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Monday, August 23, 2004
Worthy Disaster
I'm on the run. With my Steak Buffet shirt on, cap in hand, tan khakis on. I'm on the run.
I don't know what I'm running from. Is it time? Maybe. Is it me? Maybe. Is it life? Maybe. Is it anything?
It had been a long day, but I had took it. I can take it. In this world, you can't be weak. If you are weak, you have to get strong.
And strength comes from many different places. Some in the darkest reaches, those darkest spaces.
My legs, up and down, my breath, huffing, one thing on my mind. To get home.
Home is where the heart is. At least they say.
I run most of the way, getting tireder as I go along. Those ten hours of working behind.
It still feels like the cap's on my head. Like I'm there going to people's tables, saying how was your meal, taking their plates.
One group, they'd said, "Looks like a crappy job." I said, "Yeah."
"That's why I'm going to college."
I walked away.
"Smart kid," I heard.
Smart kid? Me?
Cleaning those plates. . .if only cleaning up life was so easy. If only life's things put in your way were able to be seen. Were able to be manipulated, scraped away and made bare. It's not like that.
Life's a mess, but it's beautiful in some way. . .you can't touch this mess. You can't put your hand quite on it. But you can feel it. . .and sometimes that feeling is severed, twisted, and cut away.
Running. Night's out. I wonder what some people passing by think. Probably think, boy, that kid must have it tough. Maybe he works for his family, who is so poor they don't have a car and barely make ends meet.
I think, these people all have their own cares. . .they don't need to stop their cars for me. Their life's a beautiful mess, too. One you can't just scrape away like all those plates I'd scraped away. Made clean.
When I get home, my dad's home. Finally.
He's all on me about mom.
I'm too tired. I worked, I ran.
Trying to run from a disaster is wanting the disaster to land right at your knees. But this disaster's worth it, in some way. . .somehow. . .
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