Bob

Window Man

I never had the trouble with my heart. I had a way about me, what they call a Joe Deliver, on top of it all the time, ready to go. Made me a piece of change doing work no one had the guts for. High rise windows, never thought about it, just climbed on the scaffold, down I went. Had me a wind, meant nothing to me—solid as a rock, working the big squeegee.

Then one day, out of the blue, this sweet little breeze blowing, I don’t know what happened. I’m flying, like a piece of nothing. Don't know what happened, where I was. One minute doing my job, next spread-eagle in the air, not thinking, just this, this thing. Then bang, flat on my back! Shoots through my chest and head and legs, and I’m not breathing. What am I? All I saw: flat gray nothing, and it’s ringing, loud. I remember this bird, a dirty sea gull, flapping through the gray, like to drive you crazy. It went on and on. I remember it, if it was there or not.

But somewhere in my head, where it’s not ringing, I must have seen the scaffold blowing loose up there. I see it clear enough now, one end smashed through a window. I didn’t know who I was for a week, not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t give a nickel to been awake. I wake up nights screaming. Not calling out or nothing, screaming. I’m there, I’m nothing. I’m floating, I’m flying, and I’m nothing, dirt in the wind. Sometimes, it’s like I died, and this here is a dream. Or I’m a ghost.

Elaine, she sleeps in the living room. She’s a good fellow to stay, I know that, drives me if I need to be driven—otherwise, the bus, like you. One minute, solid as a rock, working the squeegee, next spread-eagle in the air, like something God threw away. I can’t get over that. That’s why I come here, back here: get the head on straight. Get a little something for the head.

I got to get over that, but I’m thinking, maybe that’s not something you get over. Hit the wall before I hit the dirt, that’s what they say—can’t prove it by me. Maybe that saved me. Doc says so. I survived is what he means. Now I’ve got to deal with it—my problem in a nutshell. I don’t feel saved is what I’m saying. You can take that to the bank. See if it pays you any interest.

What I was before this happened: without this. I had none of this.