by Matthew Daddona
The homeless man outside our apartment has been at it with the skateboard again. Ollies, this time. I hear him from the second floor, the deck of the board hitting hard against the pavement, tumbling and rolling and striking again. I imagine the wheels spinning off into the night like a tire in a car crash. Other people in our building are not so fond of the skateboard, though I imagine they’re not so fond of the homeless man either. I like the homeless man—his long, illuminated body, his stretchy arms and the feet too large for the board below him. I want him to nail this ollie and then work up to his next trick—a kick flip, maybe. Something to get people rooting for him. Especially Rachel. She’s been on my case for talking to him lately.
I tell Rachel I’m going outside for a bit. You better not, she says. What? I say. You better not. A latte, I tell her. I’ll get you one. Not waiting for her answer, I step out. The night is a frigid, unwelcoming reminder, of what, I don’t know. Of ignorance maybe. I think about where the homeless man must sleep. And when his feet get too tired to kick the board around, where does he rest them? I think of Rachel in bed and her small feet and her toes nestled between mine, and how they sometimes take an eternity to get warm. I watch the homeless man try to ollie again.
You’re getting close, I tell him. Let’s say his name is Jim, and that he has told me this before because we’ve spoken once, which we have.
Keep it up, Jim. Jim looks at me for a while, then reaches deep inside his pockets, as if trying to find new space. Can’t get the foot to lock in. My damn back foot keeps slipping, he says. Give it some time, I tell him. Look, they’re all counting on you.
We look up with the same roaming eyes. The neighbors’ faces, my neighbors’ faces, are pallid and still in the windows, like someone stuck them there. I see Rachel. I wave. My wife, I tell Jim. Jim waves at her. Pretty, your wife, he says. Pretty, we both say. Rachel shakes her head and ducks down into the fold of the curtains. That’s the one I’m trying to learn next, Jim says. Disappearing.
Matthew Daddona is the author of the novel The Longitude of Grief and the poetry collection House of Sound. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Newsday, Outside, Grammy.com, Fast Company, and Tin House. A ghostwriter by trade, he also spends time as a volunteer firefighter and shucking oysters at a little shack on Long Island’s North Fork, where he also lives.
Emerge Literary Journal 