Suppertime Trailer Park

Warm early summer wind beating a tether rope and hook against hollow aluminum pole—pronng, pronng, pronng—no other sound casts such a long shadow of complete isolation and aloneness in this emptiness. The world has disappeared, school is out and vacation begun: Gravel-crunching bike tires crowding out the buzz and hum of insects. Turning pickup truck wheels into carport, soft slow hiss of radiator cooling. Metal clicking and popping in the twilight. Faint radio scratching gentle background noise, announcing local activities: Kiwanis social and Odd Fellows fish fry and county fair and gymkhana, floating broken-like blossom fragments on a breeze. A June bug drones.

Birds scratch amongst the grasses and low whirring humming of a trucker’s air-brakes down-shift the interstate not far away. If it were deep night, the train whistle would be moaning lightly its warning against cross-traffic, children necking aimlessly while drinking. No thought of destruction, metal to metal to glass holding flesh hostage, losing. Cottonwood poplar leaves rustle, gently.

High piercing cry of a hawk; backyard dog yelling over and over and over—hey! who’s there? get out! Hey! Slam of screen doors over and over and over—kids in and out. Oven and icebox doors open then shut. Timers presaging some movements, countering others. Spittling whistle and clatter of a pressure-cooker, clank-clank-sigh beating tempo against its lid. Wiz—wiz—whoosh. Melmac plates slap-circle-slap a bargain early-American table standing on turned wood legs, scuffled and clawed, flatware knives and forks land on folded paper napkins with a muffled clatter, a rasping scrape sounding their final position right of plate. Toss the fallen salt over you left shoulder, and wish.

Walter Cronkite’s voice muffled as water hits the rim of a turquoise sink. Glasses filled with cubes from metal ice-trays, ratcheting arms pulling heavy and bending slightly before clattering out and clinking heavily into jelly jars whose softly crocheted socks soak up desert condensation. Life in a 1960s swamp-cooler world sighing sweetly. Choice of sweet tea or milk, if not water. Chairs scraping backwards with positions taken, predetermined ritual of who-what-where-why lining up lives. A brown wiener-dog sneaks up for a treat and hastens back, chastened. Murmurs and scratching of aluminum on plastic. Pass the salt and, please, how was your day?