Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Extra Change





I’ve been working on a beautiful century old building for almost three months now… the summer months found me searching for relief in front of a fan in the old brick building while we patiently waited for the new air conditioning systems to be installed. They now sit, perched upon her new metal roof.

Every morning as the sun fills the front glass and while I’m planning my morning, I hear the now familiar ringing of the bells on the railroad crossing arms. They are a prelude to the thundering sound of the morning train as it races through town… its air horn fills the air with deafening sound. And I always pause to watch like I have my entire life. I still count the cars and look for graffiti and I remember sitting in my bed as a boy in the night, listening to the distant train on the edge of the city.

The small town has become friendly to me. I see the faces of her people… in the bank, in the corner drug store that still sells small bottles of Coca Cola in an old fading Coke machine. I speak to the man that owns the laundromat across the street… his building once held the town’s post office. The beautiful columns and pressed metal ceiling feel out of place amongst the rusting, commercial washers and dryers and dusty floor littered with used dryer sheets.

The friendly ladies at the insurance office smile and wave as we walk to one of the lunch counters in town... they sit near the windows and look up from their desks. The petite oriental lady at the Chinese food restaurant has my chop sticks ready when I come through her doors… She speaks very little English but smiles shyly and quickly bows her head when I tell her thank you.

The elderly couple that owns the antique shop on the edge of the block is always full of conversation of the town… I know who is selling their estate and where the local barber is moving his business… there’s even word that the mayor is thinking of retiring after his present term is up, but that may only be gossip, mind you. And the elegant crystal blue eyed grandmother of four at the gas station doesn’t have to remind me that pump number two isn’t working… she always asks how the work is coming on our old building.

I still want to sneak out in the night and place pennies on the track like we did at my great-grandmothers house in the desert. She lived behind the tracks and after so many years, didn’t notice the trains as they rolled behind her unfenced yard. The train would rumble in slow motion in the evening as the sun fell near the purple mountains. My brother and I would search through the rocks and over the railroad ties for our pennies… flattened into shiny oval keepsakes. Grandmother Lena would warn us to be careful of the train and tell us the coins may derail it… all the while counting out one cent pieces into our young hands…

I think I’ll carry some extra change to work with me tomorrow…

                                                                   Shannon R Killman

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