This is the conclusion of Hometown by visitor writer Tim Landy.
By now the sun has burned out and the mountains to the east are piles of ash on a blackened hearth. Earth and sky are almost indivisible. Here and there a pole light burns. I follow the headlights of a car or truck as it grinds up Kreinbrook Hill, past my house. In the alley I slow my pace and allow my heart to return to a slower tempo. I imagine that the night air is really a sea with unseen eddies that vary in temperature, speed, direction, composition. Passing by a tall gray wooden fence, I feel the air warm a little and I smell the delicious, sickening scents of lilac, wild garlic, and cut grass. Water runs from my nose and I sneeze. A small dog starts to bark somewhere. I pull a used tissue from my right pants pocket and wipe away the ooze, then put it back. I cross an intervening alley, where a crosscurrent of cooler air hits me from the right. I do not miss a beat. Block by block, street by street I move quiet and unseen. I am a stranger in the night–a voyeur. Here I smell fabric softener as clothes tumble in a dryer; there, a juicy pot roast. It’s done. How many times have I smelled this before? Light pours from curtained windows. Welcome candles sit on windowsills like tiny beacons. Welcome signs hang on front doors. I catch glimpses inside of people moving to the rhythm of their nocturne. Tonight there will be dishwashing. There will be TV watching, reading, and lessons. There will be arguments and there will be apologies. There will be kisses. There will be love. There will be sleep and dreams. I turn a corner onto Main Street, which is now deserted, except for a few cars and pick-ups. The clock at the bank reads 9:06 then flashes 49o. Across the street a man with a dark mustache and a woman with bleached-blond hair, both in their late thirties, stand in front of Lanky’s Bar. They smoke and laugh, and I wonder what could be so funny. |
