This guy who keeps showing up at the top of my no name list,
my “Unnamed people.”
But I know his last name. And how it fits into my rain list. A set of
frazzled wipers on the Bay Bridge at no less than four in the dark. Because
I can drive? Or be driven upon or be driven (recklessly – life’s serious of
shadows). Maybe
I can call him Mister. Which can only work if I don’t pass out. In Berkeley
the rain is educational—I see spots in the mirrors that won’t go away; a
death star in my throat that, when born, leads a lethal virus
into the middle of campus. The one with the sweetest aroma. Sometimes,
sometimes mistaking Taiwan for Osaka you find yourself in the middle of
Helsinki. The Finnish language is a cinema of middle-aged men (middle-aged
will always be twice yours) hiccupping over fish. Its chorus
is a bunch of teenagers in military uniform. An army of jaws dropping.
They blow a big hole into the idea of a “Midwestern accent.” Your life
as a journalist is a farce. A fleeting smile or a glance into a war-torn park
is a means to concede.
There are many ways to stop the music. Among them,
the tomcat at four in the morning. Who
wakes you up before you can pass out in the middle of the San Mateo Bridge.
