Fugue

We had gone to the aviary in the empty country an hour away because you said it was the sort of thing interesting people did, and in that green gazebo smelling of honey and hay, sacks of birdseed slashed in the middle, you cupped both your stubbed fingers to the glass and leaned over the chipped guardrail, though not on your tiptoes. All you could see was a sparrow, a single one, picking the dirt then looking up at you, unblinking. I saw it chirp, sing to you like it loved you, with its onyx eyes and mouth gilded with millet kernels.

Play the lottery. Pray all you like. Odds are, tomorrow you’ll be stuck in some basement washing socks. Remember when we let Jesus into our hearts? That lasted, what, three months? Now we’re on eBay, selling industrial corn starch in jars labeled Muscle Builder Max.

My mother and I are on the front porch lighting each other’s cigarettes as if we were on a ten-minute break from our jobs at being a mother and son, just ten minutes to steal a moment of freedom before clocking back in, before putting the aprons back on, the paper hats, washing our hands twice and then standing behind the counter again, hoping for tips, hoping the customers will be nice, will say some kind word, the cool front yard before us and the dogs in the backyard shitting on everything.

We can make each other happy, Harry Nilsson screams from our speakers, and I say, Oh, Harry: no we can’t. We turn it up, drive up the coast with the windows down, sing every part, even the wack-ass Whoa–oa-oa -oa-oh!s. I had never heard of Harry Nilsson, being younger than Josey, a fact I mention as often as I can. Like me, it never gets old. So I knew all the songs, didn’t know they were all by one guy.