Alabama Summer

Bill Goodman

image credit: Bill Goodman

It’s three in the morning and the veins of the city are almost empty. The streets have holes of failure and layers of new asphalt revealing prior layers. Every few steps my feet are taxed by blemishes and fissures in the sidewalk. Warring enclaves of ant beds nearby have discovered the nuclear option and are still fighting. I keep going, steadfast.

Right now a sidestep would put me directly into light. It’s the sidestep that matters. That’s what changes your trajectory. It’s the headlights of a two-thousand-something Honda Something, Pro Edition probably, with the heated seats and everything. I find myself passively fixing my hair as the car comes down the road.

The question of why I’m in the street. Answers surface faster than the speeding Honda Something. The walk in itself is an exercise. I walk the maps in the sidewalk cracks.  

There are flowers that should be blooming but some combination of heat, amateur care, and a chemical war of car exhaust have found them drooping more than other flowers. The sidewalk separates a little more underneath the weight of my gait. The Honda Something bounces on another layer of road piled on road.

I fix my hair again. The warmth of Alabama summer and a gland condition brings more sweat than there really needs to be. But it helps keep the hair in place. There are split ends and the brown roots are fighting a war that they are winning from the border of my scalp. The soles of my shoes are cheap and thin. I can feel the scars of the ground below me and I wonder if I’ve been here before. The car is coming.

The city’s mascara, lipstick, hair plugs, artificial testosterone piled atop the cracks, the rot, the layers and layers of erosion. Maybe moving forward is digging down. Sidewalks crack, roads buckle, hair becomes two-toned, and sweat stains our best shirt.

Another Sidestep. The Honda Something blows by me, bouncing in another dip in the road. My hair is blown astray.

Change stride. I find a new sidewalk with cracks I didn’t cause.

I may find non drooping flowers.

Bill Goodman is a comedian/musician/artist/a lot from Mobile, Alabama. There’s a lot of hot sauce and peanut butter in his diet. Currently he’s striving to achieve a lifelong dream of being a well-hydrated person and is trying to replace coffee with water. He’s failing, but he’s certainly trying. @twitt3rsitt3rs