Tag Archives: essay

2024, essay, Ohio River Valley Literature, spring, the no-scape, Working Class Literature

An Essay on jaywalking possum

Almost got into a car accident on the way home from work. Rolling down 3rd Street, just outside the Watterson, a critter was crossing the street in front of me. A possum.

The car behind me had been aggressive since 4th and Winkler. Kept trying to pass on a two lane street. Shined their brights. That odd angry swerving people sometimes do, some kind of intimidation dance for automobiles that always amuses me. When I slowed down for the possum they laid on the horn. I responded with a finger. When I turned down Wampum and into the neighborhood, they followed me. Part of me wanted them to keep following me. They stayed behind me a block, went on straight when I turned again.

Sometimes even when the cruise is good, I end up cranky. It starts out as a role I play; the cranky boilerman. One of many faces, one of many masks. I try to find ways to be kind. But something about me just scares some people, especially a couple of the kids who work concessions. The cranky old boilerman. The fire troll.

And though I could work harder at being nicer, it would be disingenuous. I leave crumbs and clues to my humanity. Little jokes. Poetic quipts. But when people are determined to not like me, I lean into it. Hard.

The car behind me would have hit the possum without a thought. I like possums. They look mean but are mostly benign in the world. They’re like me. I look mean. But I’m mostly benign.

Since COVID and the Breonna Taylor Protests, what was left of the thin veneer of civility in this dirty old town has worn away. An underlying kindness has washed away like the mud left on the wharf after high water. Washed back into the river. We’re becoming a tourist destination. Polite, but not kind. Under the mud that washed away, there’s an aggression. It comes out in people’s driving.

These faces we wear. I read recently on someone’s Facebook status update: THE REAL YOU IS WHO YOU ARE IN PRIVATE. It’s a nice thought. Comforting. But really, there is no real anybody. We are composites of experience and biology. I’m many things to many people. They all think they know the real me.

There is no real me.

The me that stopped for a jaywalking possum is the same one that half-hoped the aggressive tailgater would follow me home.

Time on the river is washing away the layers of mud. Former composites. The cranky boilerman waiting on word from the blue heron, the watchman expecting messages from the wharf possum… faces I wear when needed.

But when I cross the street, I hope someone finds the civility to not run me over.

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/versation, 2024, aesthetic, essay, nonfiction, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, the no-scape

no escape [on the Ohio River Valley Gothic]

2 February 2024 / 0010 hrs

No matter what I’ve told myself over the years, I’ve always been steeped in this kind of Gothic. A childhood in the rust belt around folding farms and closing steel Mills, all just a few degrees separated from day-to-day existence… but close enough that I had a front seat to the sort of geographic necrophilia that happens in the country.

I can never quite meditate it out of my bones.

The Gothic that makes for good television is a more urbane kind a Gothic that lacks that determinism. It’s a Gothic without determinism. It languishes and chokes like the endless summers and New Orleans. Undying, but never quite replenished. Strangled.

This Gothic that infects me, this Ohio River Valley Gothic, is imbued with that determinism. It means you know where you are and hang the fuck on, no matter what. Grit your God damn teeth, spit and keep moving. There’s no escape from pain. What escape exists is only temporary and comes with a hefty price. Better to grit and hang on.

The Southern Gothic languishes in the past. the Midwest Gothic is all hard and deterministic, ike the high desert winters. But the Ohio River Valley Gothic waxes in wanes. It ebbs and flows. It both languishes and is bone and sinew built with determinism. This is what the river brings, deposits like high water mud and driftwoodbone and garbage from up river. It rides in on cross currents.

—

no escaping the massive corn fields
etched into the imagination. 

we take turns playing scarecrow
as the water rises, biding time

in the company of grackles.
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2024, essay, nonfiction, Ohio River Valley Literature, prose, river life, the no-scape, Working Class Literature

Swing Shift Watch: The Time Between

This is the transition hours. She’s.next to me, askeep. I’m dressed for work and drinking coffee, waiting for the first of my two overnight watches for the week. We had a nice supper together.: bow tie pasta with roasted tomato, pesto, and sweet Italian sausage. One of those suppers that was so good, we talked about it an hour after, along with ways to make it even better or change it up a bit. This is what we do.

An old standard from classic BBC TV is playing on the TV: As Time Goes By. I’ve been watching this show for years. I first watched it on PBS when I was a kid. Saturday nights . The Red Green Show, As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances, Have You Been Served?, Waiting on God, Last of the Summer Wine. I introduced Amanda to these shows after we got togther. I never get tired of them. I don’t know why. I’m not what you’d call an Anglophile. But there’s something comforting about them.

She’s sleeping hard. It’s been a long week for her, and it’s only Wednesday. Me getting back to work on the wharf after my hip replacement surgery has been an adjustment for both of us. She likes having me around, and I like being around, though I do get antsy if I stay around the house too long. I don’t light out on the road anymore, so I pour that into work, into the river.

On Swing Shift, we only sleep at the same time 2 nights a week. This makes the time between that much more important.

I’ve got about an hour left before I need to finishing puttering around and leave for work. The weather is warmer, but wet. From the weather reports I’ve read, I expect more thick fog and then rain after 4 in the morning. I pay attention to weather forecasts and river forecasts, even when I’m not working. Work didn’t make me this way, being on the road did. The weather and river patterns give me something to obsess over. It’s a sort of passive obsessiveness, always running in the background.

I’ll leave soon trying not to wake her up, and disturb the dogs as little as possible. She’s deep into one of her complicated dreams. I’m going to head out to mine soon enough.

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