Chinks In The Armor

Well, the above normal weather is gone, and I'm back to my normal winter self. I was up north by Larry Santoro and his lovely wife Tycelia watching Tyrone Power films and other frivolities, and on the way home I was caught in a freezing downpour between my reaching street-level from the subway and then walking to the elevated tracks for the Orange Line. The worst of it was the 50 minute wait for my last bus home. I stood reading THE NIGHT GARDENER by George Pelecanos, fully aware that my hands were turning into claws in the near empty waiting terminal. I wear knee braces now, just so I can keep my balance better and not look like I am walking on beach balls most of the time. I am going to die alone--riding single-harness, as Johnny Cash might say--and if I had a choice, when my typing abilities are gone, I'd much rather end up playing ice cream vendor tunes on an accordion than moan on the street alone like the guy in Omaha back in 1995. Accordion Man is always in the Loop, playing on various streets each day, mostly in shorts even in the cold and rain. Most times, once I turn off my CDs of Cash or Yusef/Cat Stevens, I can hear Moaning Man. The echoes are very close. Wayne