CLACKETY CLACK

Waking up warm and safe, alone in the dark, you wonder what time it may be. That’s how Amigo woke up on this particular morning. No reason to fret, he just wondered if he should try to go back to sleep or get up and explore the morning, whatever time it might be. He could usually tell if it was early or late but sometimes not. To open the eyes would be a commitment. Turn the head and try to focus on a clock face across the room; it would be too late to retreat back into dream world. The smell of wet streets and grass signaled rain, that he had slept soundly. Undoing the wakeup was no longer an option. 

Amigo is an old man if you go by the numbers. His friends and family either ignore or dismiss big numbers but he knows exactly where he’s been and how long he’s been moving his feet. When his high school class mates started dying he noticed. When their passing became a pattern, the cliche “There are no guarantees” took on a new urgency. Every morning, every wakeup; he takes inventory. “What is important; what is not?” Illusions become unsustainable, replaced by unthinkable alternatives. So he gets out of bed, not knowing the hour, not bothering to check the clock. 

Looking back on three-quarters of a century plus, at the world and its people, swarming like ants on peach seed; Amigo has learned to want what he has and take comfort in his own good company. The seam between what he knows and what he believes is a murky mess, better left for someone else to qualify. He’s old enough to see the conflict of interest that taints accuracy of knowing anything. But that doesn’t register until you run out of bullets, left with only a dull, blunt blade. 

The night before, he went with a few friends to a pizza & beer, micro brewery. A lady there took it on herself to educate him to the finer points of beer, a beer snob if you will. Before it was over, she shared frustrations with parenting teenagers. Amigo tried to share Khalil Gibran’s view on children only to realize, from his frame of reference, she was a child herself. He was pointing her in a good direction but she lived in her own generation and he couldn’t go there any more than she could accompany her kids on their journey. All you can do is what feels right in the moment and when the time comes, let them go. All he could do in that moment was be a good ear. She asked, “What is the single, most important thing you can teach your kids?” A question like that requires a response. Amigo thought for a short minute and said, “Do unto others . . .” That surprised her; she wanted more. “If someone asks you to start counting, you begin with 1, and go as far as need be. We are social creatures; we need each other and civility begins with, “Do unto others. . .”

On Main Street, as he approached the railroad crossing, the lights started flashing as the barricades came down. Coal trains come through town day and night. The sound of the horn and the clanging were familiar and to some extent comforting. The flash of car lights on the other side, blinking in the gaps between coal cars was like meter to the music of the rumbling. The exotic, malty-hoppy-dark-heavy beer had been a disappointment and the convoluted conversation left a lot to be desired. But then people; we need each other even when we don’t get what we want. As the last coal car rolled by and its clackety clack gave way to tires thumping over the tracks, the old man was wondering what a new day might bring.