Someone had made art on the beach at midnight.

A thin, tilting Stonehenge of driftwood spars.

High tide threatened to topple this anonymous masterpiece of evanescence.

We ran for it with the sun shining at high noon.

It was hard running with two bottles of wine.

We stopped at Stonehenge, marveled, wondered.

We shouted profane hosannas of happiness.

She unscrewed the burgundy,

drained half the prize.

I guzzled the pinot gris,

scoped for prudes and interlopers.

No one around.

She stripped in stages, sunglasses second,

hurling the pink bra last.

It flew like a wounded kite.

She danced around Stonehenge and pole danced

in the strip club of the ocean.

I saw it all in silhouette.

English ivy curtains the windows

Shredded siding, peeling paint

Crippled gutters, listing chimney

Blackberries swallowing the tool shed

Carport collapsing, slick shingles

Condemned birdhouses

Fresh firewood dumped in waist-high grass

Rusted mail box survives at 45 degrees

Bags of cat food stacked on the crumbling front porch

Skinny cats snoozing on jambs

Decoupled power line

No vehicle

Wild wisteria

Shattered coffee cups everywhere

Shrubbery sweeps the roof line

Sterile cherry tree

Dead freezer

Squad of dead barbecues

Canned ham trailer sliced in half

Newspaper box from the weekly that folded in the Carter Administration

Punctured greenhouse streaked with mold

One day something new:

A patch of dirt speared with wooden stakes flying orange ribbons

A hose to a sprinkler,

black writing on the stakes

A day later: gray woman wearing a floral robe

and fluffy slippers spades the soil

and tells me she’s planting dahlias,

one named Dakota Renegade,

where dahlias can’t possibly grow

I left the concrete path and began walking across wet grass.

I noticed brown and orange leaves of maple and oak coloring the green.

I stopped, bent over, picked up a leaf.

My mind drifted to similar leaves, similar grass.

My large childhood yard had maple, cherry and oak trees.

Every fall, leaves would twist and tumble to the grass.

It was my job to rake them up into giant piles.

I arranged the piles to resemble an offensive line in football.

Tex, my beagle,would stand on the opposite side of the piles.

I would toss him a hamburger chew toy, he snagged it, then bolted through piles like the fat fullback he was.

I would play middle linebacker, meet him in the hole, tackle him, boy and dog would roll on grass, leaves would fly and fly.

We played this game for years.

He knew it was coming when I started raking and waited with the hamburger in his mouth.

When he died, he was buried in the yard with that hamburger.

Raking alone the next fall produced some of the saddest moments of my young adulthood.

Raking had forever changed.

Raking, raking, raking.

I was a steel rake kid: green, wooden handle, sturdy, union-made in a US factory.

Leaf blowers robbed the neighborhood of silence and raking the interior mind.

They corrupted our souls, bewitched us for convenience, seduced us to forsake rakes.

Do they still sell steel green rakes with wooden handles?

I hate plastic ones.

Too stiff, graceless.

The trilling sound made by a steel rake raking leaves, so distinct, soothing, a rhythm.

Massage therapists should play it during massages.

The novel The Virgin Suicides easily contains the best leaf raking scene in American literature (ch. 3, pp 86-89).

The author, Jeffrey Eugenides, compared the different methods that various suburban households raked their leaves: “The first weekend after leaf fall, we began raking in military ranks, heaping piles in the street.”

American families don’t rake leaves together anymore.

I blew through the doors of Hoover’s as the clock neared eight

and detected the sodden presence of Shifty and Shaky,

two dubious locals, possibly loggers and lovers, who drove a 1975 maroon Vega.

The joint was packed with its usual cluster of OTA fiends.

It was karaoke night but the machine was on the fritz. An OTA man was fixing it.

On my way to the bar, I passed a 400-pound man, obviously intoxicated, verging on collapse,

and a reedy dude with a wispy red beard and sideburns decorating his sallow face.

He carried a pool cue in a case, dressed in red and white except for a black baseball cap turned sideways.

He wore a thick gold chain dangling to his waist.

He brought to mind how a young Kris Kringle might have turned out had he sampled crystal meth and hip hop.

I ordered my beer and it was delivered within seconds.

I took a drink, turned to my right, and came face to face with an older woman who informed me:

1. She was a grandmother with eleven grandchildren
2. She had been drinking in Hoover’s since 2:00 P.M.
3. She loved Newport
4. She loved to rock
5. She really loved to fucking rock!

The woman drifted away, drifted back.

She looked straight at me, put her hands on my corduroy coat and said, “I’m looking at a real man, aren’t I?”

Before I could answer, she followed up with,

“Are you a rocker? Are you in the rock zone?”

“The rock zone? Where ‘s that?” I said.

“You know, the rock zone.”

It was the most penetrating existential question I’d ever been asked.

“Sure, I’m there,” I said.

“Well, you look like you belong.”

It was the most penetrating existential compliment I’d ever received.

“Thank you,” I said.

The karaoke machine finally booted up,

music blasted,

someone began butchering “Cherry Pie,”

the grandmother started dancing, drinking,

and a portal to the rock zone instantly opened.

Many entered.

I was already there.

“Detroit Rock City” by Kiss played on the jukebox.

Two OTAs, a man and woman, sat together at the bar and drank double screwdrivers.

They had their hands all over each other.

I caught a drift of their conversation.

He had to go to work at 3:00 a.m. at a gas factory, so why not have another double screwdriver on a Sunday?

His girlfriend agreed.

The joint’s decor was unforgettable except for a painting of Scooby Doo drinking a martini on the wood paneling.

Whatever inspired this masterpiece of OTA art was lost to the Canadian mists of time.

I noticed an old wall telephone, red in color.

It was one of those ancient lines that connected directly to a cab company.

I would have given anything to listen in to one of those calls, say, from 1978,

after a night of Dylan Thomas drinking.

The drink special was a tequila sunrise Jello shot. $1.

The food special was a shrimp basket. $10.99.

A country song came on.

I’d never heard it before.

A lyric went, “Sheila, pour me another tequila.”

The OTA couple were sneaking kisses, copping feels.

The bartender emerged from behind the bar.

He was fishing kimchi out of a jar, eating it.

“Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones came on.

The bartender was eating kimchi with his hands, an OTA couple was making out while drinking double screwdrivers, and Mick Jaggar was singing about a gin-soaked barroom queen, snorting coke, and getting laid.

The door to the joint opened.

In walked a gnarled man with a cane wearing a blue ball cap two sizes too large for his noggin.

The bartender and the OTA couple greeted him with enthusiasm, called him Old Jack.

He was at least 200 years old.

Old Jack was told he was looking good.

“I’m always looking good,” he said.

He was asked why he hadn’t been around.

“I’ve been getting shitfaced at home,” he said.

He was told there had been concern for his welfare in his absence.

He grunted and bellied up to the bar.

The bartender asked if he wanted the usual.

Old Jack said, “Yes, the one and one.”

Seconds later Old Jack was drinking Jack Daniels Red on the rocks, chasing it with a pint of Budweiser and pickled egg.

“All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan came on.

A half naked woman (homeless?) entered the joint carrying flowers in a dirty vase.

She placed the vase on top of a gambling machine,

ripped a fart,

slipped in some dollar bills,

and got to work.