On a Whim

I drive to my old apartment while I am visiting the city.

            The uniform buildings are stark and institutional in the daylight but take on a dirtier, more urban quality in the nighttime.  The time of day determines whether I am looking at a complex or at the projects.

            Oil stains the driveway in a shape that I always thought looked like a turtle.  I broke three teeth near the turtle’s rear left leg when I took a nosedive from my bike to the concrete.  I have never been more grateful for the present stale fast-food stink of my Oldsmobile than I am when I remember the intimate smell of my blood and hot, wet pavement.

            Ahead of the driveway, I can see the vent from which the clothes dryers exhaust their hot, spring-morning-scented air.  Until just now, I had forgotten about the time Jeremy lit a newspaper on fire and stuffed it down that vent.  It strikes me that I have just traced my finger down the path of short-term memory to long-term; where repeated retrievals transform neuron activity from bare, simple records of the immediate to a more subtle recall that becomes vaguely associated with fear.

            I came on a whim, but I’m here because of loose sewer grates and faulty deadbolts.  Here because of hot water spigots and bottles with caps which click when I twist them.  Because of smoldering ashtrays and rat traps.

            My thoughts turn back to the present as I drive away, having resisted the temptation to crane my neck to see through the kitchen window into the yellow-walled apartment that used to be home.  It’s late and I’m beginning to get hungry.