Out In The Township
by jai jackson

             Life flows smoothly; life does not. It seems the strangest thing to me, to have to coordinate my inner self, my strivings, my mentality, with the outer world, which, when you come right up to it, mentally, spiritually, doesn't seem to flow at all, except
              in action,
arbitrarily, its movement being determined, primarily, by the people who move through it, and to a lesser extent by, in this modern urban and suburban world, lower
              life forms.
              Life dictates action, but I tend not to feel it that way.
              I want to think
              I awaken to a world that's alive, in and of itself, without the life that populates it, as it rather populates life, spiritual movement in the still of night, a fine essence wafting through the ether, in the quiet of the dark, life from somewhere else projected, often going unnoticed in the activity of day, become aware of when it settles down, awoken to out of another world,
              so I have to think:
              Is this all me, and nothing more?
Is this merely the movement I bring to it,
              life being
              neatly tucked away under covers until dawn?
Is there no necessity for coordination except I with my own self,
              here and there?
Is this world, a physical illusion after all, what I make it out
              to be, the quick of me projected?
Or is there really something with me, now, that I can't see,
              but feel?

              My father bakes bread late in the evening.
              I come home, from an evening with friends, a big day in the township, the hundredth anniversary, any excuse to celebrate life, an electricity in the air, a summer feeling of fun and warm weather cooled with the setting of the sun to a point where it is just not comfortable, so that wearing a light overshirt or sweater makes it feel just cozy.
              The smell of the hot bread fills the house. He bakes six or eight loaves, two at a time, when he bakes, makes it an all day and night project, so that the odor floats out the open doors and windows, attracting neighbors to him in his loneliness, seeping into every crack and crevice of the place, lingering on into the next day.
              "Are you in for the night?" he asks.
              "No. I thought I'd go out to the township party."
              "I thought that's where you were?"
              "No. That's over. It moved somewhere else."
              "Where?"
              "I don't know. I have to find it."
              "It's kind of late, don't you think?"
              I try to joke with him, to lighten his mood: "No. The night is young."
             "I can't believe the township would still be having a party this late."
             "It's unofficial. It's the leftovers from earlier."
              He quiets into a muse I see coming before it hits him.
              "You can come along, you know."
              He shakes me off slowly with his head.
              I walk away from him, into my room, to get a flannel shirt. When I return, he's standing in the middle of the kitchen with a bread loaf in his hand. He holds it out to me.
              "Is this done enough for you, the crust? Is it brown enough, the way you like it?" He knows it is.
              "It's perfect."
              "You don't think it's too brown?"
              "No. Why don't you come with us?"
              "It's too late."
              "You'll be up all night and you know it."
              "I'll be in the way. Your friends don't want an old man hanging around."
              "Who are you kidding? They'd rather have you with them than me, and you know it."
              "I'm dirty. I'd have to take a shower and get ready."
              "So take one. Tell me how long it'll take you to get ready and we'll be back for you then."
              He shakes his head again, still trying to shake me off.
              "An hour?"
              He shakes his head.
              A horn sounds out front.
              "Tell them to stop making a lot of noise in the neighborhood this late at night."
              "Okay. Come with us."
              "No. I'm tired. I wanna take a nap in the chair."
              "Okay. I'll see you a little later."
              He nods his head, settling back standing, still in the middle of the room.
              I turn to leave.
              "Don't be drinking and driving."
              "I'm not driving."
              I'm not drinking any more, either. At all. But I know when I tell him, he doesn't believe me. He knows himself too well. So I never bother to say the words. We drive around for a few hours. We never find the party. No one knew anything about any parties. When I return home, the door is shut and locked. When I go inside I find him asleep in his chair, the last two loaves of bread cooling on the kitchen table. I move silently through the house, so that I won't awaken him. He needs the sleep. The house is quiet. I sit on the sofa and watch my father sleep. The stillness buzzes around me. I am attracted to the still buzzing of the night and, although I'm tired, I want to stay awake to investigate it. For years I will examine it in detail, searching for something, I will wonder, if it's really there, until one day I too will fall asleep in a chair instead of going to bed, feeling it with me and wondering if what I feel is real or simply me, or him.

4-9-97
from An Ordinary Family
 One Horse Press, 1997