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Sound Boxesby Guillaume Baxter
It was morning.
Mornings were standard things.
The sun pushed against the aged and yellowed curtains that
were always drawn. About midday the place would get
sufficiently warmer and stir up the smell of his body. On a
refined level the musky smell of a warm body is repulsive
but on another level it is entirely pleasant and reassuring,
simply as proof of being.
Mornings were arbitrary, meant for lying about on the
familiar pile of old t-shirts and sweatpants in the corner that
served as a bed.
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awhaledivingintothedeepallthatfatandwarmthsubmergingint
oanindiainkblacknessthatnohomosapienhaseverclappedapeep
eronisbetterpoetrythananythingcoleridgeeverculledup
Sisal, thoughts bouncing from his mouth, glided through on
his way to the water room.
The water room was something and a half. There were four
ways to get water and all of them made different sounds.
News was keen on sounds but he had never figured how
words were different from other sounds. He had learned that
his name was News from listening to Sisal but after that he
had given up. Without words to shore up his thoughts they
ended up forming themselves like those cartoons from the
nineteen-thirties with only instrumental music for sound.
There was a lot of life that could be covered by an asparagus
stalk and a carrot waltzing.
swayinggrassoutinthedakotasisyoursecondgreatseabutthebuf
falodontgoaboutdivingdownintothatgoldenoceanbecausether
eaintnofishonwhichtogoaboutfeasting
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Sisal glided the other way and thoughts bounced all around
him.
Sisal was a god of sorts, he usually stayed in his room
reading and smoking marijuana or loosely rolled cigarettes.
Thats the sort of god Sisal was.
Sisal kept a lot of books, new books, used books, stolen
books, yellowed books, books corrugated from water
damage, books in two volumes because of how their spine
split, and books with their middles cut out for hiding stuff,
providing an entirely different story. The books were
stacked about everywhere in the room until the stacks looked
like an artists various takes on The Tower of Babel. The
room smelled of well thumbed pages and the settled smoke
of the sort of plant leaves that are good for breathing in when
theyre set on fire.
Sounds came from the room that was full of doors. In truth,
sounds came from a lot of places. There was a lot of
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information there but News ignored most of it and that was
ok. If he made more of an effort to understand language he
would have learned that the fifteen year old in the unit below
him was a cheaplittlewhore and that her mother was a
goddamnbitch.News didnt know these things but he did
know how the sounds in the room with all the doors usually
went. The doors in that room had the habit of closing up like
a chrysalis until it was time for them to reopen and present
the food that they had incubated. This wondrous magic
occured intermittently amongst the population of doors and
no specific pattern was discernable, but it was assured that at
least one of them would have reached fruition at any given
time. There was food in the room of doors and it would be
good for food to be in News too.
When he got to the rooms of doors, Sisal was gone. He did
that. It wasnt a problem; the cupboards were left open so he
could get at the crackers alright. Crackers were best for
eating in the room that could have been the sitting room.
The room that could have been the sitting room was full of
lots of things. The main things were: a large, cracked
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deep and sometimes buttons simply couldnt be coaxed out
of them.
It was in this way that News ran out of buttons to knock
about.
He headed for the water room. The water room was a pretty
great room, not because he had any specific need of it but
because it was generally a good place to muck about in. The
porcelain cover to the tank on the toilet had cracked as the
result of some action of Sisals and one half was simply
missing; the water back there could be splashed quite
effectively. This was best on really warm days. Today was
not a really warm day.
News ambled back over to his pile of old t-shirts and sweat
pants and flopped himself down. The pile proved pleasant to
flop down on so he did it again and then settled himself in.
Staring at the little yellow and pink flowers on the wallpaper
he could almost see them grow and multiply. After a time,
this became less interesting and he set about watching the
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dust motes laze through the air. They began to mosey and
jive more and that was probably when he dozed and when
they straightened up and went back to lazing was probably
when he awoke.
Lying there, he took in the half open closet where Sisal
stored his pinstripe suits. The suits had been there for a time
and, had they any sense about them, should have stuffed their
pockets chock full of moth balls. As it was they just hung
there like listless opossums.
