this is not just a story
he was about my age, and
Randy was my cousin
...and he lived on a cross street
running ninety degrees against the grain
of the quiet toronto suburb where i was a kid
when you turned the corner and saw his house
adults took one deep breath, then
set their mouths in lines of concrete
as property values fell screaming from the sky
like fat electri-fried pigeon bombs
i saw...
adventure!
first: a yard mined with dog poop
and scattered with broken toys
where tough and terrible weeds
fought the cracks of toronto clay
(note, the push mower stands abandoned
left months or years before
and grass grows up like laughter
between the rusted blades)
next: a screen door
...and the torn screen flaps
like the tongue of a drunk
asleep on a sidewalk at noon;
Winter or summer
that door banged and banged and banged and banged and banged...
'til the neighbours grabbed for Valium and the real estate pages
or fumed to their wives
"i'll go over there and fix it myself one of these nights, i will!"
but naw, they never did.
"gotta fix the damn door one of these days" Randy's dad would grunt,
and roll over on the couch
Yeah, a visit to Randy's house
was better for talk than ten hours of CBC documentary
"how can they live like that?!" the adults cluck
while the backseat kids dream all the way home and wisely, say nothing
when other kids shot pellet rifles in their basements
Randy set up a 22 range (22 longs, guys...
Randy showed me how to make dum-dums
carving a cross in soft fatal lead
with his daddy's longtime hunting blade;
then he dug the hot splattered bullet
from the back of three phone books and a two-by-four
and dropped it right in my hand
It was Neat.)
Upstairs, somebody always dropped by
with a bottle or a banjo or a broken carburetter
People my parents never invited, i don't know why
with strange nicknames and amazing scars
and parts of their fingers well, kinda missing
i remember backyard fights, in summertime
swearing, loud breath, the meat smack of a fist
struggle in the shadows of the floodlight glare
across a silent moonscape of broken machinary
long up on blocks and left for dreams
once, a man bit another man's ear
and they rubbed whisky on it in the kitchen.
I remember him crying
I remember Hank Williams
and the voice of a lady, singing
as i drifted down in soft blankets of sleep
Mostly, it was about being left alone
or left to be careless, like kids oughta be
You could make a zillion peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches
watching cartoons in the morning
leave the knife and the jars on the counter
eat it walking 'round the house in your pyjamas, no plate
with the stuff dripping out
then you could eat bad cereal right outta the box
then drink milk, then chew with your mouth open, then laugh,
and, and...
aw, just everything
...and nobody ever gave you heck.
ten years go by
Randy was a middle child
So the youngest got attention
and the oldest got religion
Randy never got much taller
but he did get pretty tough
In high school, you make your choices
between the drama club and fraternity
And one was mostly sucking up
And the other, just suckin' back
Well, I didn't like the taste of it
So I got back in touch with Randy
He hung out with a faster crowd
He had started stealin' cars.
Every Friday night
For five weeks, that long winter
He took a brand-new muscle car
And by Sunday, left it dead.
notes on a winter's song for a quiet suburban street at three o'clock in the morning:
If you press down hard on the gas pedal and the brake in a brand-new late 60's Detroit automobile
with a four-hundred-and-forty-four cubic inch V-8 engine while the clutch is engaged in second gear
and build the revolutions until the tachometer starts to flip from zero to redline to zero to redline;
assuming the transmission is solid and reliable, the entire back end
will begin to jump sideways in short hops of repressed mechanical rage and fear,
and if you still hold the brake, and rev the engine even higher,
you will begin to hear the thin clenched whine of complex precision machinary
in huge and hopelessly baffled pain.
that, was Randy's instrument
If you then release the brake, the tires will begin to turn so fast
they will slip and spin and smoke on the asphalt,
leaving two very long black skid marks and creating an extremely loud scream of noise
as you accelerate past the sleeping home of the girl you love
who, sadly, does not love you, at all.
and that, was the song he played.
They never caught him on the road.
Oh, they tried; even came close once
He'd been siphoning gas
Up at York University
And a cop waved him over
So, he gave him the finger
and put the pedal on the floor
They played hide-and-seek for two whole hours.
(he was trying to get back to the city to ditch the car,
they were trying to get him. A fair game.)
Finally, he got tired and ran their roadblock
So they starred his back windshield
With one bullet, for the nerve
but no, they never caught him.
He could drive.
years later, I saw Randy
At his dad's funeral, open-casket
(I had to go
none of my family live here now
I wouldn't have had them talking
and I guess, I wanted to say goodbye)
we didn't say much
but the look in his eyes
when he knew me
the way he shook my hand
said all the years.
said what was
what is
what will be
amen.
y'see, this is not just a story
Randy was about my age, and
he is my cousin
and he lived
on a cross street.