Old Bird

I still remember her

sitting in front of her basement condo

in that grey bathrobe

old as dirt with a cigarette dangling from one hand

a red Solo cup on the table beside her

perched there like an old bird

giving everyone the stink eye

yeah for a while there I hated her on sight

but years later

when I was down and out

when all the credit cards were maxed out

when the condo was in foreclosure

and the whole world turned its back on me

it was the crazy lady who took me in

I think for a while there no one liked her at all

there in our little condo complex

at the foot of Signal Mountain

living in what we used to call cell block A

because these weren't the classy condos, you know

this was the Baltic and Mediterranean

of Mountain Creek Road

but it was OK

we all liked it

it was cheap and cozy and it did the job

that's all I can say about it

five years I lived above that crazy broad

trying to come and go without being seen

but at the age of 72

she didn't miss a lick

nothing happened there

that she didn't know about it

there in cell block A

our little crackerbox affair

with everyone packed on top of each other

but for a while there I parked my car on the other side

coming up the steps where she couldn't see me

until one day

she poked her head around

asked me if I wanted a beer

said we needed to talk

anytime a woman says

we need to talk

you know you're in trouble

but looking back I think

it might've been the only smart thing

I ever did

for that entire decade of my life

that's how the whole thing got started anyway

all the crazy parties and late nights

in front of her condo

at the foot of Signal Mountain

on Mountain Creek Road

I met a lot of people then

some good

some bad

but still just a lot of people

for a recluse like myself

Hell, it was probably good for me

but I still hated her just a little

even after all that

because she was all right after a few beers

she'd get going

saying that the wisdom of 72 years

could be summed up by saying

you can't go wrong

with an oblong ding dong

I remember once she almost fell down

in the parking lot

remember helping her back into her apartment

thinking that one day she would hurt herself

but she never did

and all the neighborhood college kids seemed to like her

so it went

but after a few more

tin cans of crazy

it always went south

she was not a happy drunk

talking in circles

getting mean

and driving everybody crazy

it was hard to break away

kept getting harder

and I always ended up staying

just a little bit longer than I wanted to

but more and more

a long time longer

until I finally went back upstairs

head spinning

truth be told

she was one mean fucking drunk

she had a way of leaving you

feeling all hollowed out

like a Thanksgiving turkey

with the guts yanked out

like she was making a meal out of you

with the things she said
each word from her mouth
like the bite of a Kimodo dragon

and maybe she was

or something

but old people get away with a lot of shit

so for a long time there

I tried avoiding her again

but that never lasted long

Hell, nothing does, ya know what I'm saying?

Five years I lived on top of that tough old broad

through the red and yellow blur

of the Chattanooga autumns

that made the mountain there

so beautiful it could change a man forever

and the blistering hot summers

of East Tennessee

on the north Georgia border

Five years

while that hollow wind blew

through the wasteland inside of me

past the junk pamphlets, broken glass

and cracked pavement

of my heart's broken city

where no one talked to anybody at all

Five years

and I slowly started

to just lose my shit completely

and she was down there the whole time

cranking her crappy radio

playing the same song over and over again

I never learned its name

sometimes the people we try to avoid

are the ones we need the most

yeah, five years I lived

with that wasteland inside of me

and when the shit went down

and the bank took my house

when I was just standing there

a dick with his dick in the wind

nowhere to go

she was the one who took me in

that crazy old bird

that mean old drunk

the one I'd spent five years trying to avoid

life never works the way its supposed to I guess

but she did more than take me in

without even meaning to I think

she gave me one lasting parting gift

before she died

she introduced me to just one more person

before we both left for good

the woman who gave birth to my only child

the child who made that hollow wind

blow its way out of crazy town for good

and it wasn't until I held my newborn daughter in my hands

that I finally figured out

the thing that I was supposed to be doing

the source of all that emptiness

the thing that fueled the madness

all that time

and I felt healed

for the first time in years

I felt my heart bloom like some strange vegetable flower

I'd never seen before

the one that finally pulls the sunshine back down to earth

where it belongs

like I said

sometimes the people we try to avoid

are the ones we need the most

it takes a lot of wisdom

to know the difference I guess

or maybe it's all just an accident

maybe I got lucky

I don't know

I never claimed to be a wise man

that's for sure

my life like a Kansas song or something

but when I look back on it all

I can't help but get a sense

of something, maybe purpose, maybe design,

like it was all meant to happen somehow

like my daughter simply wanted to exist

and this is how the dead speak to us

Through the mystery of circumstance

so strong is their desire

to return from the shadowlands

back to a crazy world of broken glass

cracked pavement and junk pamphlets

that blow through the broken city streets

of our secret hearts

who knows?

I sure as hell don't

what I do know is this:

that crazy old bird

must have known a thing or two

about birth and death

that crazy old broad

who outlived her only son

when she died

when the lung cancer finally got the best of her

I wasn't sure what to think

I guess she's in the shadowlands now

working some crazy magic

from death's secret secreting place

on a waiting world

but if I know her

if she's still anything like she used to be

tough old bird

who didn't take any shit

then she won't be there long

No

she won't be there for long at all

and who knows

maybe soon

on some sunny day

I might just hear from her again

when the dead come knocking