harboring strange thoughts

What-the-heck. What is that. Who is that. The red Ford van on the embankment on the far side of Harbor Street. A piece of undeveloped urban land, a meadow if unmowed. Mowed, it's a grass field for dogs to run, Frisbees to fly, footballs to be thrown. Green space. Hardly anyone ever there, though. On the street, a few feet down from the embankment, the field higher on the horizon, large enough to play football or soccer on, the building's smokers gather, off the no-smoking-permitted rental property. The same two or three, rain or shine, hot or cold. But a vehicle up there? Never. Just the busily buzzing lawnmower, frantic-fast, sound-blocking earmuffs on the driven driver. Keep walking toward my Nissan Sentra on the far side of Harbor Street. What's up. Some guy on the field past the fence of the utility company's construction-laydown site. Quilted black vest. Blue watchcap. Pacing? Glasses hanging down on stringy holders laced around the neck, the kind schoolmarmish librarians used to wear before they became hip. In his sixties. White guy. Impassive, neither angry nor not. Stoic. Is this it, how it plays out. Halt my progress to the car. What next. An assault rifle? A semi-automatic? Not enough people around to be targets, hardly enough to make headlines these days. My jaw clenches. Where'd he go. Back to his van. My pounding pulse. Emerges with small, circular black object in his hand. A few on the ground. Fuckin land mines? Takes a few paces then like an uncoiled spring he spins and whirls and slings. A dervish who launches a discus in the direction of the train tracks toward the mall on the horizon. What, thirty yards tops. A discus thrower! He bends down, picks up another discus, and does it again. Neither a shrug nor a slump nor a bounce to indicate his level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Then he reloads, recoils, and fires off another discus. It sails for a few seconds against the rare, cerulean sky, and lands. Fetches the ones he has tossed. I resume my progress to my car. I slow my pace, hoping for more. Casually he walks to his van, gets some more discuses. No. Takes a drink of water or dries his hands or records distances or completes his application for the Summer Olympics. I turn the key and flick on my left-turn signal. I scrunch the car into drive, feel it buck forward, and lean my foot on the accelerator. Just as I begin to drive away, a tiny black flying saucer floats by in the rearview mirror. 

shelter in place

an addendum to a fearsome lexicon

twisting

gimme shelter

here and now

there and then

tedium

awaiting

the knock on the door

blasting

dead bolt

click

rustling

roiling

curtained heart

stopping

stuttering

in place