gene's ember

Talisman by Air reminds me of a man named Gene who regularly smoked cigars. My grandfather and I used to sit on the porch with him while I swung back and forth on his crocheted hammock¹, listening to them talk about the stock market crash and how they’d lost basically all their money in real estate. There was a heaviness that clung to the air when they got on that topic.

I knew when their voices were loud, they weren’t really angry, but when their voices went low and hushed to the point they thought I couldn’t hear, that’s when I’d grow anxious, waiting for the silence to break. That song would play for what, to eight-year-old me, felt like years.

How their hushed voices and that song braided together still haunts me. It used to scare me and remind me of bad dreams. I’d wait patiently for someone to cut through the speakers with words of wisdom or a catchy line or two, but it never came, just the rise and fall before it ended.

It’s now been over a decade, and we still go back to that lake. I’d bring my friends to the house we’d rent next to Gene’s during the summertime. The first time I brought my friend Boone to the lake, he said he felt like he’d been there before, that it all felt so familiar.

Now, of age, we’d find ourselves sitting on our porch too, smoking joints and drinking Fireball or vodka. We’d play poker until we couldn’t see straight and wake to see the chips scattered across the table, too hungover to even think about cleaning it up. We’d set our coffee mugs on the empty parts of the table, peel on our swimsuits, and head out for the day. Hangovers only lasted until the first cup of coffee.

We spilled secrets like there was no tomorrow. I’d always find myself lying on my back on the dock with someone else, the crowns of our heads touching, our legs stretched out long. It’s easier to share secrets when you aren’t face to face. We’d strip down our souls until there was nothing but our confessions laid bare in front of us. How freeing it felt to not have to hold it inside and how freeing, too, that by morning we could pretend none of it happened. Blame it on the bowl we smoked or the extra drink we had.

And still, sometimes at night, when we’d all be out on the porch, I’d hear Air faintly beneath the sound of our own lives. So quiet that I could hardly make it out over the music, the crickets, the soft lap of water against the dock. Every now and then, a gust of wind would carry the scent of a cigar, and for a moment, I’d be taken back. I’d almost believe I could still see the red ember glowing in the dark, steady as ever. I’d remember the crash of ’08, my legs swinging from the hammock, thinking maybe, just maybe, if I swung high enough, I could disappear into the night sky.

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