Monday - A Haunting Melody
Aug. 28th, 2006 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I glanced over at The Ferris Wheel as I sat at the stoplight and caught the eye of The Carney. I haven't written about The Carney for a while (aside from the night ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
noblwish asked me to show her where I see him), because I've been annoyed with him about my cousin in Tennessee.
I've learned not to get sore at The Carney over someone dying, because I understand it's all in a day's work. It is the uncertainty about Cameron that drives me crazy. So many times over the years I've thought Cam's time was near and prepared to mourn him, and each time it has been a false alarm. It wears a person thin, and puts me in the morally uncomfortable position of sometimes thinking that I would just as soon the whole thing be over with.
I nodded at The Carney, and I guess from way he raised his eyebrows that the expression on my face must have been cold. He shrugged his shoulders at me and extended his hands out to the sides, palms up. It's not his fault - he only stops the ride when it's time. I nodded again and I gave him a wry half smile.
His smiled back - a full smile, not a half one, making mine look stingy - and crushed out his cigarette on the post of the gate he stands next to. He reached in his shirt pocket and took out his harmonica. I'd almost forgotten that he keeps it with him. He pantomimed rolling down an old-fashioned car window, the kind where you crank a handle in a circle to lower the glass. I powered my window down just as the light was about to turn green. He pressed the harp to his lips and began to play a bluesy, vaguely gospelly melody. I've heard the tune before, but could not put my finger on where. As I drove off, I could still hear it in my car, or maybe just in my mind, even after The Ferris Wheel blinked out of sight a few feel past the intersection.
Whatever it was, I was still humming it to myself when I sat down at my desk at work. I've had it in my head all day: death's melody, haunting, a little bluesy, a little bit gospel sounding, and oddly, unexpectedly, comforting.
noblwish asked me to show her where I see him), because I've been annoyed with him about my cousin in Tennessee. I've learned not to get sore at The Carney over someone dying, because I understand it's all in a day's work. It is the uncertainty about Cameron that drives me crazy. So many times over the years I've thought Cam's time was near and prepared to mourn him, and each time it has been a false alarm. It wears a person thin, and puts me in the morally uncomfortable position of sometimes thinking that I would just as soon the whole thing be over with.
I nodded at The Carney, and I guess from way he raised his eyebrows that the expression on my face must have been cold. He shrugged his shoulders at me and extended his hands out to the sides, palms up. It's not his fault - he only stops the ride when it's time. I nodded again and I gave him a wry half smile.
His smiled back - a full smile, not a half one, making mine look stingy - and crushed out his cigarette on the post of the gate he stands next to. He reached in his shirt pocket and took out his harmonica. I'd almost forgotten that he keeps it with him. He pantomimed rolling down an old-fashioned car window, the kind where you crank a handle in a circle to lower the glass. I powered my window down just as the light was about to turn green. He pressed the harp to his lips and began to play a bluesy, vaguely gospelly melody. I've heard the tune before, but could not put my finger on where. As I drove off, I could still hear it in my car, or maybe just in my mind, even after The Ferris Wheel blinked out of sight a few feel past the intersection.
Whatever it was, I was still humming it to myself when I sat down at my desk at work. I've had it in my head all day: death's melody, haunting, a little bluesy, a little bit gospel sounding, and oddly, unexpectedly, comforting.
