“By Its White Light May I Find True The Place”
A cold coming, and a bright star to guide
(At times I've lost it, but it sailed again in the clear)
By its white light may I find true the place
In the company of angels, or the lowing of the kine
For I've a gift to bring
Harmed and hurt by my own clumsy hands
(Wrapped in my own tired arms)It was still pretty early on after they started dating that he took her upstairs in the old West building. It was a room behind a lawyer’s office on Doyle Street that his band rented for a practice space. The lawyer’s name was Jon West and his office was downtown. You went in a green door, and up a tall cement stairway painted green. The band had to carry all their gear up and down the stairway every time they played a show. At the top of the stairway there was a narrow hallway leading left, with dark wood paneling, ugly orange carpet and a musty smell. Mr. West’s offices were to the left, at the front of the building. Past his offices the hall turned right again, leading back into the building, and to the back rooms that Mr. West rented to the band for practice space. Before his band there had been another band, a much better one, and he always remembered coming to their practices with his brother when they were in high school. That back hallway and the rooms to either side always held a strange and inexplicable meaning for him, even after the other band had left and he and his friends had rented them for years.
The room had a long couch and chair, both brown plaid, that his brother had picked up from beside a dumpster. It had a small desk with a computer, which they used to record – he had also used it to write papers for college very late at night. On the paneled walls were several colored throw blankets hanging over egg-crate foam to deaden the sound. There were a few show posters, some watercolor color charts and an old painted window hanging from a nail above the couch. The real window, facing opposite, looked out over the kind of old and untidy parking lot you typically find behind storefronts in small Southern towns. At the end of the hallway a door opened on a rusty metal fire escape that led down to the parking lot. Taking breaks from practice they would sit out on the little stoop at the top and watch the summer nights fall. Past the parking lot were train tracks, and when the trains came through the snares would buzz.
Except during practices the room was quiet and oddly peaceful. He used to think it had something to do with its being on the second story. It had a musty smell from the old carpet. It was a very small Southern town, and few people came downtown even during the day.
He brought her up on a late summer evening, after classes had started. They took some books to read for class, and some Cokes for the minifridge. There was no air conditioning, and the box fan only blew the heat around. He put some music on on the computer and for maybe two hours they read, sometimes chatting shyly or complaining about the heat. They sat on the couch with the Cokes sweating in their hands and the summer dusk falling outside the window, and they both felt very happy and content.
After a couple of hours it was really dark outside and they were finished with what reading they had come to do, but they didn’t want to leave. The West building was dark and very quiet around them. Two desk lamps shone up on the walls, the music kept playing and the fan blew across the room. Without thinking he put his arm around her shoulders and felt a hot shudder pass through his body. After a moment she wrapped her small right hand around his side and they sat there without moving for a long time. On the computer the music changed from song to song, and a train passed by outside, buzzing the snares.
Driving her back to campus he was shaking. Neither of them spoke. He kept feeling he should say that he was sorry, but he couldn’t really think why. When he dropped her at her dorm he meant to tell her something but the words stuck, and she said “Goodnight,” and went inside before he realized what he had meant to say.
Last week we went down into the city to see Low in Millennium Park. It probably wasn’t the best place to hear them, in the open air, with so many people coming and going. They were terrific, though. “The price is too much, but it’s nothing to us. My love is for free, my love.” As good a new song as I’ve heard in a long time. Low, Low, Low. Minimalism and understatement, a deep sense of mystery. Beautiful voices and indie rock. All my favorite things, in other words.
Aiden is 10 weeks old now, although it feels like he’s been here a lot longer than that. I’m still not sure what to make of it all. He’s a pretty good-natured little guy but he does keep his brow furrowed a lot of the time. There’s a Luxury song that says:
I would that I were made new
The scars on my belly undo
And the blood that I have in my veins
Could be mine and not stranger unnamed
Cause I once was perfect as you
Pink-skinned and full-flaming youthI think that does a good job of getting at the seriousness of it, the grave sense of responsibility and of his being mine, my own flesh. The inevitable scarring and spoiling will happen to him just like everyone else, and I’ll be largely at fault. “Pink-skinned and full-flaming youth.” And then a blood transfusion.
I’ve been trying to write more but I mostly just throw it away. Trying to write some stories. I have some ideas but they haven’t gone anywhere yet. When they do you’ll be the first to know.
