For Al

I was already running a bath dressed in my robe and bedclothes when the heavens opened up. The rain was too tempting and I threw on my clothes and pea coat. I walked up to the top of the hill that looked down over LAX. I was listening to an audiobook by Neal Gaiman.

“We’re all making it up as we go along, aren’t we?”

I switched to opera. Nessum Dorma performed by Pavarotti. The waltz of ten ton machines on the tarmac. A thousand fireflies relfected in the asphalt. Raindrops spattering on my glasses diffuse the scene.

Planes take off intermittently. Lit from below until they disappear in the low cloud cover. JAL. Qantas. Korean Air. Tokyo. London. Santiago. Hobart? Southport? I cry at the sublime quality of the moment.

Thoughts flow through my head. A friend one year older. A strong voice silenced. The sky weeps for his grandfather.

“Weren’t we supposed to be married by now? Wasn’t that the deal long long ago?” A bittersweet text message to wake up to in the morning.

I have a sign on my refrigerator. It was a promotional card for the Los Angeles Times’ Oscar coverage. It says, “Who’s going home with the little guy?” I find it inordinately funny. She always makes me an inch shorter than I am when she tells people how tall I am.

The fridge is also covered with religious pamphlets and cards. I can’t help myself but to pick them up when I see them. And me an atheist. The best ones are in Spanish. They sound so much more fervent in Spanish. “Como tener vida eterna. Hay solamente un modo.”

I switch to latin music. “Me estoy acostumbrando a ti…”

The bath is full. I will turn off all the lights, lower myself in to the steaming water and leave the window open. As I relax I will listen to the pinprick percussion of tap tapping on the pane. Then I will sleep.