See Through You

Sun­day morn­ing is the right time for North Beach
across the bridge from Cor­pus Christi. Sun­day
morn­ing brings the truth to a place full of Sat­ur­day night
fan­tas­ti­cal absur­di­ties fueled and cre­ated and sus­tained,
des­per­ately, by what­ever the drug of the day is, or cheap wine.

I am twelve and fol­low­ing my father along the shoddy shore. We parked
and we are head­ing for TexMex at a name­less diner. Skirt­ing
out­stretched palms, eyes whiter, bright­ened falsely by the sooted cheeks.
We eat per­fect tor­tillas and enchi­ladas and walk back tomy father’s grey Thun­der­bird.
Dark now, the hands are gone, more sin­is­ter tasks at hand, I imag­ine.
We go home, not talk­ing about the odd­ness of this place, or the dan­ger. It is part
of nor­mal. My brother lives in these places in other places, under build­ings, around
cor­ners, hand to mouth, hand to vein. Maybe we are look­ing for him.

Sun­day morn­ing breaks harsh, like thrown plates, over North Beach.
I found my brother, thirty-five years later. He is safe, squared in a 6 x 8,
three squares a day, squared away. And I am still look­ing for him
among the ruins of refur­bished North Beach. It looks worse since the improve­ments:
imported sand, day­glo curios; it’s obvi­ously dis­hon­est, but in a sin­is­ter way, dif­fer­ent
from the hon­est lies involved in rob­bing your car if you leave it open
there along the “beach”. The motels empty at an erratic pace, old time drunks
emerge from old time haunts. It is not quaint, but it is hon­est, this Sun­day morning.