It was hard to determine exactly how much water the bathtub faucet leaked, but sitting in the other room he could hear it, pitter-pattering down the drain. The upstairs was finally warm; after installing a new wood stove in the living room, the house grew noticeably hotter, and finally so; it’s installation was long overdue. Some days, it had seemed to be all Meltzen talked about. But the man knew this too was undeterminable, exactly how much the conversation turned. Clearly though, he could not imagine the days any differently. Yes, it was true. Perhaps between and at every meal and stacking the cords of wood and feeding the horses and filling the barn’s cool breeze crevices, among the stinking but thermic animals breathing, Meltzen did not shut up.

“I’m thinking about getting a new one myself,” he would say.

“You’ve been talking to Belby about it, eh?”

“Oh yeah, showed me a new model he’s making.”

“New model, eh? I’m sure Belby’ll have a brand new winter lineup for you, already to go. By the time you decide though… too many choices.”

            “Ha. That’s a good one Clem. Say, you put any thought into which one your getting?”

            “Yeah, but I’m keeping it a secret,” Clement whispered.

            “Why’s that?”

            “Because otherwise, someone might snatch my stove before I can make due on it.”

            “Oh. Well who could that be? It’s only me and you in here.”

            “I don’t know Meltzen. You never know who could be listening.”

        This of course, was easily determined. Meltzen was a man of inaction. So much more so than Clement that he always inquired as much as he could about a given subject before actually pursuing it. He would rather hypothesize and gather information than pounce headlong into decision. But after awhile, his myopia intruded upon even those who loved him. It became strenuous. It added to people’s weeks. Clement sure liked Meltzen; some afternoons he thought long and hard about their friendship, how much he enjoyed his company. But there are some things about a man, kept unfettered, unsaid, allowed let loose inside that another man can really grow to hate.  

Almost immediately, I see myself swimming in a canal, and the waves are enormous yet welcoming, and I am at ease. In my hand I hold the map folded in a square, thumb over a spot, a huge grin swallowing seawater. In the distance, there is a building, and for a while I feel I am watching myself watching Australia from a canal near that building, the one with the very, very interesting architecture. It is a concert hall and it is silver. Dat’s da place.

Black children in long sleep-shirts run along the coastline laughing, or what the coastline comprised of actually, which is really tall cement walls no one’s covered yet with graffiti. They must have saved me.

I am in Australia but no one is speaking Australian. I peel off my winter clothes down a street with a couple of houses toward my end, the end where I am standing in a heap of polyester and yarn, consumed in a puddle that starts running away to the grass because there are no curbs in front of them, clustered together and dilapidated. Past where they stand, stand very tall trees swaying, lining the road in a row on each side, barely containing uncut fields, a nice spot to ride a bicycle.

I start walking toward an area that looks a little more developed, behind me, where a cement island is on a perpendicular intersection that is slanted to my left. There are no cars except one, but it is parked. There is a tugging on my shirt, and one of the black children is there with a tray of fudge squares which he assures me are warm because his mother just made them, and not melting from the over bearing sun blasting us and the metal tray and my watery mess and the dilapidation and the road and the one car broken. Not a cloud in the John Lennon blue sky and I am comfortable.

Around the corner on the corner is a non-descript bank building. The area is very spacious. Everything is away from everything else, but not in a demeaning way because no one likes each other, but rather because everybody likes walking. And here I take it, there’s not much else a’ doing.

The canal rushes by, and as I gaze into it, it will not stop moving. I turn regaining my balance and flipping my hair in one swift movement, and enter the bank’s south side entrance.

The tiled floor of the anteroom pervades my senses.

“Mottsee, Mottsee!”

Dad is there along with William along with his curly blonde locks squeezed into his favorite shirt. It is Dad’s favorite shirt.

“William, do you even like baseball?”

Dad looks at me inquisitively and smiles, the taste of William’s clothes determined by what he enjoys as a male: organized sports.

William giggles, raising the small paw that is his hand to his mouth, rambunctiously hopping, as if he is going to explode in a mess of sticky cuteness.

“MooOOooOOwee, MooOOOoowee, MOTTSEEeeeeeee!”

Dad and I can no longer contain ourselves, and we exchange smiles, letting our secrets out in laughter.

I bend down to William as the laughing is ceasing and take a better look at a universe that begins and ends at seams.

“For Chrissakes, he’s not even old enough to know what baseball is.”

Glimmering by the sun entering the paneled, glass walls. As if we are inside a bus stop. As if we are taking money out of this bank. Hanging plants hanging all over the place.

Dad hugs me and is glad I could have made it. William squiggles out of his hand, and before we realize why the lobby door closes, William is already outside and in the driver seat of a boxy green car, a sedan, with a license plate, with a yellow smiley face ball bobbing the antenna.

We get out the door and the car quivers, jolts forward, and William is off.