The Storyteller is Sleeping


He was the family historian. My dad can't remember his own childhood, but Glenn remembers when my father would let him ride on his handlebars down the giant hill towards Dodger Stadium.


"We went so fast, didn't we, Allen? We wobbled all the way down!" Glenn told my dad.

"But, I hung on though, didn't I?"



"Where did they find him?" I asked my sister.

"You know, over there on Fairview, near that bar he would go to...ohhhh, the firefighter bar, or something, you know where they all go... by -- oh shoot! -- over by Gold's Gym."

"The one on Lancaster?"

"No, no...Fairview, not 24 Hour Fitness. Gold's."

I wish my dad wasn't so critical of him. I wish they let him into our house when he was dirty and his breath stank of beer. It scared them. Their words scared me, but he didn't. Glenn never scared me.

Mom said by Kmart.

Jesus Christ.

In a ditch by Kmart.

"In a ditch?"

"Uh-huh," Missy uttered.

"What kind of ditch? I mean, like, was it one of those little ones on the side of the road? A creek? What?"

She was giving me information. The more detailed, the better. I didn't care if it was gruesome. Make it real. Make it happen for me, here, five hundred miles away in San Francisco.

John, my brother-in-law was feeding her info. I heard him. Really, I heard his tone. It was natural, not sad. Neutral perhaps. Definitely calm.

Fuck him.

Was it full of thorns?

I thought of faded Big Gulp cups, athletic shoes, and acid washed jeans left in the field behind the house where I grew up. In the fall, the wet blackberry bushes slouched and made mulch out of lost tennis balls. In the summer, the thorn bushes turned into dry concertina wire and gaurded bloated, rotting cats that no longer came home when called.

After school, I found him sprawled out on the grass. It was a nice surprise. I forgot my key, so we sat on the tiny concrete step until my parents came home. I sat by him as he rolled his own cigarettes, the fragrant tobacco hanging loosely out of the tip. He would light it and then he'd start rocking back and forth. He'd tell me about the tug boat he worked on in the Navy, how he jumped from a deck onto another deck to tie down a ship and "busted" his knee. Next, he told me about the F-14 he saw landing this morning in front of the Oregon State Capitol.

"It really happened," he said.

"I wish I was there," I replied.

Then, he'd rock back and forth harder.

Tears would form under his tired, baggy eyes. Uncle Glenn never forgot his beloved mother, the grandmother I never knew. She died of aneurysm when Glenn was just a kid.

Days later, I would find the letter he wrote to N.A.S.A. ontop of the workbench in the garage. Diagrams illustrated how to build a ship.

Build it now, he wrote, or we all will die.



"It was there for five weeks, right?"

"They think so."

"Pretty badly decomposed, right?"

"Oh, Christian! You don't need to talk about that."

"Yes I do. I want to."


An Oregon Department of Corrections work crew found the body at 8:28 a.m.

The man appeared to have been dead for at least a week, police said.


He was gone for over a month. No withdrawals on his accounts, less than $40 in his pockets. He obviously hadn't gone far and was staying in one place.


"I mean did it...smell? Jesus. Did it fucking smell?"

Tears fall into the stainless steel kitchen sink.

"Christian, you know it doesn't matter."

Snot and drool hang from my chin.

Then Missy adds, "Actually, they had a hard time telling if it was a man or a woman."

The facts rattle off like automatic gunfire.

"Ka-

ke-

Christian..."

She speaks. John speaks.

I see Glenn staggering on a dark road behind Kmart.

Voices.

I hear Glenn telling me stories of the Avery past. He's in the family room eating butterscotch pie on Thanksgiving. He's telling us about hopping trains, about cleaning the Kingdome for minimum wage and how it wasn't bad because you could have "all the peanuts you could eat."

Laughter.

And I see him and Dad -- they're kids again -- riding down the hill towards the ballpark. Going unbelievably fast, wild smiles on their faces. The bike wobbles faster and faster. A small bump.

More laughter.

Glenn begins to rise off the handlebars. Going higher and higher, he's like an autumn leaf being carried by a sudden gust of warm wind -- swept up for a moment, gently, lovingly.

The bike slows and stops.

Then, the wind softens and Glenn, just barely heavier than air, descends to the side of the road,

curling up in a nest of billowed straw

and rust colored maple foliage

for a long,

restful

nap.