Roger Wright – Chicago

Just before she snapped this picture, I had brushed some dirt off your gravestone. We were in Asheville, North Carolina. Breathing in that pure mountain air like it was a cool, cleansing tonic that really could clear tubercular lungs.

I wondered if that air could make me write like you.

As I knelt at your grave, I never imagined you as a Thanksgiving Day guest.

That would be impossible. Right? You being dead and all.

Of course, back then I also thought it would be impossible that she’d dump me. I thought we were for keeps.

She never even bothered to say, “It’s not you. It’s me.” Always a good line. Especially when it’s not true.

We spoke by phone a lot. She lived in a small town in Missouri. I lived in Chicago. Not the best set up for destiny. And when I started hearing stories about how much fun she was having going fishing with this guy she knew from town; when she told me that he owned a jewelry store. When her voice got more and more faded and distant with each call, I kind of figured that the jeweler would eventually close the sale and make them a couple.

It happened just before Thanksgiving. I got the call that there would be no more calls. I finally saw destiny drift away on a warm southern wind.

Yeah, I know. Old story. It’s not “Look Homeward Angel.” It’s just a young guy, who would not be venturing out from Chicago to her Mother’s house in Gulfport, Mississippi for Thanksgiving that year.

Which left me alone at Thanksgiving. And I’d been through that once. Had to take some action. Did not know what. But I had to do something.

I would not be stuck around some dinner table where everyone gathered because they thought they were supposed to gather. Following some genetic instinct of what holidays and family are supposed to mean. A rhythm unstoppable by anything else than a nuclear blast because most times, if you’re dancing to that rhythm, you don’t even know it’s there.

What does that mean? Sorry for that last sentence going on forever. I think I’m a little nervous telling you this story Mr. Thomas Wolfe. And I tend to go on and on when I get nervous.

All I was trying to say was that I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with someone just because I was supposed to spend it with them. I didn’t want it to be about obligations. Even if I liked the people. I didn’t want obligation to be the orchestra leader.

Or, worse yet, I didn’t want to be that last minute guest with nowhere else to go. Sitting in the chair with the nametag in front that said LOSER.

What I was missing though, was an actual solution. I really didn’t know what to do.

So going down to the local tavern seemed like a good choice. Thanksgiving was two nights away. Maybe if I drank enough between now and then, I’d figure it out.

It had just started to snow, the Chicago winter winds like jet engines revving up for takeoff. Coming into the bar, a joint over on Wabansia, I opened the door under the faded neon of a Hamm’s Beer sign, and there was a shout of “Hey, close the damned door, kid!”

I wasn’t sure at first, who had yelled. The bartender, faceless in the shadows at the back of the dark bar. Or was it the guy with wire-rimmed glasses and very intense eyes sitting at the bar?

Stomping the dusty snow off my boots and unzipping my big down coat, I looked again at the guy hunched over at the bar. He was like a shadow. He seemed to fade in and out.

Thinking I better drink quick, I ordered a beer and a shot of Jack Daniels before I had even sat down. That faceless bartender put it down, I put a $10 on the bar, turned to offer a toast to the guy with the glasses, and once again, he seemed to fade away. Where he had been, was only an empty bar stool. The bartender had retreated back to his corner. So I felt totally alone. And as soon as I felt most alone, the ghost on the bar stool faded back into view, gave me a wink and said, “Yeah. It’s me. Sorry about the whole Thanksgiving thing, kid. I know what it’s like getting dumped. Me and Frenchy. . . . . “

I interrupted. Couldn’t help it. I knew who he was. I knew Frenchy is what he called Simone deBeauvoir. “No way. Algren? Really? Nelson Algren?”

“Do I look like Papa Hemingway, kid?”

“How did you . . . what is. . .why am I. . .what the . . .”

“Easy kid, We’ll let you ask your questions. But first, lets get a table. We’re gonna have some company.”

Algren motioned me over to an even darker corner of the bar. And that’s when I saw you, Mr. Wolfe. This time, alive as you could be! Wild hair, eyes darting all over the room. I could see you writing without even having a pen or paper or typewriter. Just sitting there fidgeting in your chair, you were writing!

You said to me “Sorry about the Thanksgiving thing kid. Thought I’d pop by. See if I could help. Awful nice of you to come by the grave that time.”

“Yeah,” said Algren. “We figured we’d have Thanksgiving tonight. See, where we come from, the exact day doesn’t really matter too much.”

