Measuring a Man

He’s been hanging around in the back of my mind. I see him the way he was when he was working. Worn-in 501 Levis held up with a brown leather belt. Plain t-shirt with a pocket holding his menthols. A tool belt hangs off his hips, heavy with capability. He tucks a pencil behind one ear, at the ready for the next measurement or idea. The wet of perspiration coaxes his wavy dark hair into curls on the back of his head and drips off his body as he exerts himself.

“Six and three-eights.” He would say distractedly. I hung around to smell the wood as it was cut, I hung around waiting to be useful.  It was my job to remember the number. A mantra to earn his approval.

‘Six and three eights six and three eights six and three eights six and three eighths six and three eighths.’

When I would forget, and it amazes me how often this was, it felt the way it did when I somehow couldn’t find what he was pointing at. Standing in the sand on the beach right in front of him, his arm extended out into the beyond over my shoulder, trying to make me see the log or whale or star. I stood still as the air at three am next to him. My eyes carefully followed his arm down to the end of his finger and frantically scoured the horizon. This was it. A chance to share something magical.

My mind raced with the idea that a moment had come upon me, I was on stage and it was time to say my line. Caught up in all this I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t even have the words to form the thought “All I can see is you” or he might have understood. I won’t ever know now.

It was like that the last time I spoke to him, when he called me to stop him. I could hear that he was crying but I refused to acknowledge it. I ignored the measurements, I turned to face him instead of following his finger and I brushed him off. My thoughts formed the words “Let me stop seeing you.” but I don’t believe he ever thought I did see him. It didn’t seem like much to ask for. Just five minutes not wondering when or if he would pull that trigger.

He had that in him. Something he couldn’t make anyone see, something no one wants to remember. It lies tangled in my guts now. It rises as a lump in my throat unexpectedly choking me but I swallow it down. I stand stiff with his finger pointing over my shoulder. I don’t have to wonder anymore. I don’t have to see and I don’t have to remember. But of course I do. 

2008