PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Boynton Beach, Florida, 1986

There’s a duplex on NW 7th Court, Boynton Beach, Florida, it’s cast concrete and has bamboo in the back yard. Turn off Boynton Beach Boulevard at Wendy’s, it’s the second house on the left. In the first house on the left was a Buddhist guy, who occasionally had people over to chant. Next the duplex; my housemate/neighbors Carmen and Rusty, then me. There were breezy nights on my back patio listening to Carmen and Rusty loving, the Buddhists chanting, and the radio action at the Wendy’s drive-thru.

I worked a construction job in Ocean Ridge, on the Atlantic between Del Ray and Boynton, literally, Beaches. It was a 2 mile walk to work. We were right behind the beach dune. Sometimes I varied my route, when going out for breakfast, for example, but usually, straight East to the ocean, at work by 7.

I walked past a service station on the way; one day, a mechanic came out and talked to me. He offered me a bicycle, saying it needed work, I could just have it. I accepted, the next morning there he was with a yellow ten speed. I walked it to the air pump, filled the tires, rode first home, then to the local department store for a wrench and some oil. After adjustments, I was mobile.

Somewhere between playing the guitar, drawing, and running around, I had a healthy reading habit. A chair in the living room corner, the light there; history or Hemingway. This particular night, I was comfortably in the grip of the written word, and a shock caused me to lose all attention for a moment, then have to reorient myself. My first thought was a shotgun blast, which I counted out, as I was both uninjured and there was no other movement, human or otherwise. I thought things; was it outside? Was it going to happen again? Then, it occurred to me that one of the bike tires, old enough and brittle, had blown. At some quiet moment, a bubble formed, betraying weakness, stealthily achieving critical failure. I was not afraid any more, so it was legitimately funny. Funnier, I had to go tell Rusty. Never having met him, I was self-conscious knocking. Since there was no immediate answer, I knocked again. From the back of the place, presumably behind the bedroom wall, came “He…he…elloooo?!” and I called back in, with some humor; “Hi, sorry, I’m next door and apparently put too much air in my bicycle tire…” Rusty understood, saying; “I thought ‘The guy next door shot hisself!…’” We laughed, that was our introduction.

Carmen left Rusty, he was there alone for awhile, then moved; the Buddhists decided I wasn’t going to be one of them; the Wendy’s girls came and went. The bike, though, leaped my South Florida experience into another dimension; I took 20+ mile trips up and down the coastal roads, went to the wildlife refuge, mall, theater. The best part, though, was the new commute to work.