Ambient Scenes

“Yeah, I heard about it already,” Tom said. He didn’t look up. He was reading something on his phone. Then, although I had moved past him to the coffee, he continued, “Mayor’s son. This is gonna be a bad day.” I grabbed the coffee pot too hard and nearly pulled it off the counter. Tom had moved up behind me and thrust his phone where my cup was. A text message from a number that ran off the screen said, “sad puppy boy, come.” I didn’t say anything. I was trying to be as stoic as Tom was, I guess.

*

There was only one horse left after that winter and it was Sally. We were all processing the fact that we had lost the herd, and trying to think about next steps, and looking at all the hay piled up, and I don’t think any of us appreciated that she was still there, breathing musky vapor into the dim light of the barn. It didn’t hit me when mom was adding up the cost of buying some foals, and it didn’t hit me when dad took all the bridles and boxed them aside for a moment, but then, one night, dropping hay, I thought about how Sally must have felt.

*

“Yeah, I was there that day,” she said. “You were at the school?” I said. “Yeah,” she said. She clicked her lighter a few times. “I saw ‘em coming in,” she said. She lit her cigarette. I thrust out mine and she lit it too. “You saw ‘em coming in?” I said. “Like, in their trenchcoats?” “Well, yeah,” she said, “they always had those things on.” I dragged my cigarette, so it didn’t go out. “That’s why I didn’t say anything, or think anything,” she said suddenly. “’Cause it was normal.” I looked up at her and she shrugged.

*

She was still there when I woke up. I looked at her for a minute and found I couldn’t fall back asleep. She didn’t know for all the world that I was even there. She was lying strangely rigid, as if she was flying upwards with her arms at her sides, and it seemed like she was smiling. Yeah, definitely, a crescent beside her lips showed a smile. I nearly laughed out loud. Outside the car, the roads were covered in sand. I turned back and she was looking at me. “What happened last night?” I said.

*

And then two weeks of rain began, and I wasn’t able to talk to anyone I wanted to talk to, or see anyone I wanted to see. All anyone came to me with were problems. The zebras were losing hair and one of them stopped eating. One of the male gorillas kept raping a youngster and we had to quarantine him. And the city budget was going to be cut and our lobbyist had lost her in. At least the flamingoes were still pink. I began staying late, waiting for those sunset moments when the rain dried up for a half-hour and you could hear the worms hiss as they twisted. I began to wonder why I had gone into administration.
            “You were scared you’d be mauled one day,” Marla said, as if reading my mind.
            “You weren’t?” I said, watching some cormorants divide the sky, not looking at her.
            “We all are,” she said, “but you’ve always been convinced you’ll die in a pen.”
            “Still might,” I said.

*

Fucking windsurfing. He always thought it seemed like the bougiest pursuit. But you know how it is, you meet people. Apropos of nothing, five sambuca shots deep, Lucia, with the immortal line, “Have you ever windsurfed?” And then, at the ass-edge of dawn, somehow a perfectly breezy morning, and she had him out there, trying to stand up drunk and catch the wind. Time and wind are really no different. You find yourself somewhere, and don’t know how you got there, and you can’t quite see how it happened.

Stream of consciousness writings, each done to a different song from Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.

MB 2/2021

“Yeah, I heard about it already,” Tom said. He didn’t look up. He was reading something on his phone. Then, although I had moved past him to the coffee, he continued, “Mayor’s son. This is gonna be a bad day.”