… looking for planets in the still-dark east, I am out the door ….
… My mother never got up early; my father always did. I miss him….
… and rattle, rattle, around the corner comes E, leaning into her shopping cart, and she is not going shopping; it is her improvised walker, rattle, rattle, and she keeps leaning, determined ….
… E has a sister in the next block. She has not seen or spoken with her in years; a dispute over a boyfriend. She says her sister is gross, ugly and rude. That sister is a self-taught herbalist and botanist, and has also done some nursing….
… E has a rich daughter in Chicago who is married to a rich Mexican; they have a rich 11-year old; the daughter and child will visit E in June….
… they won’t push shopping carts for air and exercise. I know that….
… and I tire of E, and take another street….
… and I recall the toothless waitress from Kentucky, once married to a Mexican tobacco harvester, who lost her purse and papers in Matamoros, and had to beg her way back to the United States, and was on the all-night bus to San Antonio, and told me, “Look ahead, only fuckers and truckers out this hour.” It was around 3 a.m., and the yellow lights from those fuckers and truckers cut through the bus’ windshield, into her worn face, my worn face, we under a fat quilt, probably from her Kentucky youth….
Coffee, I want coffee… as I make for What-a-burger, crossing a busy street off my side street; I look to make sure E is not around. As I said, I was tired of her stories, and the night-shift workers give me a free coffee. I ask if they do that for all. “No, just sometimes, and we’d never do it if many came in and asked!” I feel old, indulged, pitied, old like my dead parents, and I look around, and see a middle-aged man reading the morning paper and a young man on a laptop, and I go outside, where the day cleaner-hose-gardener is readying the parking area, and I look through the window at the man’s laptop, but can’t see what he’s reading or typing….
Some soft white light in the east… The coffee, in my lidless cup, is weak. I try to see the planets. I can’t, too much light from stores, and I realize I forgot my glasses, and again think about my parents and their glasses …
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky, early May 2011
