2/27/12

In The Sun
By Tony Rauch


I sigh at ease, looking out at it all. I'm alone in the back of the bus, its loud rattle moving me along. Shadows of leaves dance on the window and on my face as the sun splashes my stare. I shift around as the bus shakes. I bring my hands from my lap to my sides to the top of my legs to under my legs to my pockets and then back to my lap again. And the afternoon sways and rattles and I taste last week in its stale air.

The sun leaks through the holes between leaves as if grainy light dripping in from better places, better times. The deep summer shadows flash on and off while the sun winks through the trees. The sun sits in my lap and takes turns with the shade.

Objects flash by the window - a garbage can, an old engine block, a baseball mitt in the gutter - things people once shared. I notice small birds cleaning themselves in a dark puddle in the gutter. They dip their heads in and come up and shake it all off. Then a stripped bike frame appears, still chained to the leaning stanchion of a street sign - the street sign is missing. And then more objects we need - a wagon missing a wheel, a hubcap, a wheelchair tipped over in the weeds - more things we need to get us around, just strewn about, stripped. A duck standing in an empty parking lot of a boarded-up fast food restaurant. A burnt-out gas station. A three-legged dog. A man missing an arm. He was digging in a garbage can, looking for something. A house being renovated. All of its windows were missing. Someone took them. A chain-link fence without a gate. Things missing, healing. Things lost, strewn about. People missing pieces, disconnected, just strewn about.

Things speed by in a blur, people flash on and off in the brightness and dark, illuminated, obscured, the backs of people, people’s sides, people turned around, parts of people here and there, some entering shadows, others sticking out, things appearing then disappearing, lost forever, things that are there for a moment and then not there, things that evaporate, things that are held in place, prisoners, things that are loose, rattling around, things that are adrift, free to change, to grow, and things wandering around, lost.

I watch the lawns, bright sun and dark shadows. Lawns to play in, lawns to mow, lawns to dream about and lay in. As I watch, I think of how good that sun can be to you, and I think of how cruel that sun can be to you. I ride with it for a while, then take the photo of us out of my wallet. I hold that photo, work it in my hands, then I set it on my lap. I gaze out the window at all the perfect green lawns and then look down at the photo and then out the window at everything going by again. Blotches of light and dark continue to blink on and off, houses flash by, entire lives, things people share. Then I put that photo back. It's the first time I've had it out in weeks.



I keep this photo of me and Lori in my wallet. It's the only photo I have with me - my favorite, a perfect picture of us when we were together, taken a few days before we moved into the attic of that old green house.

We cleaned that damn upstairs for two days it was so bad. Sleeping on her big mattress, laying together watching t.v. half the night, working on the garden on summer weekends, stamping on cockroaches together - that summer went by so fast, that upstairs filled up so fast - first the fifteen dollar couch from the Salvation Army, then the shelves from the Goodwill and the air conditioner from some garage sale. I can still smell that upstairs, the curtains Lori made swaying gently, hearing the wind sigh with her long summer dresses flowering around her legs. The clean grass and fresh dirt, that day we called in sick in August and it rained. I remember that rain, it made everything smell so clean and full.



I'm on my way to see her at her friend's house on the other side of town. She's been staying there for a while. Time somehow stands still on the bus. I'm trying to stay calm, and the bus moves so slowly, and I just want everything to go smoothly. I just want to be there with her. I just want everything to be o.k., to be like it was.

I sit on my hands in the back, the window open, smelling that rushing breeze, and I picture her running up to me and welcoming me on the sidewalk. And that breeze slaps at my face, cooling me in the shade of the bus. The ride seems to last forever, but I really don't mind. I picture her there. I watch her welcome me at the porch. I feel her arms stretch out, she hugs me tightly. I think she misses me.

I see us go inside. I taste the smell of her neck and her hair and her lemonade as she plays her neighbor's old piano. She can make that weak old thing sing. I could watch her forever, with her head up and eyes closed, the sun glowing behind us in jealousy in that photograph.



That piano was the biggest pain to get up those stupid stairs. I thought we were all gonna die for sure that night Kevin and Josh had to stay over, that thing sunk in the steps. We had to lower Kevin down with a bed sheet to go get beer. He got footprints all over the side of the house on his way back up. Yeah, I thought we'd all die for sure, by a fire or something, with that old piano tilted in those stairs, the one end poking through into the closet below.

I remember the day the photo was taken. The first time I heard her play that old thing. The first time I ever heard her play. The piano had been tucked away in her neighbor's garage. A dusty tarp covered it and she slid it off, telling me about how her and Melinda would hammer away on it when they were kids, before Melinda's accident. It was the first time she'd seen it in years. It looked pretty sad with its green paint peeling and cracked keys. She said she could repaint the flowers and begged we bring it along. I just laid down in the dust of the garage and laughed. And then she started to play. And the sun heard it and came peeking around, lighting the dark corners in a golden haze. And it was like another time, as though we were moving back through the years. Shadows grew and spread and splashed like a bright ocean of paint. And she closed her eyes and that thing came alive to cling to me, to stay with me forever, that damn thing. And I have proof of that in this photo of us as golden explorers in the sun.



It's only about two blocks to her friend's house. The bus hums away and the leaves sway with the breeze in the trees. The trees are so tall and thick and it's so cool under that canopy, in that soft, dreamy tunnel. And I breath in the leaves and the fresh grass as I move, the sun tickling me through the shade, the wind gently rubbing my face, the sky so amazingly big, stretching out to fill the days ahead.

I walk up the sidewalk, and she steps out onto the porch as I had pictured. She stands holding the wood railing in the sun with a long skirt gently weaving around her legs as always.

Things looked too good I guess. She invites me in. She makes lemonade. But I don't see the piano anywhere, and she doesn't sit by me on the couch as I had thought. She sits on some old chair, so I stretch out on her friend's rug. I hoped we could talk about old times, about last summer, about that house and that piano and all. But every time I try to take us back she pays no attention or starts up about her new classes. Things just looked a little too good I guess. And I can feel the sun outside, warming the old house, shining on the lawns and trees, as if waiting for us, as if wanting to play with us again.

I don't stay long, or it doesn't seem that long anyway. I stand on the porch for a moment after I leave. I look out and the sky feels so long and empty, blushing a dusty rose so far away. I reach into my wallet, slide that photo out and take one long look at it, looking at it for one more time, gazing right through time and falling into it. I remember those days so clearly. Somehow that golden picture of us in the sun seemed so perfect.

I set that photo down carefully, gently leaving it on the wood railing of the porch. Then I step off into the grass.


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Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.