blurry items
H and I had to get to the kerr early to set up the PA and open up the doors and turn on the heat. We were greeted there by A in front of the building, where some homeless people were hanging around from the encampments nearby. The abandoned brick factories, stately yet forgotten, surrounded us on all sides. The river was subtly moving somewhere in the distance, a sliver of it seen as we drove down towards the train tracks.
We got in there and moved some chairs around, set up some lamps, and the table with the money bucket. We had to hide cases and cases of modelos we found in the fridge in an office room of the non-profit side of the building, someone else’s stuff. All around were small hints of another event that had happened or was yet to happen: tea candles in the bathroom, nice soap, white christmas lights making a frame over a sealed doorway.
The bands came in, J brought the drums. All night, everyone was helping. The extension cables lined the floor to connect it all, the bright orange veins. So many people showed up. Everyone put lots of money in the plastic pitcher, and it was apparent within the first 20 mins it would be a very well attended and monetarily fruitful show.
I sat on a stool with wheels at the little card table, and watched as people slipped under the retractable garage door from the darkness of the street. N showed up and sat with me and told me about *redacted*, and how T didn’t react very well. My sister N showed up too. And some of my coworkers, except one coworker got lost and drove home.
During A’s set, I stood by the wall off to the side, and the butter yellow triangle of lampshade looked like it was sitting on top of A’s neck, her second head, as she played piano songs about her childhood. Then she got out her guitar and played about love. I looked through the crowd - everyone was watching intently, the emotional reaction felt collective.
I watched R wipe his face, which was red, maybe from being drunk, and I doubted my visual recall. Maybe he had just lifted up his silver flask to his lips, or was he really wiping away tears? But that’s how impactful the music was. They were new songs too, about recent life, so the feelings spreading from A were more potent.
We got up to play afterwards and the set was really fun. I looked over at H when we were playing the guitar parts and smiled. She was making a snarled face like she was really getting into it. I thought about how much little time we have to do this, before she leaves for Philly, but wow am I grateful.
After we were done playing, I got caught up talking to H.M., as we usually do - small talk doesn’t exist with us. We always end up talking about the biggest life topics: love, loss, politics. We were all the last ones there.
I looked around and everyone had packed up the PA and amps and drums. J was drunk, taking out the trash. I accidentally poured his beer out in the sink. We closed the kerr down, setting off the alarm. On the darkened sidewalk, a man appeared carrying cardboard and other blurry items. He asked for a cig, and A gave him one, and let him keep her lighter too.
We kept walking to our cars and saw him rummaging through his things and walked towards us again, holding out a folded fabric. Here, he said, handing it to A, I want you to have this, to pay it forward [for the lighter]. We all must’ve looked confused, and he said, Once you open it up, it will make sense. He left and A unfolded the gift: a sweatshirt stamped with a spray-painted heart.
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I walked by all the same houses, and tried to notice anything. I took one pic on my phone: a row of tulips exploding, almost decapitated, breaking into wedges and falling.
There were more tulips, contrasted against a white fence with their fruit colors, or lined up perfectly, small purple balloons in the dirt, but I didn’t take pictures of these. For one, I was self conscious of taking pictures of other people’s houses.
I walked down the steps to get to the sinkhole park, the steps with the overhanging trees and vegetation. The tunnel to get there, the place of recreation. Someone always has some kind of lawn ornament sitting below saplings, or fairy trinket from Michael’s or whatever, sometimes symbolizing someone who has died.
I watched for goose poop, but there wasn’t much. I couldn’t see the ducks anywhere, I wondered if they had died from bird flu, or just went somewhere else since it had rained, stormed.
I passed by the same lady wearing a white shirt and with short hair, the second lap around I realized she was talking on the phone with someone, her lips slightly moving.
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[This first part is transcribed from a piece of notebook paper I wrote on in the jail.]
The white hollowed doorway, we both remember we talked to L. Cat greeted on the sidewalk, large polka dots, she touched a bat. Pony boy was next. Animal parade. F called him hainted hound.
The house sits up high. Burial mound. City gate. The house looks almost cardboard. Inside, big black barrels of wood fired stove.
Someone painted the living room a pastel color since the last time I visited. A giant anti-Nazi sign above the fridge looks like a sign promoting Nazis, until you notice the red “x” through it.
Down the stairs, past the kitchen nook where I stared into *redacted*’s eyes for five minutes, had a spiritual experience across old wood, a wine bottle. Now sits a giant tin container of popcorn from R. Even though he doesn’t work in movie theaters anymore, where does he get it? I wish I had eaten some.
I didn’t get a drink from K at the “bar” at the bottom of the steps, across from the bathroom that K.N. painted gold back then. Apparently *redacted redacted redacted redacted* and now they are broken up, which explains the down, slumped version of K at the bar. Some men deserve to get their confidence revoked sometimes.
We learned this juicy gossip at the anti-zionist seder in tower grove park, right before. I drove through the park after work. It was an unreal day - it had just rained. Everything was green and translucent, a watercolor. All entrances to the park have candy heads of tulips in formation, this time of year. I saw white stars with eyes in the center - dogwood trees.
Kids were flying kites in the field behind our pavilion for the seder, while we read the palestinian poem about kites. And then the kite, a long rainbow ribbon, got tangled in the tree. When we got there, two people were already sitting at the picnic tables, one giving the other braids. We ignored them, let them finish, shared the space. The park is for everyone.
Food table lined up with the potluck items: kosher for passover quiche, a giant metal pot of murky borscht with toppings of boiled potato cubes, chopped cucumber and green onions, sour cream. Kale salad with shaved carrots. Chocolate pudding pie. I brought gummy fruit slices from last seder: “taste of a memory.” H brought rice and beans, which I mixed with the chili someone else brought. Strawberries and whipped cream. Tiny plastic shot glasses with grape juice and wine.
The wind kept coming, threatening to blow it all away. I held the neck of a glass vase puffing out with pear blossoms. The sun went down slowly through the trees. We were all masked, reading from the Haggadah about collective liberation.
[This is where I stopped writing at the jail when a student showed me the password to a laptop in the laptop cart; it was on the attendance sheet. Then I continued to look up library books i wanted to read. But now I’ll continue here.]
The seder was too long. Y wanted everyone to tell the story of moses and the exodus by memory, the memory of the film we all watched as kids, collective cartoon. H came at the perfect time to bring the rest of the west bank olives.
What does it mean to “celebrate” passover during a time of genocide, a genocide in our name? J had made homemade horseradish spread, and there was a big trough of charoset. At the end, we all sloppily sang dayenu, eliyahu hanevi, and chad gadya. N told me and H about growing up jewish in north county.
As we were leaving, I noticed the blue painted roof of the pavilion, and when we backed away, the roof of the covering where we sat was golden and ornate, we were convening inside a kiddush cup or a torah crown.
Let all who are hungry come and eat, there were no doors to the gathering. I found the afikomen in a tree. I grabbed it on my tippy toes, yanking the napkin from the web.
