Summer evenings are tolerable. In a relative way they are quite pleasant. The soggy heat of the day subsides and I delight in working late. Although I bike to work, I typically walk home. Walking through the summer dusk in Wilmington is calming. Usually I close up the bookstore at about 8:00. Front street is thronged with people on a Friday night. When the sun is low, but has yet to take a bow, all characters are on stage. The early drunks enter from hotels and suburbs, the window shopping families have yet to make their exit. Friends and acquaintances call to me from all directions. Often I will decide to stay in on nights like this, allowing the journey home to be my outing. I savor every step. I stop into Village Market to buy some beer for myself and whoever I may find at my apartment when I arrive. Curtis, who has run the register at the store for as long as I have lived here, calls me Honey. The hill on Dock street between Second and Third Streets is a sobriety test. I have seen people fail it. I myself have skimmed by with a D- more than once. It is not really a very impressive hill. Its power lies in the element of surprise. Wilmington, for the most part is as topographically interesting as a mirror. Yet here, between you and your home, is a somewhat fatiguing tilt of land. Tonight the hill is mostly unpopulated and everyone on it seems to be on their way to the watering hole. They will be graded later. Halfway up the hill are the side doors of The City Club. A private club which costs more to join than I have ever made in a year. It has a gas lantern on the side of the brick building. When the wind snuffs out the flame the gas continues to flow and the whole block smells of eggs and flatulence. When I was younger and quicker to anger I always hoped that the gas leaked in through the windows and made for an unpleasant dining experience. But the more I think about it, they probably have some rare French cheese wrapped in gold leaf that they blame the smell on and continue with their evening. At the top of the hill I stop and wait for a gap in traffic. I usually pass this time by looking north toward the next intersection and watching pedestrians try to figure out the traffic pattern. Eventually, some number of them will simply flow out into the street against all logic and common sense. As cars, who by all means should have had the right of way, stop in mid intersection for the jaywalkers, it creates a hole in the traffic that I can see coming. Sometimes I have the presence of mind to take advantage and casually make my way to the other side of the street when the hole arrives. Other times I completely zone out, thinking about how I am standing on a street corner waiting for nothing. For a void. An absence of something. But the void is real and I can see it coming. And there is goes. And now I have to wait for another. When I make it to the other side, I am in a new world. The revelry of downtown proper is behind me. Traffic for the rest of my walk will be almost nonexistent. Now I am truly off work. At the corner of Fourth and Dock, Moonflowers bloom everywhere and for nearly a minute I find myself walking through a Georgia OKeeffe painting. This is the climax. This is it. How refreshing and infuriating it is to have it announced to eloquently and in such a matter of fact way. It’s not going to get any better than this. The rest of my commute takes me past bed and breakfasts, homes, churches, and flower gardens. Happy neighbors sit on their porches reading books or staring into trees or their phones. We exchange hellos. If I recognize their face it is most likely from this exact sort of encounter days earlier. Occasionally someone will call my name and I will stop for a chat. In the end though, I will reach my destination. My home of three years now. I will open the door and look up the flight of stairs. At the top there will be a large dog wagging his tail so violently that his head follows suit. I will walk him around the block, make sure he has water and food, then I will do the same for myself. I will grab a beer and sit on my front porch staring happily into a book, a tree, or my phone. I will exchange hellos with passersby. At some point I will decide that I have donated enough blood to the local mosquitoes and call it a night. Half asleep I will replay the highlights of the day in my mind. Hash out the more confusing ones and smile or frown at the others. I will arrive at the conclusion that it is worth repeating and set an alarm for the morning.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 02:26:25 +0000
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