The closet itself had never been a place News wandered into
because it didnt relate to sleeping and that was the rooms
only real purpose. Similarly, he had a vague understanding
that closets were places that things were taken out of and
thus not ideal for occupancy. However, this day was proving
dull enough to beat the band and steal its brass section too so
it couldnt wrinkle the day too badly to take a brief tour.
Working his way through to the back of the closet, News
discovered some dusty hat boxes that sat sternly in place
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collecting dust. Beyond these, there was an ample amount of
old Marguerite cigar boxes that had done an admirable job
retaining the smell of cigars, however long ago it was that
they had been smoked. The cigars were probably part of the
last tenants story since Sisal smoked only what he could
roll. The most interesting thing that was in that closet though
was a hole.
The hole was actually a vent. By the vent there was a grate.
At one time, the vent had covered the grate making that one
big hole into a bunch of littler, more aesthetically pleasing
holes. As it was now, the grate was caked in dust and laid off
to the side where still more dust had begun to settle on it.
The whole situation was fresh and interesting to News and
culled up the thought of an old bespectacled catfish laughing
during a brief drum solo.
From the hole, there issued a slight breeze and since there
was air coming out it seemed that there would be room
enough for News to go in. The vent extended back a bit then
split to the left and right. He went right. After that turn,
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there were several others but since there wasnt really a
choice about the way to go, both direction and distance were
superfluous, unless to say that they existed.
After a time, News sensed that he was coming close to
another entrance as one of the patterns of sound that rumbled
through the vent became more distinct. Shortly, he found
himself at another cluster of aesthetically pleasing little
holes.
These holes were not in a closet but rather under a table. The
table legs fulfilled their purpose by resting on the dull green
linoleum floor. There was also a rocking chair that was
similarly fulfilling its purpose on the green linoleum floor by
perpetually shifting its weight back and forth, back and forth.
The rocking chair didnt go about shifting itself though. The
shifting of the chair was done by the man sitting in it.
Goodness knows what his purpose was but that wasnt too
much of a loss since both the table and rocking chair were
making a go of it.
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knife back and forth showed that the principle strength of
those arms had receded down closer to the bone but had
relinquished none of its tenacity.
News noted that the weight of the discarded shavings
matched that of the chairs rocking and that that was
reflected in the movements of the sound from the black box.
He saw these patterns confirmed in the perspective offered
by the linoleum and the glittery veins of the counter tops.
News gathered these elements in his head, forming one
image and then held it there turning it around and admiring
it. An approximation of what he thought would be akin to a
great fluffy pancake smiling through comically large eyes as
syrup was being poured over it. It was one of the most frank
visions of life that he had ever encountered. He sat there for
a time and enjoyed the discovery. He enjoyed the
comfortable roundness of the image and, sinking deeper into
the splendor of it, he let his mind wander its expanse freely
as time flowed around him.
news
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Reality snapped back into focus.
He was still in the vent and well aware of it.
He was equally aware that Sisal was not in the vent.
Only Sisal spoke his name.
The other sort of god that had been sitting in the chair was
gone and had taken the principal light of the room with him.
Some light was offered by the windows at the far side of the
room but it was getting closer to the time when they would
stop being so generously luminous. Light could change the
pattern of sounds but it could not create sound.
He had heard his name.
The black box was still speaking.
He turned his attention to that.
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orthcomingwiththeweatherforecastforthiseveningaswellasto
morrownightfollowedbythefiveoclock news
wherewewilltakealookatrisi
From amidst the jumble of sound he had heard his name
again but could not grasp what thought the pattern meant to
his name. Often times the patterns told him that Sisal
wanted him to appear or that it would be best to quickly
disappear or that it was an ideal time for food to be had. It
bothered him that this box should speak his name and that he
should not know in what sort of context. It began to seem
very wrong.
It did not bother him that other gods may exist, for sounds
had always alluded to their existence, but that one should
have a device that would speak to him with no obvious
reason or pretense was a little unsettling.
It seemed best that this not be permitted. Pushing closer
against the grate News realized that the vent wasnt holding
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it too obstinately. With a little more effort the grate came
free and fell to the floor exclaiming, kitestring! as it hit.
Instinctively he knew the right course of action.
News bounced himself across the room gaining the counter
in no time. With zealous energy he completed the task. The
radio lay face down on the floor as its batteries rolled gently
over the linoleum whispering a drawn out, r u b b e rr u b b
e rr b u b b e r to themselves as they went.