“I have,” I said, close to losing the ability to speak, “so many questions!”

“Well, that’s nice. kid. But why don’t you wait till everybody gets here.”

“Who else is . . .” and just then the barroom door opened. Framed with another swirl of snow, in walked perhaps the greatest of all American male vocalists, Joe Williams. As if reading my mind while he watched my jaw drop, he boomed out a laugh and said, “That whole being the greatest male vocalist? Not the way Frank Sinatra sees it. But truth told. Does it matter?”

“No. I guess not. But why are you here, too? I mean this has got to be the greatest Thanksgiving night I’ve ever spent. And it’s not even Thanksgiving night! But there is so much here I don’t understand…”

“Which is why you get to ask each of us one question,” said Thomas Wolfe.

“But—why can’t I ask more?”

“How about this, kid. If you asked us each more than one, it would make the story too long. Christ kid, you already tossed in the bit about getting dumped at the beginning. What was the point of that? To make us like you more or something? Ever hear of editing, kid? Ever hear of getting to the point? Story is already too long. So you get one question answered by each of us.”

“Well sure, but I . . .well Mr. Wolfe . . .gee, I remember when I first started reading you, how many times did I think, why the hell do I want to write? I’ll never, ever, ever be as good as Thomas Wolff! So why bother? I guess that’s my question. Why bother trying to write? What’s the point?”

”Ok,” answered Wolfe, “you ready for your answer?”

“Yes sir.”

“Here’s the answer: I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You’re Thomas Wolfe! If you don’t know why we bother to write—especially now, with you being dead and all—how will I ever figure it out?”

“You won’t, kid. You’ll never figure it out. Because the answer is a mystery. No one knows. That’s the point. No one knows.”

“So what do I do?”

“You stop asking questions like that. You just write. Because here’s the thing kid. When I write—and of course I still do it now—when I write I am never alone. So I just write. So enough on that. Nelson, it’s your turn.”

Nelson Algren had sold books all around the world, Hemingway considered him one of the greats; he is still read today. Yet his books were never in the Chicago Public Libraries. He wasn’t all that well-liked in his home city of Chicago. So little liked that he, towards the end of his life, eventually left Chicago. If I had to choose one of the million questions I had for this teacher it would be the one I spoke out loud that night in the dark bar. “Mr. Algren, what if people don’t like your writing? Don’t like or don’t care. If people don’t respond to your writing, what do you do?”

And this is what he said. “Kid, let me ask you a question. Is this about you or about the writing?”

“Well, I. . .”

“Do the people who really matter to you like your stuff?”

“You mean the people who will buy it?”

“No kid. I mean the people who matter to you. The list is different for every writer.. Take, for example, you. You remember that lady writer from Ohio? You know the one. She’s living in my neighborhood now.”

“Karen Novak?”

“Of course Karen Novak! Do you remember what happened when she wrote you and told you that you were the real deal? That you could write? Do you remember what that did for you? How your self-confidence shot up like a rocket? Do you remember the fact that Roger Ebert has tweeted your stuff? Do you remember that writers read you? Writers you respect?”

“Well I. . .yeah.”

“Then that’s the answer. When somebody doesn’t like or worse yet, doesn’t care, about your work; when no one comments on what you do, then what do you do? You ask yourself, do the people who matter most to you care?”

There was silence for a moment. The wind had started to pick up outside.

“Oh. Well then I guess I got one more question. Mr. Williams sir, I am honored you are here. But I’m not sure why. So I guess my question is this, why are you here?”

“That’s an easy one, son. I’m here because good writing is always full of music. So everywhere somebody is talking about writing, I’m there too.

But there’s another reason I am here today. A more important one. It’s to tell you this: Every time someone writes, every time someone tells a story, it’s an act of Thanksgiving. That’s what it is, son. Telling a story is an act of Thanksgiving. And when you are giving thanks, you are never, ever alone.”

As I let that sink in, it was as if the wind had stopped blowing for a moment. I closed my eyes to think about what he had said, and when I opened them, my three Thanksgiving companions had vanished.

Left with their answers. Left with Joe Williams’ words:

“Every time you tell a story, you are giving thanks. And when you give thanks, you’re not alone.”

I said that out loud again as I put on my coat and opened the door to walk out into the snow. I thought about my Thanksgiving. The one I ended up sharing with three of my teachers.

