Breaking up in the fog

I noticed them as I was getting Ike’s wheelchair out of the back of the 402. A young couple; her standing about five feet or so from him and facing away, looking down, and he, sitting on the park bench, shoulders down and elbows on knees. She was crying.

The Older Boy took no notice of them, and was asking if we could go into the park after the party, but since I was trying to both listen to his question and suss the couple’s situation out it took me a while to answer. Later, while we were at the party in a house that overlooked the park, I saw that they had moved to another bench, but that she was still crying and he was still seated with his elbows resting on his knees.

The party was a surprise birthday celebration for Heather that Earl put together at the last minute the day before. We drank Mojito’s and red wine, and Earl’s mother put some chicken and potatoes in the oven to bake. Both Heather and Earl’s mothers have been staying with them for the past few months since Heather’s mom’s health got bad. Took a bit of convincing to get her to move out from the Missouri boot-heal where she lived most her life I guess, but they did it. As the party moved into the late afternoon, both boys were getting restless, so while Sweetie was engaged in a conversation, I packed Ike into his chair and together with my older boy, walked down the road to the park.

There were dogs all over the place which Ike loves, as he thinks there is nothing better in the whole world than to have a dog stick a nose in his face and sniff loudly; well, except maybe if the dog were to also give him a lick at the same time as well. While The Older Boy played on the slides and swings, Ike and I set off to walk the track that borders the park grounds. There are some blackberry brambles that line the far side, and this is the perfect time of year to go berry picking on a late summer afternoon. As we came around to the far side, there sitting on the low lying wall that separates the track from the bramble was another couple—a different couple, but with an eerily familiar look upon their faces. Here was another couple with breaking up in their eyes. What were the chances I thought to myself, that in this short amount of time, I would be witness to two different couples breaking up, and in the same park no less? This couple was older, but had the same sad far away look—the same look I’d seen a just few hours before. Ike and I tried to look for some dark purple blackberries to share in the bushes almost directly behind and to the side of where they were sitting, but they weren’t interested in moving and the uncomfortable silence made it hard to stick around to pick many berries. Ike and I shared a few and left to finish our walk.

Saturday night after the party and the berries and we had gone to bed for the night, someone broke the driver’s side window out of the 402. So on Monday before work I dropped it off at Darnell’s to have them replace the glass. That afternoon as I walked from the Mill up St. Helens Ave. to pick it up, I passed another couple on the landing halfway up the Spanish Steps outside of the old Elks lodge: a third couple, a new couple, but a kind that I seem to be meeting a lot of these days. The kind where he’s seated with his elbows on his knees, and she standing five feet away, head looking down and away toward the ground.

As I walked to the top of the steps and started to cross the street, I heard him shout, “Stop!” or “Fuck!” as she had started to move away and down the steps. I watched them until they disappeared behind the front of the building unsure what I’d do if he took a swing at her, and then continued up the hill to pick up the car.

Fall is in the air these days, hanging heavy and wet like a fog.

Every day that passes from here on out gets shorter, until a time comes where you get to work in the dark and leave for home in the dark, and those gray moments of light that sit in between never really feel long enough to let you know you’re alive.