Expansion Ex. 8-20-10 Week 1

As i sit in the lobby, its single dirty lightbulb swaying naked over my head, the smell of the couches faux leather rings in my nose. the air conditioner rattles, coughs and turns my perch, with its lack of lumbar support into one of those vibrating beds one finds in only the swankiest of hotels. for the thrilling price of 25 c, one can spend the next five minutes rumbling, simmering, in caked sweat, divorce proceedings and who knows what else. this ride is on the house. this is the couch i sit on for hours listening to Mary, her frail voice unchanged by my weeks and weeks of constant assurance that everything will be just fine, and that her ovaries have not turned to dust thanks to some acronym stuffed inside her ever growing file in some doctors office that i will probably never see.

Poetry should be raw and sweet with  a touch of sentiment she says. my words are a poets words she says, but I know better, and so do you...the sign on the wall, with its faded bronzed letters tells me that the building was raised in 1964. that puts my father at a measly five years old walking down the block two houses to St. Vincent's Catholic school, a place held in high esteem for generations of my paternal history. St. Vincents is just like the Washington School, or any other grammar school in the dinky little town in north Jersey twenty minutes out of Manhattan that will forever pay hommage to Roland Barthe's place of birth. I still gorge myself on the chipped bricks that slowly fall out of the dentures of the rectory. I still lose myself to the swelling wooden planks of porches, whose house dwarf me in their age.

The Cohen's live two doors down. the only Jewish family on the block, save the Irish and Polish. Aaron, the only child, was nice enough always spoiled. like many only children are. Their house always reeked of cat piss, or some other equally unpleasant animal signifier.  The father, Bernard, with his swarthy skin used to frighten me, and struck me more as a Sicilian rather than a Jewish man. For what reason, I dont know. Always shuffling to and from his city appointed work van, the same colour as a fresh bruise. a fresh bruise tethered to various points up and down the block at any given hour. Always the same glazed and distant stare in his eyes. The tired and broken look of incapability.  the Missus possessed a penchant for the finer things. fine crystal---waterford or swarovski if i remember--they always looked out of place on their shelves of breathing tchochkies.