115. OLD DAYS (Microcosm)

OLD DAYS
(Microcosm)
'If you wanted to be honest, you could -
just that, nothing more. The trombone
player knew that, as well as the little man
in Congo Square tooting a horn or playing
a fiddle - or jivin' on a jazz guitar. Nothing
ever came between intent and operation.
It all just 'were'.
-
The old guys name was Sedlack.
Or that's anyway what he called himself:
I knew no more. Hob-nail boots, a red kerchief
around his neck, a gold wristwatch and some
fancy tie-tack. He laughed even as he spoke.
Never had a bad day, nor, if he did, time to
re-tell it. Everything shiny was his.
-
I once came down with a bad fever while riding
a bus back from Binghamton to New York City.
Nearly died as it were just sitting 5 hours in that seat.
Some old fellow gave me water and a soda to drink.
As I dazed in and out of consciousness, I can
remember him telling me of his whole, entire life:
born in Alabama, a sharecropper's kid, grandma was
a cotton slave, grandpa whipped and chained,
coming north to Johnstown, and later to Endicott,
working shoe factories until he was forty.
Five kids, two wives, a bunch of money lost,
and then this - riding like a pauper on a one-way bus.
-
Riding like a pauper, on a one-way bus.