Neil Silberblatt remembers a friend, taken before his time, in this quiet slice-of-life.
—
The Rope (In Memoriam)
For Arthur Gluckman, a dear friend murdered in Washington, D.C. on January 6 or 7, 1984.
The rope, we bought
at a hardware store on Atlantic Ave.
to tie your clean mattress
to your filthy car.
The incongruity and the filth did not bother you.
“Not long enough,” you said.
“One more,” to make sure;
sure of what, you never said.
Neither one of us
knowing how to tie
or knot.
The beer, we carried
up the flight of stairs on Baltic Street
after we pried open the bottles
and the door marked “To Roof – No Entry,”
thinking how foolish for a door
to proclaim “No Entry”
denying the purpose of
its existence.
You made some
crack about Sartre
and wondered if
the other side proclaimed
“No Exit”.
From our illicit perch,
we surveyed
the Brooklyn wharves
bereft now of sailors
and stevedores,
wondering what the hell
stevedores were,
savoring the fumes
of smoldering tar,
pondering Whitman
as the Brooklyn Bridge
sat idly
awaiting suitors,
her feet dipping in the water.
The pack of smokes –
only Camels or Lucky Strikes,
no filtered cigarettes for you –
you tucked in your t-shirt sleeve
or behind your ear
or rested on your lip,
Camus-like,
staining your teeth
stinging my eyes
with Virginia nicotine,
blowing smoke over
the roofs of Red Hook
laughing over
some joke whose punch line you forgot
or never knew.
As you lit one with the stub of another,
you squinted.
“You know, this ain’t gonna kill me.”
And goddammit,
you were right.
***
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