News was back across the floor and through the vent coming
out onto the closet floor in no time. Everything was secured,
the floor was judiciously bringing down and cataloging dust,
the cigar boxes held fast to their former glory, and the hat
boxes remained stoic. Safe and back in familiar quarters he
worked his way through the apartment to Sisals room where
he squeezed through the door.
Sisal was there on the mattress reading and drinking water
from an old blue mug. Upon News entrance he looked up
said, lownews and continued reading. News sat pressed
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beside him for a time dozing and looking to see if he could
spot the segments of dust that had been created by Sisals
greeting, for that is what he knew dust to be, worn out sound.
After a time, he sauntered back to his own corner bed and,
nestling in, fell asleep.
At about this time the tattooed man in unit two returned
home. Upon entering the kitchen he noted that the radio had
knocked itself off the counter and, cursing lightly he
gathered together the batteries and reinserted them and
ignored that they had mentioned briquettes as they were
snapped into place. He sat back down in his beat up rocking
chair and began to whittle again as Steely Dan spoke of self-
made men.
Getting up to retrieve a tin can beer from the refrigerator, he
noticed that the damned grate had come off the vent again.
Having fit it back into place he sat back down and settled
once more into whittling. Shortly thereafter, the radio
batteries died and he was forced to acknowledge the shit luck
youve got to expect when not even the friggin store has
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graphite on hand. In any case, some plain old quiet could do
a man good and so, for the third time, he began to whittle
and in doing so admired how the wood shavings were like
the snowflakes that would blanket Commercial Street in a
few months time, deadening the noise of the city.
Drinking beer and whittling and contemplating was a fine
activity which lasted the better part of an hour until the noise
of the upstairs neighbors started to seep more heavily into
his kitchen.
She was the worst of course, crying out and moaning. He
could hear the mans deep voice distinctly but aside from a
handful of comments he only grunted every now and then. It
could get to be pretty damned annoying.
He understood it was her fault though, if shed learned how
to boil peas properly it wouldnt have been an issue. Peas
are, after all, quite simple to boil. However, tonight the radio
had shit the bed and couldnt be turned up to block it out and
it was certainly becoming even more of a damned nuisance.
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The dispatcher on the phone understood that sometimes a
man just wanted some peace and quiet every now and then.
She affirmed that she would send someone over to remind
his neighbors that they should be able to go about their own
damn business without such unnecessary commotion at such
an hour.
News was awoken by blue lights crying out
weirdbrewweirdbrewweirdbrew. The lights ceased to cry
out after a short time and then disappeared altogether just
before a car door slammed. Sleep gently let the world lose
focus and fade into a soft velvet sensation of rest.
On another level, one composed primarily of lead pipes,
plaster, wood boards, and linoleum, the scene was slightly
different. There wasnt anything going on that hadnt
happened before and that earns any day the description of
average, even the police officer that knocked on the door
would have said so. The man of the household, however,
found the interruption to be inconvenient as he was just
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beginning to feel less tense and that he had clearly
articulated his point about respect and properly boiled peas.
As a reply the man suggested an alternate location to which
the officer could go and some possible activities with which
to occupy himself while there.
Naturally the officer felt that perhaps there was a
misunderstanding as to who he was and why he was there.
Thus he cleared up all confusion.
This is officer Bechard with the Portland Police
Department.
A pause so that information could be properly digested and
then,
Open the door or I will use force.
The man of the household opened the door. Incidentally he
forgot that the door chain was still in place. The officer was
kind enough to remind him of this as well as inquire about
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his wife. Unfortunately the man of the household was
unmarried but by a stroke of luck his girlfriend was in. That
was just as good to Officer Bechard. Officer Bechard
understood what a difficult commitment marriage could be.
As circumstance would have it the mans girlfriend was in
the shower and didnt like to be hurried in such matters.
Officer Bechard was a kindly man and understood this so he
volunteered to retrieve her personally but the man of the
household was aware of how valuable the officers time was
so he went to hurry her along.
They were both very polite fellows.
In another setting bone china tea cups on matching saucers
would have suited their discourse well.
When the girlfriend got to the door she looked a wreck.
