Category: Travels Near and Far

The man walks up to the counter of our stand at the fair and I know he will be a talker. I don’t know how I know this, but after years of waiting on people, I know. It is like a sixth sense. Perhaps it is something in the eyes, something lost or weary. Perhaps it is something in the shoulders, something heavy.

“You know,” he says, rubbing his beard like a sage, “I’ve been out of work now for 18 months. I’ve seen a tough stretch. A tough stretch indeed.”

He pauses. I wait.

“You sure you don’t have any pumpkin pie?” he asks, a sidetrack, a rabbit trail.

“No, sorry about that,” I say. “We don’t have enough space to carry refrigerated pies.”

“Oh, I’d just need one,” he says. I don’t say anything, because I know he doesn’t want to talk about pies.

“I love a good pumpkin pie. So anyway,” he says. “It’s been a tough stretch. I called up to York fair and they said the carnies hired people on a temporary basis, you know, to help set up the rides and run the food stands. So I showed up and applied and worked for two days.”

“Did you enjoy it?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“It was work,” he says. “It was money. But after two days, that woman comes to me and says I can’t work for her and keep my beard on.”

He laughs.

“Can’t keep my beard on! Well, I’m not shaving, not my beard, and I told her so, so she told me to take a hike. I called down here to Frederick Fair and applied to work down here for the week.”

“So you’ll be here this week?” I ask.

He nods.

“And they’ll let you keep your beard?”

“Yep, I’m running a fryer, just making french fries and corn dogs. That sort of thing. I done it before and I suppose I’ll do it again.”

He rubs his beard.

“Said I could keep my beard, you know. I have to wear a hat though. Can’t stand wearing hats, but I suppose I can respect her, wear the hat. I could use the money.”

He walks away. I can tell that, for this man, walking away from a conversation is like peeling off a scab. But I also know I’ll see him again. It’s something in the way he walks away, the slow movement of his gaze, or the way he shifts his hat nervously.

I must confess
I painted the green table
and the yellow chairs,
the ones
we had when we first got married
fifteen years ago
when my stomach was flat
and we didn’t shy from starting movies
(and other things) after 11.
When sleep was commonplace, like mis-
matched socks,
and silence was everywhere in the house
so thick you could trip on it
or get lost in it.

Of course,
you asked me to paint the table
and the chairs
but I didn’t
think it would take so many coats to cover
all the gashes
and scars
left by a thousand Scrabble games
hot pans of Rice Crispy Treats
four years in storage while we lived
in England
unsecured trips in moving vans
then teething children gnawing and racing
their matchbox cars past bowls
of cereal that left little pale rings
like the wispy ones that circle planets.
And then there were the permanent markers
that bleed through sheets
of multi-colored paper
or the demanding bang of miniature
forks and spoons chipping away.

But the new red paint will never cover
the way we sat on those chairs,
elbows on the table,
and cried
after two miscarriages. Or the lost
friends. Or the pain
and joy
of moving on
to new places.

There are some things paint cannot cover.

Like conversations unfolding from
“Now
what do we do?”
or
“Why did you say that?”
or
“I’m not doing well.
Not well at all.”
But also
“I’m pregnant,”
or
“I got the contract,”
or
“I couldn’t do this without you.”

Someone already scratched the table
despite my many warnings of the incredible
wrath that would fall from this
August sky
but when I saw in the middle of the new scratch
that the original dark green
was still there
under the red paint
all those years
just a thin skin away
I must confess.
I was relieved.

Because these years of ours
may look like a pock-marked tabletop
scarred and scraped,
but they can never be covered over.
And that is one thing in this world
that is exactly as it should be.