The Kindness...

We came from all corners of the country to help a friend in need. A hot afternoon at the public storage facility, a dead-drop, zombie space where folks store the wilted, desiccated remains of an eventful, now sort of on the wane, life. The "geezer brigade" descending from the clouds to offer a helping hand.  A r&r "Wild Bunch." Men I haven't seen in awhile, r&r refugees, a singer, a couple of guitar-players, a radio dj, a devoted fan, seeded across various States, in various states of dress; blue-jeans, t-shirts, rumpled, funky shorts. Faces unseen since well before the pandemic, and the lockdown year. We were all a bit more grizzled, frazzled, worn, beat, some of us on the stringy, missed-a-few-meals, thin side, some of us on the slightly paunchy & debauched side. Some of us with long straggly hair, tied back in knots, or wrapped in fading colored bandanas, or under crumpled and dirty baseball caps. Made in America Men. Blue-Bubble politics. At first glance, we were all a bit unrecognizable under the long, graying locks, and scraggly hair, the overgrown stubble; a certain, determined, ornery, unkemptness. We had gathered to help move about twenty boxes of treasured vinyl records from storage into a waiting vehicle to transport across State lines. Not so difficult. Enough backs, arms and hands to make the task fairly endurable. There was a cloud of bleak sadness over the scene. Everything cheap and hard. A long-time friend down on his luck, at his wits end really, coming to claim his property. How many of these vinyl treasures would he be able to turn into cold, hard cash at auction? None of us had a clue. Lost mementos from another era, mostly records from the 60's & 70's. An era that we all carried in our bones. It all seemed sort of futile and uncertain, and hard and decidedly unfashionably grungy. Someone actually mentioned Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." After a half hour, the bending, stretching and loading was done. Boxes stuffed into a sagging vehicle. Then a few kind words, like smoke signals, offered to all; awkward hugs, fist-bumps, and handshakes. Everyone headed off in different directions. A motley pack of Lone Wolves, r&r flotsam and jetsam, brought together by a friend, so ghostly already, dispersing into the hot breezy afternoon. Maybe we all could see a bit of ourselves in that same sad homely parking lot?  That was my thought alone. The sun blazed hot, the cars rolled out, and pointed off to different destinations across the heartland. If any of us spoke afterwards it was about something else, anything else.