Gonzalo Adolfo
Blues of Estlin
from No Rush For Gold:
Little of the breeze made it out to these parts where there are few trees to sway anyway and the neighbors are not stirring but Estlin’s neighborhood is not much of a neighborhood. It is an ugly place with ugly people he does not want to know and those he does he wishes he did not. Mostly he keeps away and to himself. If you look for him now you will see a bottle dangling from his fingers as he looks out the window and onto the fence where he wishes for his crow to return.
*
Estlin has sat at home a long while drinking and dreaming. Today seems longer than it is, maybe it is two days. Think of a coiled spring, rusted and stressed, stretched and compressed over and over until it loses its form and cracks. Estlin has yet to find employment since quitting a job a week ago and he feels like a spring losing its bounce though not yet broken.
He is anxious for a job, he wants to know what he is doing. A small savings will relieve his financial burden and should allow him to do those things he wished to do when he had not enough time for now there is time aplenty, but the anxiety continues. Life is off-balance in a struggle for self-discipline.
He drinks too much, he smokes too much, and all of this because he thinks too much. His heart rate quickens, sends red hot blood to his extremities. It knows his potential and tells him…
We can run—faster than you know! We can jump—higher than you know! We are strong—stronger than you know! We must stretch! We must flex! We are alone! There is no one to shout—mop that floor! Scrub that sink! We are free! We will shout—I am greater than all of you! I am greater than you know!
Estlin is furious. His wish is to relax and for time to quicken. Late this morning he left his bed. It was damp with sweat from his eyes, tears from his flesh. The kitchen caught his stumble as he started a beer and a cigarette. Things are bad but could be worse and certainly have been worse. The beer and cigarette are finished, a beer and cigarette are started. His heart rate slows as the hour passes. Time has quickened, he is relaxed.
*
Lunch at Estlin’s is always an experience and no less so than today. It was when he finally opened his curtain and noticed the sun strong enough that a normal person would think about eating that he went to the kitchen to boil some water. So he filled his only pot and lit his only reliable burner and set the pot on the stove and stood watching the cold water become warm. It takes a little time to take effect but as it heats, small bubbles form until the bottom and the sides are covered. The water animates as the bubbles become larger and pop and the water tosses and turns to reach the boil.
Estlin is now directly over and looking down into the pot—the steam burns and cools on his face. Then he looks at the wall behind the stove—the steam wets patterns on the wall and he thinks…
Quickly he cuts out of the kitchen and through the other room and out the door. By the dumpster is a large cardboard box and he takes it and inside, tears it into large flat pieces. Then from a kitchen cupboard he pulls paints and goes to work.
Each hand he coats in a color and he streaks, scratches, and digs into the cardboard. More and more he wants and he flips the cardboard over and coats his hands in other colors and goes in again. Pushing into it he feels it and flips it again. This side has smeared since last he saw it and he textures it in the mess of paint on his hands. Then Estlin stands back. He breathes like a man who has almost finished a marathon but this is only a break—the home stretch must still be run.
He takes the blue paint, not used until now, and paints his chest and arms. He looks at the cardboard, it is the last time it will look like this, and dives onto it…And he rests as if dead.
*
It was around dinnertime that Estlin awoke blue and went to the kitchen and blew out the fire and stopped the burn. He remembers hitting the floor with his face and rolling onto his back beside his cardboard. His eyes were on the ceiling and he slept.
In the bathroom he takes off the blue and puts on a shirt and crosses the street for a sandwich. It is good enough and enough for now and he recrosses the street. Somehow the days, evenings always pass. Estlin uncaps a beer to push down the sandwich and looks at his books. Just risen he will be awake for some time but tonight he does not want to read. So he steps aside and sets beside his cardboard and watches for his crow to return.