Officer Bechard surmised that they had hard water in their
pipes.
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Officer Brooks appeared at the door next to Officer Bechard.
Officer Brooks reckoned the man of the household could do
with a change of air so he brought him down to his car.
Officer Bechard made a phone call and then sat with the
girlfriend in the kitchen.
Her name was Elizabeth. She sat down and had a glass of
water.
After that she had a good old fashion shot of whiskey.
Officer Bechard reckoned she could handle the bite and only
started paying attention again when she started on another
glass of water.
Eventually the other vehicle came and several kindly persons
helped her into the back of their van.
whereyouwhereyouwearyouwhereyouwereyouwereyou
Red lights sashayed across the walls now and were having
their say. The walls leaked word of people entering the
building and banging up the stairs.
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News heard them, Sisal did too.
The sounds became disinteresting. News went back to sleep.
Sisal stayed awake.
Sisal heard the door to a taxi cab being shut. The solid red
lines of his digital clock showed that it was a little after four
in the morning. Sisal was having trouble keeping up the
perpetual revisions the clock made to its opinion of time.
Elizabeth climbed the stairs to her apartment. She had made
fine new friends; not necessarily the sort you exchange
Christmas cards with, but good friends nonetheless. Her new
friends had taught her some wonderful things. She now
knew about cracked ribs, prescription pain killers, and
restraining orders. She was one happy girl.
The man in the rocking chair folded up his pocket knife and
slid it loosely into his back pocket. Draining the last bit from
his tin can beer he crumpled the can and threw it into the
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corner trash. Standing for a moment he absorbed the fine
quiet of his kitchen and headed to bed, for he had things to
do in the morning.
News came awake slowly and admired how the window-
light could change the color of the surfaces it touched upon.
The effort involved in getting up required that he search for
the strength behind his eye lids several more times. When he
finally did overcome that gargantuan effort he went out to
the kitchen and ate the food Sisal had left out for him the
night before.
In the room that could have been the sitting room, he found
some old pastel colored mints. They were no good for
tasting but did a fine job of bumping across the floor.
Eventually they bumped themselves all the way under the
defunct silver radiator in the corner. Impressive amounts of
accumulated dust made their retrieval less than appealing.
News made his way over to Sisals room to see what he had
been doing. Sisal was awake but he wasnt reading, he was
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smoking from his pipe. Sisal smoked from his pipe when he
still wanted to smoke but had chain smoked cigarettes to the
point where he could no longer inhale their smoke. He sat
with News for awhile and seemed glad for the company but
didnt do too much.
News fell asleep.
He woke up a while later. Sisal was smoking a rolled
cigarette again, pipe at the ready. News headed out into the
other room to do some exploring. He scrambled through the
piles of Russian plays, back issues of Time magazine, and
the fall leaves that had been dried, pressed, and then heaped
in several plastic postal bins.
Sisal remained in his room for the entire day listening to folk
music while smoking or simply laying on his bed looking at
the water damaged ceiling.
News knew where the food was kept so he fed himself and
went to bed.
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The next day it rained great gentle drops that plopped down
with satisfaction on any old surface. Peals of thunder shook
the apartment and lightning occasionally threw everything
into sharper relief.
w p r b m l n t k g d d t p c s
b m p l n w q k b p q m l
j y b r k b pk t m q w p
v p lw d l v p t b w p k
Rain spoke only in consonants.
Thunderstorms were the only things News knew that looked
like themselves when he thought about them. There was the
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usual symphonic accompaniment to the thought, but its
course was subject to the storm.
Sisal stayed in his room for three days straight.
On the third day, there was a knock at the door but Sisal
didnt hear it. News was wary.
Once knocking proved to be an evident failure the knockers
let themselves in. Sisal kept a spare key on top of the
molding that surrounded the door. That is how they knew to
get in.
The knockers were male gods. Both males had longish hair
that would have turned heads way back when but was hardly
thought of today. News watched them from within the
recesses of toppled Russian plays.
Sisal? said one.
Hes in his room? said the other.
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Yeah, said the first one.
Sisal, its us, said the second.
The two males walked gingerly across the floor of the
apartment and gently pushed open the door to Sisals room
causing the sound of and accepting their tune youll be
drenched to the bo to grow louder in the process.
