Lackawanna
Scranton was electric with her oily river banks, pigeons fat with debris and Jason Miller in his Tower throwing me half lit cigarettes and manuscripts.
It was a coal capital, red hot like my heart.
It was cold. My apartment above the diner had busted a radiator and my typewriter was broken. Someone in a booth behind me said it was like jerking off with a fistful of fleas. I wrote that down in the margins of an already bloated notebook. It was Bernard.
I first met Bernard, pronounced Buh- Naard, on one of my favorite benches on Linden St. He was wrapped in a corduroy jacket and his gray carhartt beanie covered most of his eyes highlighting his purple nose. He didn't have much to say, I’d feed him black coffee and blueberry muffins he’d nod and murmur “Beula”.
The name I was gifted at the chess tables in the courthouse square at midnight as the buildings slept wrapped in their pigeon nests and their occupants' shortcomings.
One day he asked if I could write a letter for him.
He was illiterate.
How could I resist Bernard?
We dipped into the alley between the post office and the rite-aide. He scooted a milkcrate over to the dumpster for me to sit on. He stood over me as I sat and removed my soggy folded notebook from the inside of my London fog jacket and flipped to a blank page.
Bernard clasped his hands together behind his back and began to pace. He reminded me of when Charlie Choplin cooked a boot, ate the boot and tapped a drunken strut into a black and white emergency.
He dictated the following…
Clear
Purposeful
With complete command and poise
I could hear the hearts of roaches stroking out at my feet
“Dear Ruthie, (another story for a different time)
I seen you at the bus stop. I KNOW you've been cheatin’
I'll kill you.
Love, yours truly- forever and ever
Bernard”
He folded the letter and placed it into his jacket pocket. Nodded and mumbled “Beula”.
Something was coming for him
They found him frozen in the church pew clutching a newspaper with no one to claim his body or soul.