Impressions of Davis Square

[kitchen_kink]

The great hulk, steel growler, bump-and-grind garbage truck hitches down the street, plumes of dragon-smoke in its wake. It’s a party. Three men jump and dance, acrobatic, from its heels and backside, dodging the flame, a game of chicken with a voracious beast. The Amerindian-looking shaggy-haired boy leaps like a court jester from the bumper, runs and grabs a white bag of trash, throws it in an arc so it floats, like a cloud, then thumps down into the reality of the machine. A strapping blond appears as if from nowhere, emerging from the fog of dust and exhaust, spotting and spinning a box full of refuse. He twirls it so it skitters toward the truck, and the third man, a tall, lanky Latino, grabs it by one of its ears and flips it into the maw of the beast, like a sacrificial bit of meat.

Down the street they lurch, the Flying Sanitation Brothers, the truck like a circus train on fire, the men like trapeze artists, jumping, spinning, overturning trash cans in their wake. Behind, I walk, dodging the empty shells of other people’s waste, the rubber and metal, bouncing and rolling husks, ripe with flies and yellowjackets and the fruity sweet smell of rot. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

**

The screaming sirens disturb me with their insistance. The buildings of the square hold the noise in, make it all the more jarring. Firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, all day, all night. Who can keep track? The city deadens me to pain, makes me ignore the little tragedies that crop up on all sides.

An ambulance parks near me; its loud rumbling engine blends into the general noise. I look up and see a gurney, white wheeled death-machine, rolling past me, a pale paramedic attached to the end like an afterthought. They head for a park bench, where a nondescript, dark, thin man lies, twitching a little, wearing an olive-green shirt and a baseball cap. I hadn’t even noticed him. I don’t know what has happened. I feel somehow responsible, sitting here with my computer and my lofty thoughts, unaware of the events unfolding twenty feet away. Some man, dying, dead probably.

They wheel him onto the truck.

**

The woman, her face lined but by her slight figure and youthful attitude, likely younger than I am, sits hesitantly across from me at the table. I acknowledge her with little more than a nod, no eye contact.

“Excuse me,” she says after a few minutes of silent sitting, a copy of The Brothers K sitting thickly in front of her on the table. “Are you waiting for the Tufts bus?”

“No,” I say. “I’m just...sitting here.”

“Oh. Well do you happen to know how often it comes?”

“No, I don’t, sorry.”

She looks off down the street again, another little line forming between her eyebrows.

“You know,” I say after a minute or so, “if you’re going to Tufts, it’s not that far.”

“I know,” she says, “I live, about, a half-hour walk away. I’m just lazy; I’d rather read, and write, and ride there. I’m sure it’ll come soon.”

I’ve walked out to the square today from home. It’s not far, maybe ten minutes. I’ll walk back later. Last night I walked with my girlfriend, fairly aimlessly, through bits of Somerville and Medford, just to walk.

What if one could walk not just to get somewhere, but for the joy of walking?

The woman sees her bus, gets up, and hurries off.

Comments

[lightfixer.livejournal.com]

I liked that very much. Nice.