News stayed put. He could hear them talking more to Sisal
but Sisal made no sound.
Several minutes passed and then the second male emerged
from the room walking with his arm around Sisal who
looked disinterestedly at the floor a few feet in front of him.
You can stay with us for a bit man, said the first male.
Were just going to get you down to the car then well lock
up, said the second male.
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They left.
omanlikeamanlikeamanlikeawomanlikeamanyoulikeama
The music kept playing.
The two males came back in, occurrences of heavy footsteps
and gentle breathing.
Can you get him a toothbrush or something Jack? said the
second male.
Yeah and his papers, said the first male. Wheres his
ferret?
No idea Breeze. Whats its name? asked the second.
News, I think. said the first.
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The second male walked into the sleeping room, then the
water room, and then came back through the kitchen and
looked in Sisals room. Walking through the room that could
have been the sitting room wasnt an option, it was too full.
News stayed put, just watching.
Theres enough food on hand. He should be alright until
Sisal is set to come back, said the second male.
They left. The lock on the door clicked into place behind
them.
News remained within the recess of the toppled Russian
plays. It continued to rain.
Two days passed with News eating from the food that was
left at his disposal. The apartment was drearier without Sisal
in it. When the rain wasnt falling a grey sky kept its place.
All that permeating water thickened the smell of old paper
and wooden floorboards in the apartment. The stillness and
heavy atmosphere of the environment made News restless.
His only outlet was the grate in the back of the closet
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beneath and behind Sisals pinstripe suits that hung there like
listless opossums.
Without paying particular attention to distance or direction,
News meandered through the vents listening to the sounds
that drifted along to him through the various steel corridors.
Inevitably all the turns News made produced an end. The
end was a conglomeration of little holes that News knew
were simply subdivisions of the one big, possible hole. This
grate, like the one in unit two, opened up into a kitchen.
Beyond that iron web, News saw a woman sitting at a table.
The table was pushed against the wall with a window,
probably so that someone could look out it while eating
breakfast or drinking tea. The later activity was an assured
possibility for that was what the woman was now doing. She
wore blue jeans and a dark green sweatshirt; her bare feet
were pulled up onto the chair so that her shins pressed
against the edge of the table. Rain streamed down the
window in uneven sheets providing an ever shifting view of
the cityscape beyond. Taking a sip of tea a piece of hair fell
down from behind her ear. The woman gently secured the
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auburn strand back into its former resting place. It was then
that News noticed that her eyes and cheeks were moist with
subtle tears.
Looking to the right, News noticed that, pushed against the
adjacent wall, there was a double bassinet; the sort that
hospitals had once used in their maternity wards. Two
infants lay in the bassinet, asleep, wrapped in soft yellow
blankets, light blue knitted caps on their heads.
The infants made no sound. The woman slowly drank her
tea. She made no sound. The rain spoke in consonants to
the window pane.
News took several steps back from the grate, stopped, and
squinted slightly. The iron of the grate relinquished its
strength and became fine gossamer threads. The whole
picture fit together like a stained glass window in some
ancient cathedral; each piece curving or jutting just so that it
could saddle up nicely next to another.
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The scene was its own thought and there was no music
except for the rain. The warmth of its beauty made his eye
lids heavy and his heart beat slower. In a short amount of
time he was asleep.
Later News awoke and began to retreat back down the vent
and once again traversed its paths. When he came to an
opening with no grate that looked out on one of the
buildings principal halls he stuck his head out and looked
around.
At the far end of the hall there was a door. The door was ajar
and through it he could see a mist that filled the hall with the
scent of salt and ancient water. Without hesitation, News left
that vent and walked down the hall and out the door.
Across the damp asphalt parking lot there was a dumpster
overflowing with refuse from the apartment building. News
found some fine chicken in there for eating and then settled
in amongst some newspapers that had been kept dry by the
dumpsters lid.
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His night was a peaceful one.
He woke in the morning to the sound of someone rustling in
and around the dumpster. Sticking his head out from the
wad of newspapers, he found himself facing a god of the
same sort as Sisal who had a grizzled face and long, curly
white hair.
hullo said the face, adding, strangeseeingyouhere
After a short pause he explained,
ithoughtiwastheonlyonetoriflethisdumpster
News looked back at him. The god looked well intentioned
and benign. News inched forward to smell the tan jacket that
the man was wearing. He smelled like salmon and coffee. It
was a smell that one might hope to find endearing. The man
offered his hand. Sisal smelled that too. It smelled as
reclusive as the apartment had on warm days. News felt at
home.
