Ten Minutes

A man should only cry twice in his life; at his mother's deathbed
and?"


The words of my father floated across the shifting surface of
my thoughts. Unfortunately, I could not seem to recall the end of the
axiom. It seemed to have been scratched out by the ink of time. The
details that are so regrettably edited out of our lives, I thought to
myself. The particular minutiae, the forgotten pseudo-philosophy and
intellectual fodder toyed with during the quiet in-between moments of
living. Foolish mind games, I concluded and returned to the current
matter at hand.


I pulled the edges of the blanket across the fabric of the
bed sheets and tucked the pillows under the covers. I looked over at
the clock that sat by the nightstand as 8:15 AM ticked into
place.


"Ten minutes," I murmured. I needed to be out of the
apartment within that frame if I was to catch my bus, make it to work
on time, not get fired, earn money, demonstrate responsibility, build
character, practice independence, and ensure a successful lot in life
by learning the value of a dollar through this summer job. My
everlasting contentment was riding precariously upon the next six
hundred seconds.
I sighed as I continued to prepare myself for the day.


Approximately, one hundred and eighty two seconds later I
heard the click of the front door unlocking and my father stepped in,
quietly removing his shoes by the doormat and then he went into the
bathroom without saying a word.


He emerged as I put on my watch and shoes between mouthfuls
of cereal and milk. He nodded simply toward me.


"There is little need for many words between men," the voice
from the past repeated from somewhere deep within
memory.


"How was work?" I asked my father.


"Blissfully uneventful," he answered.


"I don't know how you managed to work that night shift for
the last two years."


He smiled wryly. "The same way you managed to work that day
shift for the last two months." He walked into the bedroom and out of
my sight.


I looked down at my watch, 8:22, not too much time
left.


I walked toward the bedroom to say goodbye and the door lay
upon as I stood at the entrance. My father sat at the edge of his bed
that I had just made, staring serenely out the window seemingly unaware
of my presence. The blinds bolted into the top frame were permanently
skewed at an angle when the strings that set its height had been
contorted into a spider web of tangled threads, apathetically
irreparable. The panes were streaked from some undefined period of
neglect. The light still streamed through the broken blinds and the
dirty window. It fell in shattered patches upon the bed and my father's
still form as the specks of dust in the air caught the morning sun and
reflected flecks of illumination around him.


I was not sure what he was looking so intently at. I had
looked through that window on many an occasion. Rusted subway rails
where the daredevils of urban youth played during the day and drug
dealers conducted the supply and demand game during the darkest hours.
Building walls bleeding with spray paint of glorious and grotesque
images permanently tattooed to their faces. Shredded pieces of grass
and vegetation that grew cautiously in the cracks that modernity forgot
to fill in. I generally tried to avoid looking out that window in this
one bedroom apartment.


I remembered the earliest days of my youth when my father
used to take a pen and draw a watch across my wrist to my unparalleled
amusement to the latest in a series of circumstances that led me to
live with this man, whom until recently, I had seen regularly in six
month intervals.


"Are you going home this weekend?" he asked without turning
towards me. Apparently he did know that I had been standing
there.


"Yeah, Saturday night, after work."


"I'm off tonight so one of us is going to have to sleep on
the floor."


"I'll do it. It's been too hot lately; the floor is cooler
than the bed."


"Fine by me."


"I need to go, Dad."


He shifted his body to face me. He smiled and the lines of
his age drew themselves across his face. His eyes were dark like the
waters of a murky lake that hid that shadows of its depth.



"Okay, work hard, go make me proud."


The memories of a buried moment dug through the immediacy of
the present and struck my attention with demanding urgency. There was
no sense to them and I felt dazed as my own thoughts flung me about on
an emotional whim. There was an image of luggage as they sat apart from
the rest of my possessions and tears as they made their way down my
father's weathered cheeks.


I opened my mouth to speak but I only heard the air from my
lungs expel into the apartment, silent except for the Number Six Train
that could be heard echoing across the stalagmites of apartment
buildings. I quickly brought myself out of the trance that had
entrapped me.


I walked out without saying another word. There was a click
as my father locked the door behind me and I remembered my thought from
earlier before. "A man should only cry twice in his life; at his
mother's deathbed and?"?and, I could not grasp the rest of it, like
grabbing at wisps of cigarette smoke as the ribbons flitted across the
surface of my fingers, feeling the heat of their presence but never to
be possessed by my hand.


I sighed and leaned against the wall in defeat. So
irrelevant, I realized but I was enchanted by the half-forgotten
thought of my father's words. I looked down at my watch from habit:
8:27.


"Damn it, I'm going to be late," I hissed to myself and I
sprinted down the staircase.