Parting Thoughts

My internal clock is still set on 'dock time', waking up at 4:00. Some mornings I can manage to fall back to sleep for awhile, but never past 7:00. I sneak out of bed and the apartment so as to not disturb those who can sleep. This morning I walked onto the street with the dogs at 6:30. Cold and gray, the bite of winter in the air.

The van warmed up slowly and Sam n' Lu shivered in the passenger seat. I found myself driving around the deserted city streets aimlessly. As I woke up, I began to notice that those streets weren't really deserted at all. The man with the shopping cart half filled with cans and bottles was dressed in a dirty snowmobile suit, his thick gray beard covering all of his face not covered by the wool hat pulled down over his eyes. He waved at me as I drove by and I wondered if he was someone I had met this summer on the waterfront, when the days were warm and the living was easier.

The elderly woman with a cane walking painfully down an empty Congress Street poorly dressed in a thin red windbreaker, the dark, black man with a hood standing on the curb watching. The old man who struggled stiffly to his feet from behind a brick wall dragging his thin blanket behind him.

The van seemed to guide itself to the soup kitchen on Oxford Street where dozens of people lined up waiting for seats to become available inside. Some were dressed heavily, with layers upon layers, and had spent the night outside sleeping in alleys and vacant lots. Others had left unheated boarding house rooms drawn to the warm soup kitchen and the hot coffee. I was too much a coward to park the van and stand in line with them, felt too conspicuous with my clean clothes and fleece coat.

Last friday afternoon I stopped down to Bubba's Sulky Lounge hoping to run into Charlie. My excuse was that he owed me $20, but in truth, I just wanted to see him again before we head South. He was standing outside smoking with a short, black eyed woman with 4 missing front teeth. She was drunk and laughing at he own jokes." You ever hear a chain saw? Runnn-nigga-nigga-nigga.... runnn-nigga-nigga-nigga... Hahahahahaha!"She told the "joke" over and over until I heard a voice from behind me on the street. "I no nigga" the shawled Somali woman said. She stood firm for a moment then turned and walked away.

"Chain saw woman" then turned to me. Her eyes were bleary as she looked me over. "You a cop?" she asked, " cause you got a cops face." Charlie jumped in, "That's Glen. He works down at the bait shop with me... where I'm the fork truck guy..." At this point words failed him and he started making noises and motions like he was driving his big, brakeless Clark Hyster around the shop. " Brrrrooooommm, Errrch, Werrwerrr, Gittygittygitty, Ma-HaHaha!" He went on and on and I laughed until long after he stopped.

We moved inside and stood beside the roaring fireplace, warm, safe. Charlie tried to repay the money he owed me, but I offered to settle if he would buy a round of "Jimmy Specials", Allens Coffee Brandy with a splash of milk. Charlie racked up the balls at the pool table and Jimmy told a story about how he was living with his first wife in the back of a Humpty Dumpty Potato Chip truck cutting fish with Charlie and had once seen him open a lock with an bent old square nail.

I finished my drink and walked over to the pool table. "I'm heading out now Chuck, going south for the winter." I put my arm around his shoulder. "You stay warm and out of jail". His face got serious and he wrapped his arms around me. "You comin' back next summah right? Workin' on the docks again?" "Maybe" I said and he gave me a toothless grin from ear to ear, hugged me hard and said "You come see old Charlie." Four years my junior, I squeezed him back "I will, young fella."

As I headed for the door, it all happend at once. "Chain saw woman" called out, "You got a good lookin face, cop. You can come back again." Jimmy started to dance a lick to the music on the juke box "See you next summer!" he called. Charlie lifted his pool cue above his head and began to hoot. "See ya, Glen! Gittygittygitty... Ma Hahaha!!" I stopped a second and enjoyed the remarkable moment, warm and happy in a waterfront bar surrounded by poverty, alcoholics, the homeless, before heading back out into the cold and gray.

A warm little dysfunctional oasis in the gloom...