Just now, I was able to book an appointment with a barber I’ve never met, to sit in a chair I’ve never seen, to give him jurisdiction of my crown for 15 minutes. I will give him $25 and I will leave. It will have been a transaction of necessity and ease and I will be back in a month. I will walk the cobblestone back to my office and will, for the rest of the day, shed. This will happen exactly four more times this year. I will remember getting my summer cut back in … [Read more...]
On the tracks
Most of life I learned by walking from this side of the tracks to that side. I walked home from middle school. Every day. Three miles or so. With my saxophone always and another kid named Clay sometimes. I'd learned about entropy by walking along the train tracks. Because tracks, you see, have already chosen the easiest path. I didn't have to make any decisions. Just walk in the center. Move if the train comes'a'runnin. Avoid eye contact with the bum who might be out in the ally near the … [Read more...]
On a spring morning
George often wondered how many people in the city realize how much the life of the great city meant to him and countless others like him; how, long ago in little towns down South, there in the barren passages of night, they listened to the wheel, the whistle, and the bell; how, there in the dark South, there on the Piedmont, in the hills, there by the slow, dark rivers, there in coastal plains, something was always burning in their heart at night – the image of the shining city and the … [Read more...]
On library books
There was an old house. No more than four blocks as the crow flies. Probably six as the fox. It was filled with books. It was also a library. The Houston Memorial Library. I don’t know what I was to memorialize there. Maybe a confederate general. They had book sales every now and then. Those sales felt the best when the fall light was coming in the windows. Cutting through the dust on the glass case. The case that had guns. Knives. A leather kidney-shaped canteen. We’d have walked over, … [Read more...]