Author Archive: Christopher Waldrop

Lately I’ve been feeling uninspired, thinking maybe I should even quit writing, but then I read two things this week that hit me very profoundly. The first was the sidewalk poem written on the sidewalk near where I work by Poetry By Boots. I followed their Instagram account but don’t check it regularly enough to know Boots was in my neighborhood, and anyway there’s something wonderful about the surprise of spontaneously coming upon one of their messages.

The second thing is from Michelle oveat Rubber Shoes In Hellwho said,

I have a suggestion for for. Maybe it is more a request.
Make art.
Make a lot of art.
Sing songs and dance. Unless your knees hurt a lot like mine, then maybe not a lot of dancing.
Write stories and jokes and plays and poems. Write a funny message on your bathroom mirror.
Act or tell jokes. Draw pictures. Glue sparkly things to something dull.
Make good food. Try new things. Decorate a cake. Paint a lamp. Deconstruct something unusable and turn it into something else.
Find the art of others. Appreciate their art. Support them and celebrate them.

That last part really stood out for me because I’d been thinking about how artists need communities, not audiences necessarily, but other artists, or even those who will just support and encourage the making of art. And that was followed by this:

The house with a large LD42 on it caught my attention for several reasons. First, I’m always looking for interesting graffiti, and this was definitely interesting. The colors, though muted, still stand out on the gray background. That brings me to the second thing that got my attention: the background was a house. A small house of the type you don’t really find anymore, with just two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a small bath, a little front sitting area. Some would call it cozy. Most would probably call it cramped or claustrophobia-inducing. It’s in an area that’s not exactly gentrifying, but right on a major road, along the same stretch as a small used car dealership, a vape shop, a car wash place, and across the street from a gym with a rock climbing wall. And if you take the first turn you’ll find Pink Door Cookies.

Finally there’s the number 42, made famous by Douglas Adams as the answer to life, the universe, and everything, not to be confused with Adams’ The Meaning Of Liff, but that’s another story.

Zew42 is a local tagger and there’s even a 42 Crew who do a combination of graffiti and commissioned work, which, I think, is a common evolution for most street artists these days. At least the ones with talent and drive get recognized, even if they have to start by tagging. It’s a shame but one of the benefits of the internet is it makes it easier for these artists to be found and offered work. Graffiti has also become a lot less local which has given it a level of respect it didn’t always have.

It’s also a lucky thing I documented the graffiti when I did. The house is, as I said, in a commercial area, and no one’s lived there for a very long time. There may have been some legal wranglings over the ownership and value of the property, or maybe no one cared enough to bother with it. Maybe there have been plans to use it in an unlit cellar with no stairs or lights, in a filing cabinet in an unused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”

Anyway a day after I took the picture the house was bulldozed which seems like even more of a tribute to Douglas Adams than the number 42.

Werewolves come in many forms, as anyone who’s read Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book Of Were-Wolves or, for that matter, encountered one—or maybe is one—knows. Some are genuinely frightening. Some are more afraid of you than you are of them. That was the inspiration for this poem.

Werewolf

He, my best friend and I, were just bouncing
A fuzzy gray ball that had lost most
Of its bounce back and forth. The dog,
The big sheepdog who lived next door,
Was in its own yard, just on the periphery.
It was always there like the broken sink
In the vacant lot we went to sometimes
To look down at our houses. And then
It jumped at him, knocked him down, that
Engine in its throat humming loud enough
To be heard over him screaming. I ran.
I couldn’t tell where he was under the dog.
I’d been told not to run, that was wrong,
But what was I supposed to do? His mother
Was already coming out right at me
And I got behind her. The dog was gone.
And then he was gone.
The big blue car came
Out from behind the house and he went in,
Still screaming, a towel pressed to his face
With a stain starting to come through.

I heard enough from what his mother told mine
To see what happened, why the dog was gone.
Two men from the pound came and stood
On his porch and stared at themselves
In the man’s wraparound sunglasses. I’d seen him
Through the slits in the fence that kept his back
Yard from the neighborhood, so I could see him
In his white t-shirt, V-neck, telling them they
Were welcome to take the dog if they were willing
To come in and get it. And they said they’d be back.

That was the summer of the drought. Toward school’s
End I watched the corn come up emerald then turn gold
In a field just past the road my street disappeared into.
A year later the field itself was replaced by turnkey
Condominiums, every other one painted yellow.

That was the summer my quarter-Cherokee grandmother
Pulled down from the overhead crawlspace an old book
Of tribal stories and I learned that in the beginning
The wolf and the man used to sit together by the fire,
Until the dog came down from the hills and drove
The wolf away. Now the wolf lives alone in the hills.

I had to pee. My dog and I were out
Together in the summer night, following each
Other and finding our way in the dark by smell and sound.
If I went back inside I’d lose my night vision
So I dropped my shorts by a tree and let go, the stream
Reflecting the pieces of streetlamp that came through
The trees. I couldn’t see the mark I left but I knew
It was there. My territory. I was zipping back up
When I heard my dog barking in the street. I ran,
And there she was with the man who lived two doors up
Pinned against his car. She went after him like a stranger.
Dammit! You’d better get this dog away from me
Or I swear I’ll do somethin’! I’ll kill it! I swear!”
He swore and leaned at me while I grabbed my dog
And put my face in her ruff and pulled her back to me.
It was time to go in. The next day I was in my front yard
When he came home. He came over and didn’t look
At me, just said, Son, I wanna apologize about last night.
I’m sorry. I just wasn’t myself. You understand. He raised
His fist and something gold flew from it, sparkling
And I caught a butterscotch medallion. I understood.
I knew more than he realized, had known since the first
Week of summer when I was coming up the back steps
To water the bean plants I’d brought home from school
In a paper cup where they’d sprout and die. I heard
My father talking, telling someone who’d dropped by
Something so serious I knew I shouldn’t be listening.

He’d been drinking all day.
Maybe around sunset he decided he
Wanted fried chicken for supper and sent
His wife out to get it. We hadn’t been here
That long and didn’t know any of this
Was going on. She was gone too long to suit
Him or something, I really don’t know, but while
She was gone he decided he was going to kill
Her when she got back. She
Got away somehow and came down to our
House. We let her in and he stood there on
The porch and yelled and swore. The kids were
Gone that night, away at camp. I called
The cops and it took eight of them to get him
Into one of their cars. She stayed with us
That night and told us, It’s over, he
Won’t do this to me ever again. We
Didn’t know it had happened before.
We saw them next week at the pool
Holding hands. She smiled, but he wouldn’t
Look at us. I thought, Never again.
They’re lucky it wasn’t worse than it ended
Up being with all those guns he has in there.”

This was news to me. I thought all attics
Were the same, webby with years of old clothes
And moth dust and naked bulbs over rivers
Of cotton candy insulation. Now I saw the inside
Of the three-cornered roof with blue-steel bars
Marching along the walls like corrugated wallpaper
Or bare columns propping the whole structure.

On the dead-end street late in summer
The world was hot and thick all night. Not even the moon
Frozen outside my window could cool it. In drought
Wind in the leaves sounds like footsteps.
You wake up believing someone else is in the house
And the phone is in the other room or dead.
There at the yard’s edge the jingle of metal
On metal means tags for rabies, or just
House keys, someone else coming home. Across
The street is the opal of a doorbell
Or a cigarette of someone blindfolded.
The movement I see in the window is my hands
Washing the dishes, the reflection imposed on
The brown stubble of the yard. If I went out
Water on my hands would freeze and break.
I keep all the doors locked from inside.