There was an
explosion. These
things happen. I
was new to the place.
It was a place, that’s
what was new. And
there was an explosion.
I was going to be a writer.
It turned out it happened most
nights. At least for a while. There
was an explosion, and this happened
most nights, for a while, so I wrote it
down. One night when it happened I
had a guest. It scared “the livin’ bejesus”
out of him, that’s how he put it. I said it
happens. Quite a bit. Just one. Just a
magnificent bang, like right out the one
window, and then nothing. ’Til maybe
the next night, anyway. He was here
the next night, too. It scared the
livin’ bejesus out of him again
but not as bad as the night
before, he said. I said “Exactly!”
and wrote it down. It was something.
Those explosions. Something that was
happening. Something that felt tragic
but wasn’t. Something to write down.
Something that sort of situated us,
that gave us something to bring
up, to talk about, to discuss
and wonder over, that didn’t
have much in the way of cons
equences, except it got our hearts
maybe going a little bit faster and gave
us what they call a thread, a piece of string
to hang on to, together, so it was a connection.
We’d had those before, tons of them, even, but
speaking for myself, they’d all been disconnected,
every last one of them, so it was those humongous
kabooms that came at one or two in the morning, what
sounded like big hollowed out bombs that went off right
underneath the window and echoed way out into the city
heat of the otherwise silent summer night for what seemed
like a couple of minutes, ’til the sound of the two fans, one
blowing on each of us because the room was always such a
hotbox, it was like an eternity until the sound of the fans
came back to being the only thing we’d hear, and for the
rest of the night I could not even sleep, not after an ex
plosion, neither one of us did, as it turns out. I’d allow
my eardrums to come slowly back down to just
that little fan, I had it on the bed with me,
it was a steam-bath, still is, doesn’t
matter what time of the year,
here in this room, this place
that’s mine now for over
a decade since then,
those explosions
long since gone,
whatever they
were, they
quit happening
by the end of the
summer, they did. But
when you’d hear one, it
was a big enough thing that
it would literally bring you back.
No joke. It was huge enough that
it’d shape life out of what had become
unrecognizable. That’s how big of an ex
plosion it was. For both of us, I’d say, or
at least I think it was just as significant for
my friend. But I didn’t see him again, not once
after that summer. Things were starting to get pretty
weird, for one thing. I mean, for one thing, he bilked
me. And it wasn’t like I had much anything to take, but
whatever it was, he took it. He took it all. He had this
motivation all of a sudden, and that was new. So he
took me for all that I had, which again, wasn’t much,
but boy, did that ever charge me up. And then:
gone. Like he never even existed. By then,
though, I was back, too. I had life. I had
reasons. I would wake up all early of
a morning, feel the blood pumping
very particularly through my insides,
and before I knew it I was up and I was
doing things. And we never figured out
what it was that went off nights, I
have absolutely no idea, no idea
whatsoever. But something
sure went off in me that
summer. Something I
could not contain. And so
I’ve got nothing but gratitude
for whatever it was, those un
godly explosions, nothing but
a huge amount of gratitude.
Maybe it was all in my head,
knowing what I know of me
then, but that doesn’t even
matter. All I know is that I
am here, and that this is
true thanks, perhaps,
to something that’d
go boom of a
night every
once in a
while that
long ago
summer.
So, were
it not for
those
explo
sions
. . . ?