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The man picked News up proclaiming, youcancomewithme
illlookoutforyou The man carried News through streets and
back alleys, pausing to sort through the various contents of
dumpsters along the way. When walking through deserted
alleys and other unoccupied zones, the man would explain
their surroundings to News. The mans words were useless
to News but the sound of his gravelly voice was reassuring
and he would let News down into dumpsters to look for
food.
At about midday, the man took News down to the State Pier
and they sat out on the end gazing into the shifting blue
mirror of the harbor. This was one of the mans favorite
activities. Sitting there in the warmth of the sun, he could
lower his mind down into those eternal blue depths and see
the history of being.
Towards evening, the man brought News back to his home
beneath the bridge. There was a can that the man used for
making fires when it was cold and an old refrigerator that he
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had padded with various blankets for a bed. He had pried off
the door of the refrigerator the previous winter and given it
to some teenagers as a sled in exchange for a pocket knife, a
deck of cards, and a snickers bar. The night was cold with
the rain that had resumed again around mid-afternoon so the
man started a small fire and set News down on a blanket
nearby it. Reaching into the bed he moved aside some of the
blankets and pulled out a battered violin case. The violin
that he unpacked from that case had been spared all the
abuse that was evident on its case. Its cherry frame reflected
the timid light of the fire. The instrument was the one link
that anchored Dupuis to who he had been.
The man drew the bow across the strings of the violin
causing it to sigh a little bit. Content with the sound, he
began to play. The sounds that the man was able to coax
from that wooden box were of pure beauty. Except for his
gliding hand and dancing fingers, the man was completely
still. The only other movements that News could observe,
and this by watching very closely, was the rise and fall of his
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chest when he breathed and the subtle movements of his eyes
beneath closed lids. The man continued to play.
He could make infinity bloom.
As easy as it would have been to steal, no one had ever
attempted to take the violin from the man even though it
would have fetched an admirable sum at any shop. The true
worth of that instrument resided in when it lay tucked
beneath his chin.
In the morning, the two of them awoke to the blunt peel of
tug boats in the harbor. The man climbed out of the
refrigerator and shook loose his joints in the brisk morning
air. Bending down he scooped News up out of the
refrigerator and said,
mynamesdupuisandyourethefirsttoknowit.
At one time Dupuis had been Dupuis but when he became a
vagrant his need for a name disappeared. People still needed
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a name for him though, thats just how they were. The
people in the Portland area referred to him as Silent Sam. In
truth, he wasnt perfectly silent, he simply only said what
was necessary. It seemed that the people needed to have a
name by which to refer to him and the others like him. There
was Millcreek Mike who hung out across the bridge in
Millcreek. He sat at the McDonalds drinking coffee and
spoke softly to the collection of imitation raccoon tails
attached to his baseball cap. There was also Crazy Mary
who was apt to rant a good deal at no one in particular.
Apparently the adjective preceding the name made up for its
generic nature. People were people and without descriptors
they had a hard time understanding other people.
The principle method through which Dupuis earned his
money was by sitting in various parks with a sign that told
passersby that they could hear him recite a poem for
whatever change they were willing to give. He had
memorized some of the poems during high school and the
rest from books at the municipal library.
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His memory was encyclopedic. There were a lot of poems
rattling around in that old noggin. The range was from Dr.
Seuss to Breton. The more change someone put in his cup
the longer the poem. Once he had gotten five dollars for
reciting Lord Byrons poem Darkness in its entirety.
Sometimes kids from the local high school would even throw
money in his cup. The high school kids seemed to get the
biggest kick out of Dadaist poems since it brought into
question Dupuis level of sanity. It was probably this same
group that gave him the name Silent Sam since he only
responded to their queries when they gave him money. If the
questions became too ridiculous he would give them Dr
Seuss rhymes in response. That had the same effect as
Dadaist poems. They lapped it up.
People were people.
