Posted in Unexpected

Brotherhood

Posted on by tq1695

Ben, Pete, Ted, Brian
the boss was Jack
men
with men’s names – doing men’s work
printers
when printing was hot and dirty.
They called me son or boy
at 16 I could have been – and was.

Salty
their conversation peppered with blue anecdotes
and black words
they loved to make me blush
easily done at that age
but kind to the schoolboy working in his holidays
and Nobby
the fifth man they called him.
Nobby. Distracted and distant – not as productive
they carried him I now know.

On the third Monday Nobby is absent
“ hasn’t happened for a while,” said one
nothing further is added.
Tuesday’s absence draws dilute surprise
Wednesday! – never before apparently
at lunchtime Jack went to Nobby’s house
and found him. Dead. Drunk.

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.