“Every time you tell a story, you’re giving thanks. And when you give thanks, you’re not alone.”

And as I spoke his words out loud to the snowy winter wind, I could hear Joe Williams sing.

A song of thanks.

Originally published as “The University of Thanksgiving” in fictionique.
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Tonight. Chicago cold winds howl outside while Bonnie Raitt, Emmy Lou Harris and music royalty names too numerous to list start singing inside the golden light bulb warmth of the storied Auditorium Theater honoring Mavis Staples at 75. Inside the walls of Adler and Sullivan’s acoustical masterpiece of a building, fresh and alive as it was when in first opened in 1889, Mavis Staples gets recognized for being one for the ages.

The hard, gritty and sweet street song tones pouring out the very soul of the big city. First Pops, then her sisters and now she is still out there singing. Then go back. Even before. In other ages, you can almost hear her then. Look! Mavis Staples! Singing right next to the swampy river bottom paths leading up from the lakeshore, the very first time a wandering European said to the native American, “Psst. Yeah you. Would you like to buy some land?”

Go back then start listening, whistling, clap your hands and dancing. And she’ll be here. She will. Through the blues, and the funk and the jazz and the folk songs and the rhythm of the night then a brand new day. ‘Cause if you don’t respect yourself ain’t nobody else gonna give a good cahoot’.

Listen to Mavis sing and you know, you just know, that once there was a time when she, like so many of us, could not afford the price of a ticket into tonight’s gala. So you relish the fact that she made her way inside, and on the way forged a connection between her sweet home Chicago and the world. You celebrate what she earned. And then suddenly . .

You smell barbeque ribs on the grill. Fried chicken and greens. Buried deep inside the same frigid wind outside you smell a new inside. You smell the memory of summer in that barbeque. A side yard up against a three flat apartment building. At the Staples family home on the south side of Chicago. Mavis is here but she is upstairs laughing in the kitchen. Somewhere someone is tapping out a rhythm, the beginning of a harmony and the tables are weighted down with a feast for the ages because everyone is invited here. And everyone showed up. In the last sunny light of a late summer afternoon, Mavis and her sisters will start singing, you will get to listen, you will see her smile.

You will hear her sing.

Video Credit: Zoran Ordic

So the odds of recovery are 94-99%. Pretty good, huh?”

We were two middle-aged guys whose morning routine included a walk to the corner to buy a newspaper from a blue, metal stand. Sliding our quarters in the slot, pulling open the door and lifting the ever-thinning tabloid. Wondering if we were the last two guys to do that.

He’d just told me about his cancer diagnosis. The message from a doctor saying ‘page me.’ (Never a good sign.) Waiting on hold after grabbing an empty office in the cubicle farm where he worked. Then the news.

“Only thing I know about cancer,” I said, “is that every cancer story is different.” Thinking, as I spoke, that I had to say that a lot these days.

“Mine is like,” he paused, tapped the blue newspaper box with his rolled up paper and looked up at the grey, cloudy sky as it began to drizzle, “mine is like ‘cancer for amateurs,’ or beginner’s cancer.” He took a breath. “Hardly anybody ever dies of it, Skin cancer. You catch it early, you carve it out. Bada-boom, badda-bing. You’re done.”

He paused again before he said, “Worst part? Telling my wife. She reminded me that I had promised, all those years ago, that I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to me.”

“Mmm.” I nodded.

“And believe me, I’ve seen serious cncer. I remember a couple who were friends before they had kids and moved away. His cancer was major league. We were over at their apartment for Thanksgiving. I was looking for something in the kitchen and I came across his pill collection. It looked like a storage room at Walgreens. Or another friend who also happened to be in Manhattan on 9/11. His cancer was Godzilla. Mine is a gnat.”

“Hard to compare when everybody’s story is different, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

A garbage truck rumbled by. Delivery truck backed into the loading dock of the Trader Joe’s across the street. He folded his arms across his chest and said; “You know what really amazes me about becoming a junior member of this cancer community or whatever you want to call it?”

“What?”

“What stuns me is the courage I see. I mean raw courage. One guy I knew? Got to be with him for part of the time he was dying. And you know what? He never, ever, ever complained about anything. Oh, he communicated. When something sucked, be it the latest whack job politician, the income gap or the fruit cup for desert–he didn’t hide the problem. No false stoic. But I can’t ever remember him complaining or feeling sorry for himself. Same thing is true for this other guy who had cancer with a capital C. He’s still here doing fine. He’d write these truly poetic exaltations of joy when the chemo went well. And when he’d go into remission? The world would be singing for everyone. These guys? True courage.”

