My stomach keeps asking questions. Questions and statements and judgmental wanderings. muUh-ooh it bubbles. Oh, muyeah? I should eat something to shut it up.
Friday after I dropped C off at midnight, I turned Adele up so loud, the bass shifted, rocked and bounced the blood in my body. And I drove over the bridge to my side of town, the stone eagles stood guard, their backs were turned to me. I saw 3 hasidic jews with their black caps on walking over the crest of stone. Seeing them startled and amazed me. I’m not sure if it was because they were out so late or the way the building lights smeared across the river behind them. Perhaps it was the yellow glow the clouds wore as a mask over the night sky.
But whatever it was, this was a moment where I could feel my chest split wide open. I could feel it open and hungry and breathing in everything and eating everything, devouring everything I could of that night. The lobster ravioli. Salad with strawberries and goat cheese. The gin and tonic. The ricotta chocolate cake. The olive oil, the bread. The congressman we saw eating with his family, his teeth overly white and large like chiclets, think Jim carrey in the Mask.
And then the bar by the river, the night warmer than it started out being, the trip on the curb, the high school prom going on below. Over the top, high gloss, electric dresses and white tuxes. The odd couple sitting together outside with the same thick rim glasses.
And open all day yesterday. Decorating the house, the air wet and thick with rain that never came. Enough sweedish fish to make me sick. And breakfast with Pat more like lunch and Lowe’s to get bird feeders for the cardinals.
We have been stuck to the window. One bird will come, the others so far have only stared at it. We hear them trilling high in the trees. “Tell your friends,” we yell at them. “Come eat our food!” But just seeing their brilliant red bodies flying into our yard is enough. Just seeing them is enough.
On Friday, it was unexpectedly Pat’s last day with his client – a 15 soon to be 16 year old autistic boy who hardly knows his colors, who at the beginning was so violent, the school was unsure what to do with him, where to place him. And Pat who has come so far with this boy, who at the beginning came home with an arm full of scratches, had to tell him he wasn’t going to be with him during the days anymore.
The boy looks at him, his face lights up and he says, “So I’m fixed, Mr. Pat?!”
And Pat says, “No, buddy. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
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