News stayed in the breast pocket of his shirt the whole time
and observed everything from the little window created by
the bulge in fabric between two buttons of the coat.
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Dupuis made twenty-two dollars and eighty-four cents that
afternoon. The poetry was his most profitable pull for
money. The police turned a blind eye to it when he was in
municipal areas where loitering and especially pan handling
were prohibited. The police saw it as a reasonable
contribution to the community and a constructive use of
poverty. Plus, he didnt bullshit anyone. Money got you a
poem verbatim and with sufficient intonation.
During the summer he would bill himself as a Vietnam vet to
tourists. The seasonal nature of the ploy tipped the locals off
to the farce but weaseling money out of tourists was the
highlight of the season so no one thought badly of him for it.
Dupuis had been drafted but dodged the draft by running to
Canada where he began his career as a bum. When the war
was over, he hitch-hiked to Portland and continued to call the
streets his home. It was a pretty big home to have. He
never resumed his life as an American out of fear for any
repercussions draft dodgers might face. So he was a veteran
of that war, just not the sort people assumed. Thats how he
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explained his past and philosophy on life to News. News
understood none of the words spoken to him but he began to
understand the man the same as if he could. From his tone
and manner News understood that his seclusion was a
pleasant experience and that playing the violin at night was a
sort of release. When Dupuis was tense or nervous some
days he would simply play his violin and then, when he was
done, he would be as calm as though he had just woken from
a great sleep. In many ways, it seemed to be the same sort of
action as reading had been for Sisal who always read when
he had available time or was tense and jumpy. The similarity
was so strong that News inherently believed that when
Dupuis closed his eyes to play he was reading something
there behind his lids.
The nights began to grow colder. The trees grew thinner and
the ground at their feet became thicker. At night, there was a
sharp smell to the breeze and a distinct chill that it carried
with it. Dupuis put cardboard across the open face of the
refrigerator at night to retain more warmth. There were
fewer people on the streets and Dupuis got less and less
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money each day. News was always able to find something
he could eat in dumpsters but Dupuis required more food and
couldnt find enough. He took ketchup packets from fast
food restaurants and mixed it into water that he heated over
his small fire. Drinking the banal brew, Dupuis tried to
convince his body that he was eating and getting full. From
his perch, News would gaze into the cup at the swirling
reddish brew. When sunlight shone into the cup it reflected
off the sides and the swirling water reminding him of the red
lights that had sashayed across the walls of the apartment.
After one cold night, News awoke feeling warm despite the
coolness in the air. Those places where his limbs bent felt
tired and dull. Dupuis had already left. He would return
later with ketchup packets and maybe a piece of fruit or two.
News lay huddled beneath the blanket with a small tunnel
through which he peered at the outside world.
Great bits of white dust began to drift by. News watched
them twirl and flutter in the silence. He wondered what used
up sounds had created such large and delicate dust. It would
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have to be a greater sound than he had ever heard. Watching
their movements intently he began to see the pattern. It was
the same pattern he had seen in the room with the whittling
man and observed again through the gossamer grate of the
young womans kitchen. News realized then that it was the
pattern that Sisal found in books and that Dupuis read behind
his eyelids as he drew his bow across the strings of the
violin. The image was unchanging and sublime. It was the
entirety of being.
News closed his eyes and felt the unflagging warmth reach
down into the marrow of his bones.
His consciousness drifted away and twirled like the delicate
white dust falling noiselessly outside the refrigerator.
Dupuis found News lying deep within the blankets when he
returned. The premature snow flurry had let up and now the
city smelled richly of damp pavement. News did not wake
when Dupuis rubbed the chestnut fur between his ears.
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Dupuis wrapped News in a cloth from the refrigerator and
tied the little bundle to a brick that lay by the road.
The night was deep. Ripples formed in the water off the
State Pier as it drew the small package into its depths. The
rhythm of the tide smoothed out the ripples in a few short
moments.
A few blocks away, Sisal sat in his room once again smoking
a cigarette and reading Thoreau. Dupuis placed the violin
beneath his grizzled chin. The burning leaves of the
cigarette flared brightly. The violin sighed as the bow
moved across its strings. Sisals breath was gentle as he
turned the page. Dupuis closed his eyes and began to play
with only the ocean and the moon as an audience.
He could make infinity bloom.
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