Humana

I read him a poem now, when he wakes up.
He wakes up for ten minutes a day.
–Pomes, he says.
–Pomes in the closet rotting, I say.
–Are they now?
–They are.
–So send them out.
–They don’t want to travel any longer.
–They’d rather rot?
–They would. It’s their wish.
–And yours also?
–I don’t matter in this. It’s what they want.
Then he uses an English accent:
–Pomes, everyone…a pome, no less. The lad fancies himself a poet!
And he laughs. Before he goes into a coughing fit.
–You know where that’s from?
I say yes. From The Wall. Floyd.
–Sharp one.
I tell him I went to film school.
–Schyool, he says. And you don’t have to go to film schyool to know Floyd.
–Schyool. I used to be a stoner, so yea. You’re right.
He likes them, my poems. My pomes.
–It’s how Kerouac used to say it, or write it, he says.
I know that. I hate Kerouac. But I don’t tell him. People know (he knows). They always ask why I have “On the Road” on my shelves. I have Shakespeare, and I hate him too. And Mann. And Gide. I don’t like either of those fellows. I have them because I’ve read them. I’ve had to, in order to make up my mind. And then I couldn’t give away the books. Couldn’t sell them used, either. They’re still books. Good books.
–What I crave now is a nice, cold pint, he says.
–Black and tan?
–Then room tempy.
–What?
–Room temperature, then. For a black and tan. It’s only proper.
I ask him if I should sneak in some bottles next time I visit.
–Yea, sure.
And glasses? I could stuff them into my messenger bag.
–No, too civilised. Too highbrow. I miss drinking out of a bottle. I miss ice cold watermelon in the summers. Fried rice. Sitting on dark green grass.
The next time I come, he’s up and about slowly, dragging an I.V. hooked to a bag hooked to a pole on four wheels.
And the time after that, the room door is closed and there’s a wreath on it.

The S-Word

It’s what the story said. In the newspaper. On the counter of the Chinese take-away. It’s what it said. I waited there for my order. I watched the little Chinese girl clean up her plates. Then her mum’s. And her da’s. She must’ve been no older than six. And on the large platter: deep fried chicken wings of some sort. Well. Mostly bones. And egg rolls. Half-eaten ones. And shrimp. All tails. Her mum and da owned this place. It was a hole in the wall with a 92 health rating. I wanted a Tsing-Tao but could not afford it. It’s what the story said. And I watched the Chinese girl diligently carry the heavy, porcelain plates up to the counter. The girl in the story in the paper on the counter of the Chinese take-away was also six. Her adopted mother had died of ovarian cancer. Her mother’s sister was now caring for her. She chuckled at how hard it was to be a parent. The mother’s sister. The girl’s aunt. Chuckled and said how she never wanted to be a mother, but. But. The little Chinese girl walked by and looked and I smiled and waved with my index finger and the middle. She didn’t do either. She was leery of the white man sitting cross legged reading the News-Observer in her parents’ take-away on a sunny, late, weekday afternoon. It’s what the story said. The little orphan girl asked for permission to use the S-word and her aunt gave it. Her aunt said:
–In our house we never used it, the S-word, we never used it and she was never raised with it, but she asked just this one time, and so I said okay.
The Chinese girl disappeared somewhere when I looked up from the story. Her mum was cooking my order. Her da was smoking over the hot plate, stirring vegetables in a pan wok.
The S-word.
Was.
–Stupid. Stupid, lousy, stupid cancer, the girl in the story said.
And then she wrote it in washable marker on the side of her tub, at bath.
–It’s only for this one time, the woman’s sister said. The aunt. We only let her use it this one time.
Dinner came. It was stuffed in a brown paper bag. The Chinese girl’s mum was on the phone, taking an order. She pushed the bag toward me and pointed to another small counter on which packets of sauce were stuffed into styrofoam cups. I took a handful. Two pairs of chopsticks.  Three fortune cookies.  Just in case. I got into the car. It started.

(yellow) is Sometimes (bright)

And look at you coming to visit at the hospital like Enzo. Enzo. I am Enzo. Da baker. I bring this. For your father. For your father.
–What’s it like outside?
–Nice. Warm. There are flowers on the side of the road.
–Roadside flowers.
–Yes.
–Pull these goddamn drapes open, will you?
–They are.
–Then flip the blinds. I can see a thin layer of dust on them in this light and it’s making my nose itch.
Winter hours. In ‘88. Playing Roadside Flowers at Max’s on Broadway in Baltimore. Peace. Love. Light. I remember the drummer had a jester hat on and Riverside opened. They were from Hershey, Pennsylvania. Winter Hours came out of Lyndhurst. Jersey.
–Jesus Christ your room is yellow. It’s like Alcatraz.
–Alcatraz was blue. Baby blue.
–Same thing.
–Yellow is all right.
–It’s nauseating.

–I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.
–It’s all right.

–Yellow is sometimes bright. And good.
–Do you like it?
–I don’t mind. Pull the drapes open, will you?
–They are.

I call him Gavrilo because he looks like that tiny Serbian anarchist who clipped Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914, almost single-handedly starting World War I. Gavrilo Princip. The 20th Century started and ended in Yugoslavia. Appel Quay. When he comes to visit (Gavrilo) he brings a container of hot soup with boiled chicken thighs. It’s for him. I cannot really eat anymore. But he spends hours in my room reading and he needs lunch. We are trudging through Günther Gräss’s My Century. The book describes every year from 1900 to 1999 as a story written from different perspectives. Later (he says but I don’t believe in later) we will begin Gabriel Garcia Marquéz’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
–Jesus Christ, you must think I have all kinds of time.
He says I shouldn’t be bored and so we move through almost a book a day. And he sips his soup cold. Which sickens me because all the fat has risen to the top and has formed a thin crust through which he has to break with his spoon. At the end of the day (to-day) he packs up his bag and this time puts his hat inside the side pocket. He jams it into the cloth.
I say:
–Tell them not to wait for me…to start dinner.
And I turn to the yellow wall.