Jeremiah's School of Levitation

I got into a jam session last night with a buddy who is equally, um, "accomplished" at guitar as I am and the beer flowed and, so did I, right to bed, so I didn't have time to present a thoughtful bit on knuckle. So, I'll dish up a ten-minute free write for now and possibly this weekend, I'll knuckle up more fully. Pardon the piece. It's unedited and may have some tangents, which, by the way, is also the story of my life.


The Dance of the Knuckles

Stayed alive, the knuckle did, through all the fighting and all the falling and all the things that happen to knuckles like getting scraped on the top when you reach out of a drawer too fast which usually happens when you weren't even supposed to be in that drawer in the first place, fishing around, looking under her underwear for something hidden and secret, maybe a diary that talks about the lusty affair that you suspected all along, or maybe a roll of twenties, kept there just in case she had to make a great escape to some place illicit and damning and, well, fun like rolling in flowers and taking silky warm baths in hot water. Fun like that. Yeah. But you found nothing, until, just below the pile of the black panties, the ones you don't get to see too much anymore, you gripped a piece of paper, a small piece, folded nicely, almost meticulously. Your fingers can tell that. Fingers are wonderful. They have the sensitivity of the finest radar, the greatest most delicate sensitivity. You can close your eyes and run your fingertip along the corner of a desk, and you can tell how heavy it might be, how well built it might be, the texture, the temperature, how clean it is, all of that, with just a touch. And, fingers upon a beautiful, smooth face, and sliding down cheeks wet with tears, pulling those cheeks closer, then touching full lips, curled to catch the tears, to lead them to the tongue where they will be swallowed, to flow again someday. One day, you once said to yourself, she must have a stomach full of tears. Tears in her bloodstream. Tears in her tears, even.

But, you heard her coming, or you thought you did, and you pulled your hand away from the drawer and you scraped it. Damn! you said. But, it wasn't her coming at all. It was just her going to another room, downstairs. No threat at all. You smile and then you reach back in the drawer. You grab the note. And you pull it out and your heart starts to shimmy like a wobbly wheel on the freeway. Now, you say, you'll find it all out.

Boy, that note sure was well folded. Almost like origami. You think, somewhere in your mind, that you'll never be able to fold it back so nicely.

So what? This news, this coming revelation of her secret life, was going to be a bigger thing than folding a note back.

So, you unfold the note. Your breath does a little jig in your throat. Your lungs stop for a second.

You close your eyes. You take a breath. You open your eyes. You read the note.

"Knucklehead," it says. "Stay out of my drawer."

Now, suddenly, folding that note back perfectly does indeed become such the biggest thing.

First my gut clenched, then my heart hurt, then I laughed out loud. I love reading your stuff!