“So you going to tell anyone besides your wife?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I mean, what am I gonna do? Post it on Facebook?”

“You could. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could come off as complaining. The guy who stubbed his toe in a room full of people with broken arms.

But even worse, I’d be ignored. I mean, I have people I’m genetically related to on Facebook who wouldn’t throw me a “Like” if the world stood still. Course I also have people who feel like family that I’ve never met. I’m lucky enough to have a couple voices from the past. One of them, I can remember once actually feeling her smile as I read the words, “I found you!” There are strands of an on-line community of writers I still cherish. First person to ever tell me I was a good writer and somehow make me believe it was a lady writer from Ohio, Gone now, from cancer. But what she left me is still here,

But then if I put this little cancer story on Facebook, who knows how I’d say it. I mean, last night I was up for hours convinced I could feel the cancer growing and soon I’d lose a leg.”

“Active imagination huh?”

“I’m a Cubs fan. We need those.”

“Reminds me of faith,” I said to him.

“What, the Cubs?”

“No, something you just said reminded me of something I once heard about faith. Guy named Paul Tillich. He said that doubt was an essential element of faith.”

“So I can pay attention to the 1% chance this will get worse,” he laughed.

“I guess.”

“Ok, then if doubt can be a part of faith, how do I deal with that doubt as I’m praying? How do I face that doubt?”

“Maybe that’s where the courage comes in.”

“Handling the doubt is where the courage comes in. Hmm. I like that. Course, I still don’t want to put my story on-line. Even if anybody read it, it would pass quicker than you can say, pictures of a dozen cute kittens and babies.”

“You might be right,” I said.

“But hey. Wait a minute. You’re a writer. Maybe you could do it?”

So I did.

For these two spirits, it could be any year. They were the loves of some other life.

But It was always, every year, in the sticky spattered rainy heat of late August that they’d both come back and take their places diagonally across on the intersection of Belmont and Sheffield streets in Chicago. Each of them sitting slumped against wet concrete storefronts. Street people no one ever really sees. So it was questionable. Were they really there or not? Neither of them made a sound.

Neither paid the other any mind.

If just for a moment you did see them, and you listened very hard beneath the rumbling elevated train and the tire slick pavement, you’d hear a raspy cigarette toned singer upstairs at a bar where there was always the music of being inside on a rainy night. In that bar, called The Quiet Knight, a cigarette smoke singer pleaded to his piano that I hope that I don’t fall in love with you.

And that plea would bring thunder.

Every year, that plea would bring thunder. Wild, lightning splitting skies and apocalyptic winds. Inside that bar there was the glowing orange warmth of the soul that only comes alive in the deepest, crazy corner of the city. And as the rains would beat down harder on those two solitary souls outside, neither of them acknowledging the other, cartoon thought bubbles floating above their fading forms were empty. As if even the doubt that gives faith its shape and form had disappeared and there was just that empty intersection at Belmont and Sheffield in the rain.

But then, and this happened, every year, as the raspy toned voice sang that it was closing time, and the rain calmed to a steady cleansing river of the city night, the two faint forms on the sidewalk would start fading to a gentle mist and in their place, there on the rain soaked sidewalk, there between the cracks in the concrete, diagonally across the intersection, two tiny new green shoots and the most miniscule of the strangest, strongest flowers. Purple and yellow and totally out of place as if some unhearable voice had asked a question. Every year the same question, can old songs be made new?

Photo Credit Patti Jacko

In the dream on this early August morning of his birthday, Dad was standing next to the water. Smile beaming. He was younger than I am now and he was looking both straight at me and also off in the distance. I was astounded at how close he was. As if I could almost touch him.

He was still smiling when I woke up in the summer darkness and I remembered how when my sister got married and first made the family international, so very long ago, Dad, in the forest green glow after the wedding reception in the backyard of the house said, “I haven’t lost a daughter. I’ve gained a country!”

Now the family spans the globe. From both shores and what’s between the U.S. to Wales, India and South Korea.

And Dad is still out there gaining countries.

As if, like in this video, everyone is included.

Everyone.

