Fall Golden rod, burnt orange and firebrand red flutter bunches sail through the canopy like spinnakers to an array of paths that skirt smoke mountains to the narrow roads that carve the Blue Ridge to the still lake bottoms’ depths full of compact varve, carpeting the forest floors. Golden rod, burnt orange and firebrand red cover battlefields of dead and forgotten warriors from the Iroquois to the Algonquin from the whipped slaves running for their lives following the north mossy tree side to the pine cone burning raid on Harpers Ferry from the graves of Tom Wolfe in Asheville and Lowell’s Kerouac to the tombs of Confederate and Union alike in their scatterings of pitched fights to drawn-out battles and charges from the black lung coal miners, the meth labs hidden on hill sides, the alcohol-fueled car accidents on blind turns from the French Broad, the Susquehanna, the Rappahannock, the Shenandoah, the Merrimac and the Kennebec. Golden rod, burnt orange and firebrand red colors of spring’s death mask all with vibrant hues stolen from dawn and sunset that wait to be blanketed by a dusting of snow, falling through the bare grey skeleton branches of Appalachia. Lower Barron One of the oldest sections of Barron Park as evident in a 1948 photograph. Road once led to the California Military Academy. Barron Avenue narrows before La Donna, first curve to the left and slaloms to the right, hugging the curve in the street where smaller houses with deep narrow lots, some built for summer homes, for city residences—get out of the fog belt and chill where Mark Twain said, “the coldest winter day he spent was in July in San Francisco”—down the peninsula in a cottage on lower Barron. At the corner of El Camino de Real next to a car repair shop was a turquoise half round building, once a dry cleaner, a kite store, an independent package sending location—hot-diggity-dog. Façade changing over the years, chipped but still there today. Dad drove us all up towards home fast, passing Jerrold and a young black man, who stood on the blacktop edge in front of the Felice’s home, Jerry’s home—we missed them, inches to spare—the black man spun around as I turned to look, double fingers and rage—on lower Barron. A late dinner on the opposite side in the Smith rental home. Bill, a year younger, had already gone to bed after playing “Suicide Is Painless” on the clarinet. Rea, his mom, was having a good time and spilled her wine. Her husband, not Bill’s dad, dragged her into the bedroom. Screaming. He came out and said, “Sorry.” Mom and Dad and I said goodnight. In the car, starting to back out, Rea came out-- grabbing keys out of her leather purse while crossing the lawn. He came again and dragged her back into the house on lower Barron. Later, in the late 80s, English X lived across from the old Felice home. X had bought the Tavern downtown from his cocaine dealership. In that house X was indicted for child molestation of his two-year-old daughter but after a decade of ownership it was time to sell and sell for cash only, X had said, when we tried to broker a deal—it was good that bar sale fell through. X planned to skip bail to play soccer in South America. Instead, he called the cops, told them his big plate of coke had been poisoned by someone. If only the paper article had his picture too, on lower Barron. It was a pretty peaceful walk to the closest bus stop, to take the 22. I would ride it to Stanford shopping center and transfer for Santa Cruz Avenue where the psychiatrist told me to beat a couch-- then got on the floor and showed me how it was done. He only charged $125 a session—well worth it since I’m still here. I also took the 22 to work at Crown Books, and everywhere else around the Bay Area but I broke apart when they chopped down the trees behind the bus stop bench and across the vacant lot behind the car repair shop on lower Barron.
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