'Time, time, time, see what's become of me.
While I looked around for my possibilities, I was so hard to please.
But look around, the leaves are brown, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hear the salvation army band down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride than what you've got planned, carry your cup in your hand.
And look around you, the leaves are brown now, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hang on to your hopes, my friend.
That's an easy thing to say but if your hopes should pass away, it's simply pretend, that you can build them again.
Look around, the grass is high, the fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life.
Oh, seasons change with scenery, weaving time in a tapestry, won't you stop and remember me?
At any convenient time.
Funny how my memory skips while looking over manuscripts of unpublished
rhyme, drinking my vodka and rhyme.
I look around, the leaves are brown, there's a patch of snow on the ground,
look around...'
(A Hazy Shade of Winter, Simon and Garfunkel)
A cigarette hung from my lips. I blew smoke from the corner of my mouth, absent underneath the moonlight, my feet cold on the Curtis's front porch. The last time I slept was a week ago, when Darry offered us a room. I should've been able to go home, and Jo shouldn't have to sleep in the same room as me, and it was a hard shock when I heard I'd been evicted from my apartment.
So, I stay with the Curtis's while I look for a job, wasting days and counting hours in cigarettes.
"What're you doing out here?" Hannah pushed open the front door, pulling her robe tight around her to ward off the cold, and joined me.
"I couldn't sleep." The words slipped past my lips, slow and lazy. Hannah's face was shining, illuminated by the moon, and her eyes criticized the landscape.
"I don't think that's it." There was a minute of silence.
"Then what is it?" My voice was gruff and abrasive, and I knew she was watching me the was philosophers do. That was her major in college, before she quit to start a life with Darry. She stays over every once in awhile, and manages to run into me while I'm wandering through the house in the small hours of the night.
"I think you're scared." I looked over at her, then grounded my cigarette against the porch in frustration. Hannah had no problem saying what's on her mind, and always managed to talk to me like Mrs. Curtis had. She was concerned, I understood that, but it didn't make me appreciate it. If I were any younger I would've told her to fuck off, but then again, I would probably be drinking the night away at Buck's.
"I read about it" Hannah continued, "about soldiers after they come back.
It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." I let out a thin laugh, barely heard.
"I ain't got no disorder."
"It's the memories, isn't it?" I didn't answer her, and eventually she sighed. It was a light kind of sigh that said she wasn't going to give up, but had to choose her battles. Eventually, after shivering for a few moments, she opened the door, standing in a slice of light from the kitchen that threw her shadow into the night.
"Please come in. Let me make you hot chocolate or something" she pleaded.
I moved inside begrudgedly and let her fix me a cup of hot chocolate with whip cream.
"I've never had this before" I mentioned when she set it in front of me. Her eyes widened.
"Really? Never?" she marveled. I shook my head, about to try it for the first time, but paused at the sound of someone walking down the hall.
Jo appeared in a nightgown that Hannah had given her, a teddy bear hanging from her hand. Her hair formed a tangled halo and her eyes were wide.
"I couldn't find you." She walked over to where I was sitting at the kitchen table,and I let her sit on my knee.
"Yeah? Have a nightmare?" I asked. Jo gets plenty of nightmares, and more often than not she'll come hunt me down. She nodded wordlessly.
"Here" I offered, handing her the cup of cocoa. She sipped it while Hannah and I talked, and eventually it began that I was telling all kinds of stories about the trouble we used to get into. It was about two in the morning when I realized Jo was still with me, listening attentively and letting her head rest on my chest.
"All right, you oughta get to bed" I directed towards Jo, picking her up and putting her empty cup in the sink.
"Dallas" Hannah said as I was leaving, "try to sleep. Please." I nodded, and when I had Jo asleep in Pony's hand-me-down crib, I tried to fall asleep. Because Hannah asked, and it sounded a helluva lot like what Mrs. Curtis used to say.