Joe was a little drunk and ogled every woman that passed by. He loves it when they wear dresses. His royal blue safari style fishing hat with the sides rolled up was too small for his head. His hair hung down on the sides, straw colored and unkempt. He had thick, almost goggle like glasses, and white scabby patches of skin near his eye and on his cheek. Our conversation, about doing electric work and carpet cleaning and the steel mill – all jobs Joe has had – was peppered with obscenities about how it’s hard to make ends meet and the world is all fucked up and nobody gives a shit about nothin’ anymore. I couldn’t entirely disagree. We talked about central Pennsylvania – towns like Mill Hall and Haneyville, Millheim and Milesburg. Joe has worked in all of them. He hates State College – I got the sense it was too uppity for him. He lived down the street from where we sat at a table in a cordoned off section outside of the Elks lodge listening to a country western band at an all-day music and arts festival in downtown Lock Haven. He reminded me several times he likes women in dresses. We shook hands when we parted company. He told me to take care myself and I told him to do the same. I can’t say that Joe is good people – I don’t know him. He seems both simple in his desires and complex in his history. Like most of us, Joe is people.
The first note in my phone for that day, Saturday, was about an old jazz song called “Alone Together.” I had wanted to make it into a poem or a blog post. It struck me because I think that’s what good relationships can evolve towards – a kind of pleasant alone-ness being done together. It can also be the opposite – feeling very alone, yet with someone else there, perhaps depressingly so. It’s very much the essence of jazz – a group of musicians, each doing their own thing that somehow all comes together.
The next note in my phone said Joe – a reminder to write about meeting Joe. The note after that read “back roads flanked by cornfields – Americana.” And then, “almost always a pickup waiting for a break in the double yellow line.” I should have added ridin’ my ass.
It was one of those rare weekends when I didn’t feel overly conflicted about doing x and not y. I listened to live music Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and dedicated Sunday to hanging with the dog, and reading and writing. In what felt like a burst of creative energy, and inspired by the book of poems I’m reading, I wrote up sketches for three new poems – none of them about Joe or jazz or being alone together or even the rural countryside rows of corn. They’re sketches because I’m not sure how I want to end them. They’re a bit on the dark side and I’m trying to decide if it’s my responsibility to deliver some level of redemption or if it’s ok to gut-punch the reader and walk away.
On Sunday, I had every intent on coming home from the coffee shop, getting groceries, making a simple dinner of grilled shrimp and mango tacos and then hammering the poems into shape. I got to everything but the poems. Instead, after a walk in the park with the dog and a few minutes on the back deck I started writing about Joe.
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Much like my intention to revisit the poems, this morning, I had intended to get up early-ish and exercise. It didn’t happen. Instead, I wrote a bit here, scrolled through the horrors of the news (Afghanistan), and walked the dog. There’s a tree around the corner from the house that’s already losing its leaves. As we walked by, I could smell that scent of fall. It made me feel restless, like roads yet to drive and a little uneasy about how quickly the seasons slide, lush green rows of corn soon turning brittle and brown, and the sunflowers that, before long, drop their drowsy heads and go to seed.