Here's what I do know.
I know horrid shades of carpet, plaid
couches and dirty linoleum.
I know the curves and contours of my
father's broad, hunched shoulders bent over his drawing table.
I know the size and detail of that
shape at the exact distance I stood in his doorway with a baseball
and mitt, then slipping away back to my bedroom, unnoticed, leaving
him to try and try and try to meet a deadline.
I know controlled chaos.
I know the shrill, eager rhythm of my
sister's reading voice in a minivan smelling faintly of vomit,
hurtling through the tri-state universe's concrete veins and
arteries, a missile of tightly wound family nerves aimed at wholesome
experience.
I know the optimal coordinates at which
to center a pile of raked leaves in front of a swingset, to ensure a
soft landing.
I know the wrinkled bark of the dogwood
tree in our front yard, the two or three agreeably curved branches
that allowed a comfortable seat when I needed to wallow in
short-lived childhood resentment.
I know the smudged, soggy green of
grass stains, and I can recall the period of several years over which
they slowed and then finally ceased their reign of terror over my
faded hand-me-down jeans.
I know I miss grass stains.
I know the thumping whir of
my ceiling fan did not drown out the hushed, urgent murmurs of my
parents arguing about money in the kitchen after we went to bed.
I know pressing,
damply cerebral nightmares, the inexplicable loss of basic motor
skills, the desperate reaching for an ill-defined, shrouded construct
of grave importance.
I know the shame of
discovering I needed glasses --
the first inkling
that my body might not be a faithfully flawless machine to do my
bidding obediently until old age, when it would be perfectly content
with farting irreverently and drifting gently
in the shallow end
of the community pool, like Grandpa's.
I know the
air-conditioned, vacant hours and days of summer in a small town,
each minute seeming
to elapse in twice the normal time,
adolescent love,
curated mix CDs, cheap iced tea and hair stringy with chlorine.
I know the kid with
the straight-A report cards and piles of comic books,
the gullible grin
and the walkman always needing new batteries
who at some point
settled in and buckled up
and, bewildered,
watched the years close over him and rush past him
like the warm,
frothing waves of Jersey's grey-green Atlantic did
during the Julys
back then
who is inside this
disheveled lump of a man
whispering
pleadings bent toward instinct
the cadence and
texture of his voice
when I try to
listen,
when my mind is
still and vulnerable,
nudging me towards
myself.