Listening along with this music of joy.

As a way to simply say “Happy Birthday!”

And know he is standing there next to the water.

Smile beaming. For all.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJcQYVtZMo&w=560&h=315]

He’s been a neighbor for most of the summer. Bald, egg shaped head poking out of the blankets, he sleeps under the bridge on Grace Street.

Rumbling Metra Trains zoom cut through the night overhead. Cars stop and start. He’s tucked in a corner, steps from pedestrians stumbling back from the bars of Wrigley Field.

Early in the mornings, unsuspecting drivers slow at the Stop sign, glance over wide-eyed and see him stretched out on the sidewalk. Walking up to get a newspaper, I see only his bald head and wonder, chemo?

Two, three, minutes later, newspaper folded under my arm, I walk back home and he’s gone. I guess he’s tall, about ½ my age, but I really don’t know because I’ve only really seen him lying down.

Across Grace, up the embankment, a sliver of the green grass wild that runs along the railroad tracks, three bulky brown garbage bags. It’s where he stores his stuff.

And in this summer of apocalyptic rains, he is out there underneath the bridge. As the winds tear down bending, snapping trees to send with a ruthless indifference into arbitrary bedrooms so seemingly safe; he is out there underneath the bridge. As the water rises. The late night SUV rolls by. The train runs on time. He’s out there.

What lets him sleep?

A song rises up. Becker and Fagen—Steely Dan– sing,

“I was on the other side of no tomorrow.”

Perhaps he sleeps by dreams of being saved.

“You walked in.
And my life began again”

Maybe there was a day when he scraped the bottom. He knew Katy would be leaving. The job ended. The doctor brought news or the bank just won. Like the song says, he “spent the last piaster he could borrow”— he used up his last dime. Lights out. Game over.

Then every point of view broke loose and went spiraling.

“Katy tried,” said the song
I was halfway crucified “

Just who was the drug? The one come to save him?
And where was the doctor?

Becker and Fagen. All those masterful studio cats who played along on the song;

“Are you with me Doctor Wu?
Are you really just a shadow
Of the man that I once knew?
Are you crazy are you high?
Or just an ordinary guy?
Have you done all you can do?
Are you with me Doctor?”

That last question hurled up into the rain
Just before his new bridge home.
And somewhere after that long, cool saxophone solo
Katy left him under the bridge
The bridge on Grace.

Where sometimes
In the morning
Just before the early commuter train rumbles up above his head
On that concrete pillow
He remembers,

Just like the songwriters said

“All night long
We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang
I knew was true.”

He remembers every word was true.
Just before he stuffs his blankets in the garbage bags and meets the day.
He remembers every word we sang
Was true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHpoSL-SEhA

Jose left El Salvador in the jungle moon night after the Sandinistas killed his father defending a houseful of family. Because Jose was next on the list.

So he followed a dark river into Guatemala, then a trail of every dime saved from any job available, To Washington D.C. and finally to Chicago where on this July 4th he pulled his landscaping truck up under the tree lined street in front of my house.

Started unloading to do the triple lot a few doors down. Alone on the street I said, “Looks like you’re working today,” and we started to talk. He had a story being a baker’s assistant left to make bread without anyone telling him how that was punctuated by a laugh and smile with an untapped power that could make the world join hands.

I brought out some water and Gatorade but when my wife brought out the just baked blueberry crumble and ice cream, to which he nodded and smiled “Sure!” we were gifted again with his stories. I asked if he knew anyone looking for work. Told him the story of the day laborer recognizing the song and finding work from my book—then I gave him a copy and told him to give it to whoever needed it most. He said that would be his son.

We said goodbye, my wife and I went back into our house. A moment later we heard an engine start up and watched as he swept the grass, sticks and leaves clean from our yard and walk.

And that’s how we got to celebrate the 4th of July before the barbeque even got started.

Photo Credit www.hellotravel.com

A tired grey morning rain, boarding the elevated train in Chicago, reaching up to grab the strap, standing shoulder to shoulder. She shoots a fast glance as the train lurches forward and our shoulders touch. Decides I’m safe. Leans down to keep scrolling her phone, shakes the red hair from her face. The train slows, a seat opens, I invite her to sit down with my eyes and a nod. She does. And from the packed aisle of the train, no one moves to sit next to her. She looks up at me and with a tiny smile of amusement and with a shake of the head asks the world, “Was it something I said?”

