Just To Be On The Safe Side

Reading and writing doesn't come easy to a guy like me, but there were a few words I recognized only from listening to the news, so I took the whole thing to my friend Aaron to see if he could figure it out. He and me don’t have much in common, but we get a kick out of shooting clays on Sundays, and both our grandfathers left us 12 gauge field guns. That's how we got to talking. Those things really beat on your shoulder, so we took a break to sit in my car and drink coffee. Aaron’s wife lets him get away with smoking my cigarettes once a week. As we sat Aaron stopped talking a second after I handed him the folder, then dashed to get his reading glasses. When the door shut again he was entirely focused on the pages, and my curiosity mixed with an admiration for how quickly he seemed to absorb the convoluted phrases.

All high-rises built before 1967 include a hinged pane called a Rescue, Inspection and Service portal every ten floors. They tell that to window washers on our first day, but we learn on our own that the people on the safe side of that glass wouldn’t care to provide such an extravagance for laborers hauling buckets and squeegees. We are not a concern because we aren’t visible. The scaffolding barely squeaked as I hopped into the empty conference room.

I just sold a car I rebuilt and my parents had left me some when they passed. Aaron and I started with just a bit, each of us, but after the second “strike date” he understood the level of confidentiality, and collusion, the whole thing mapped out. And we were all in.

Aaron and I still shoot on Sunday...or Wednesday, or whenever we damn please, and my daughter just sent me a photo from Paris. Can you imagine that?

Play in Motion

The plan didn’t go much further than drinking a bottle of vodka upon arrival. The final night of bar-tending, two bus trips and a night spent in a city I would never know seemed like its own accomplishment. From the station another city seemed to open in two directions and the one I chose led to buildings huddled around cobblestone roads leading to a canal. The set of stairs wound from view, and a forgotten winter chill rose from the masonry as I sipped, Mediterranean soil caked still in my shoes and perspective also. I cared less and less of the sudden nightfall as my lips pressed the bottle, somehow I found my way to a small outcropping on the campus of a University. I saw the floral toned lights of an enormous whirling Ferris wheel as I lay down, unsure if they were real. I couldn’t manage to care.