Unlucky

“So you’re from San Francisco?” Seymor asked me.

“Who told you that?”

“Erla did.”

I told him I was. It surprised me to hear that him and Erla talked. I couldn’t imagine it, and I couldn’t fathom when and where, since I was in the house all day.

“Seymor,” I said.

He kept whittling.

“Erla told me to ask you for work.”

“You want to work construction?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t do construction anymore,” he kept whittling.

“Is that all? You don’t know of anything?”

He told me about a church that needed repairs and said I could use his tools.

“It’ll be replacing clapboard, window frames, maybe some new steps,” he stopped whittling, “you won’t need a lot of experience. You ever used a table saw? That’s not important. You can learn.” He paused, “you can’t escape the past just by starting a new job across the country. I just want to tell you that now.” For the first time he looked at me dead in my eyes.

“Can’t I?”

“You can’t.”

I nodded because I didn’t want to agree or get caught up.

“You have to sit with it. For you that means the heartbreak.” Once again I wondered how he knew about that and when Erla might’ve told him. “Think of that girl till there’s no more thoughts. Sit with her memory. Honor yourself by owning your past.”

Erla swung the door open, “just give him the job dammit Seymor. And leave him alone about all of your sitting. It’s not good for anyone, not you, not me, not Corin adn you know its not good for Maria or Eleanore.”

She ushered me in. “Don’t take advice from an unlucky man. You have to understand that he lost his wife last year.”

We were back inside. It was warm and Erla made me warm tea with cream. I sat in the big comfy chair in the corner with the orange light that more than kept the evening sky at bay. I looked out at Seymor in his thin shirt; even in the dark of the evening I could focus on his knotty, always-moving hands. Erla talked to me while she brought me a blanket and then made herself a place of her own in the neighboring chair.

“Seymor will tell you you have to journey within to overcome pain, but it’s a lie. He doesn’t know it’s a lie because unlucky men are the best liars. What he’s doing is glorified self-flagulation – that’s all it really is, guilt. There’s no truth inside, Corin. You don’t get the truth by sitting still. You want a new life? Then you have to make it and make it true. Give it new meaning. It’s a choice. If you love life enough to take your identity into your own hands, then no matter what mask you wear, you’ll be ten times more honest than the whiners and the meloncholic poets.”

She took a breath.

“Seymor is an unlucky man, he lost the one he loved, and he’ll tell you love only comes once and life is all dirt if you can’t hold onto it. But you and me know better than that, Corin. We know life isn’t a death grip on things you care for – the seasons themselves show us that. You can’t hold onto Summer forever, you can’t even hold onto Winter. Even if you could, what’s that worth? Nothing.”