Socks with clocks.

socks with clocks

 Socks with clocks. 

I will come back to where I left off, really I will - first the story of Jesus’ gentleness in Matthew 11, which Axel Sundstrøm is pursuing. He’ll get there because he’s about to get help from Roz’s grandson-sort-of Alfredo, the pocket Junot Diaz, who is visiting us with his mother and Bart from New York City. Then, I wanted to write something about going to the drive-in with Alfredo. I have outlines of both stories, but I haven’t been able to write them out. There’s been too much noise.

     I’m not sure what’s causing it. I asked Dr. Feight. He said he couldn’t begin even to guess if I couldn’t describe it. I said, “Whispering, footsteps, an occasional truck.”

     “Start with the whispering,” he said. “Well, I can’t hear what’s being said,” I said. “Is it about you?” he asked. “Like I said, I can’t hear.”

     “The footsteps, then,” he said. “What do you mean?” “Approaching? Receding? Following?” “I don’t know. Shuffling in place maybe.” Then, I changed the subject: “I’m not following baseball this summer,” I said. “Mmmm.”

Then, yesterday, I was on a walk. “Excuse me,” from across the street. I didn’t want to stop because I didn’t want to be asked for money. I didn’t want to say, “No, sorry, I don’t have any” though I never carry money precisely so I can say that if I need to. And I didn’t want to, but I did stop. “Yes,” I said, shielding my eyes, looking across. A man in a mask was crossing to me. He stopped before he got to the curb when he saw me back up to the storefront. This was on Division in front of Havers and Lynley’s law office.

     So, I was backed against the frosted window, and he was standing in the street at the edge of the sidewalk, saying, “I can see your guardian angel.”

     “Oh.”

     “Or I assume that’s who was following you.”

     “Oh.”

     “Shall I describe him?” the man in the mask asked, pulling it down - he was more than six feet away.

     “No,” I said. “No.

     “But thank you,” I said and I waved as I sidled on.

     “Sure,” the man said, waving back and turning back to cross the street again.

Some time ago I wrote my cousin Jack a postcard. It said, “Are you keeping the faith?” I wasn’t sure what I meant.

     Two days ago I got a response.

Ted,

I am. It's a little like being crazy, but I am. Like the kind of crazy when you hear voices. You see visions and you dream dreams like the young and the old in Joel and Acts. But they are - the dreams and visions - flesh and blood; they are skin and bones; they're clothed: they wear socks and shoes and pants, a shirt and a tie; they wear a hat, brown felt with a darker brown band. They carry an overcoat over their arm. The overcoat is tan, and their shoes are a rusty brown. If you could see their socks, they'd be brown, too, almost the color of the hatband, and they’d have gold clocks on them. The tie is every color of the rainbow but washed thin, almost transparent. That's so nobody else can hear it, no one else has eyes to see.

     That it can't be heard doesn't make the voice not real; the vision and his twin are no less following you because like A and B they aren't on your ophthalmologist’s chart. Even if the drugs they give you erase them, they are still there; you can't make new paper fresh from the pack what has been covered over with drawings and words. Neither can logic erase those and leave no smudge; it's no better than drugs. Logically, a paper that’s been covered can’t be as if it never had anything on it. Note the indicative, my friend. The verb following "if" is not subjunctive, hypothetical, counterfactual.

     You can't take the Bible off every shelf everywhere, erase all of its pages, and say, "There," meaning it's as if there never was a Jesus. Jesus was. The dream following you, carrying his overcoat, muttering under his breath, wears suspenders; they are chocolate brown with a yellow-gold stripe down the middle.

Jack

08.05.20