. We can all run out of music or lose our passport. When my father was near the end, he kept seeing a black motorcyclist following him, haunting him. I told him it was just my stepbrother, probably trying to make sure he got home all right, or he was trying to make some kind of contact he couldn’t with his own father, who died in a wheelchair in the hot valley to the east—or maybe he was trying to save his own life with some words it was too late for. The black motorcycle never stopped or cut the old man off—it just followed him. We all hallucinate our own ends in different ways. My stepbrother imagined a flight to Venezuela. He just liked saying that word, I knew him—but it was a kind of Heaven in his mind. He talked about it, all smashed up from an attack by four dudes in Honolulu, his past catching up with him. I left him in the hospital room to head back to the West Coast (even at that age he’d paid for my trip), and I ran right into Chatter. Chatter was a mixed black-Hispanic cat from our very early neighborhood days. Cardboard tree forts and stolen hubcaps, whistling at older girls. He hardly ever spoke, hence his street name, but he’d been recruited into that world of my stepbrother for good reason. He was a true cold-blooded reptile angel. I knew he’d flown in to stand guard, in case anyone came back to finish what they’d started. He’d seen me when I came in, even if I hadn’t seen him--and I in fact probably cruised past the nurse station because he knew me and had allowed it. Yeah, you could say something was really wrong with him. I got into a fistfight with him when we were kids, before he got his growth spurt. I was stomping him—but he didn’t stop—because he had a fighting dog heart and a huge set of balls. Soldiers of some kind, criminals, mercenaries. Bad people maybe. Except so often, too often, in life—we want those kind of people on our side. I’m sending my mother a black motorcyclist in my mind. And for all those who are hurt and vulnerable, laying in bed—I’d wish for someone like Chatter outside your door. Maybe psychopath is the word for someone like that. But I remember when he was just a piss pants boy who loved chili dogs and didn’t know how to lose a fight. If he were on guard, whatever it would be would have to bring the shit for real to get to you. He was a six bullet kid. I remember flying down Florio St on our bikes with our eyes closed--holding hands the whole way.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 03:26:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015