So I sit down next to her. Shoulder to shoulder. Lightly grazing thighs with the rumble and clank of the train on down to the center of the city. She looks up from the phone, the hint, then my memory of a smile. Perhaps, she sees me and wonders about a grandfather she never knew as we touch shoulders.

But as the train doors swish open and I hear the rain, I’m back in Paris with the water washing down the gutters of the ancient stone streets that flow, like time, down the hill from the gleaming white Basilica Sacre Coeur. I smell coffee that lights up the morning and like Holly Near once sang, “frees my soul and I ain’t ready to grow that old.”

Once again, I am six hours or so from sitting down next to you on the steps of the Basilica, gazing out together over Paris in the mid day sunlight and saying the absolute most profound thing I could come up with at the time, which was, “Wow.”

At which point, you looked over with only enough interest to smirk, “That was deep.”

A few seconds passed, you got up, paused for one more look at the rippling city in the sunlight below, stretched, and I almost believed, like McMurtry once said, that it really was possible to fall in love with someone while they were stretching.

Being pretty good with the more primal of life’s needs, I remember saying something about being hungry. Probably something dumb like, “Know where you can get any good French food around here?” Then, and this is a mystery I still never have and never will, till my very last breath, figure out, we were in a café, there was wine that amazed, and cheese and fruit and sausage and the shadows were falling in a way that marked time moving at the speed of light.

We never stopped talking.

My new book had just come out. I remember reading you stories out loud. I remember telling you instantly about how the blonde had come back with coffee and croissants one spring morning and announced, “Roger? I’m a Princess. I just thought you should know.”

The Princess was soon gone. Vanished except for the way she hovered over so many stories. And now you’re gone too.

Which is why it’s so strange that you keep coming back and filling in what’s between the lines of all these new stories. What’s between the lines, where the important parts of the story go un-said. Except for the ways they reverberate. Like the way that folk singer’s voice reverberated. We saw her in that smoky bar on the tiniest of alleys winding downhill from the Basilica. Remember the way her voice was somehow shaky and strong at the very same time?

You’re not a dream . . .

You’re not an angel . . .

Course you liked your music to howl and cry, and sing to distant stars. No wimpy ass folk music. You didn’t even like Dylan. But we were saved when we both settled in on John Hiatt and stayed firm. So I guessed that Buffy Ste Marie did nothing for you when she sang the song we heard that night. I guessed quietly cause I didn’t really want to know the answer. I just wanted you and Paris. Like you were both some giant bowl of buttered, salted popcorn, and if I just kept eating, kept stuffing that salty, buttered taste of fluffy popcorn in my mouth, then you would someday roll down the drawbridges into the solid, whip smart grounded laughing haven of your generous soul, clear eyed loving me at least as much as I loved you. Because we had plans and golden promises.

That night we heard Buffy Ste Marie sang the song, I told you about the next book. We went back to sit on the steps of the Basilica, look out over the Paris. Bathed in the timeless night magic of the city of lights.

I told you the title would be “Street Corner Spirits.” That the stories would be mysteries, all of which started inside the doors of that Basilica. Inside those doors you saw rules. And I saw mysteries. Still, you could see our next book better than anyone.

But back then? Back when our eyes were reflected in the stars that somehow sang together with the lights of the city, back then I thought that loving someone enough meant that eventually they’d change.

And of course that doesn’t happen.

So the city lights dimmed. And you stayed, until it was time, for both of us to go.

And as much as I sang and wrote and wrote about all those mysteries you never believed in, what I never imagined, even in the parts between the lines, was that a return was possible. I never imagined you’d come back. But you did. You do.

You came back. Right this very moment. The Chicago train swishes into the Grand Station, the woman gets up and wonder of wonders, leaves a smile for her imagined Grandfather, me. She smiles at me and there you are.

I conjure up from the smoky mists, John McDonald’s timeless hero Travis McGhee in Pale Gray For Guilt, a letter McGhee gets at the end of the story.

“ . . . and now and again, when she is asleep and you are awake, and your arms are around her and you are sleeping like spoons, with her head tucked under your ugly chin, pretend it is ‘me’, who loved you.

Even right here in this story, the young girl leaves the train. And you came back.

Like hope on an Easter morning, you came back.

**************************************

Buffy Ste Marie “Until It’s Time for You To Go”

Photo Credit: Gavin Heillier