Baltimore in Late November

Tik-tok. Doors shut behind my pace through the city by the sea. “Tomorrow is garbage day” I recall.  Soon everyone will put their bags by the street and rats will celebrate all night. And the sea will lick the sides of a sprawling city, taking what was left behind and returning what was on other shores. Tik-tok.  I like walking at night, even when my dog would rather be on the bed, taking my space for a few minutes. 

Like women, or drunken men, cities look different at night. Gloriously unknown, capricious and trembling with the primordial fear that night brings.  Like gentle tremor on the body of a woman, or that of a child with high fever, the smell of the city is also different at night.  You feel the long day in the smell the breaks that newly parked cars give off.  European cities are different; they smell of incessant chatter, fast walking shoes on old stones.  They smell of old men walking their old dogs and smoking the last cigarette of the night.  They have the past scent of patience, European cities.  They are like women who have seen enough.  The city by the sea is like a man who wants to prove, once again.

I stop when my dog stops to listen or just when he has enough.  His mind is back home, and the prospect of placing his head on the dulcet pillow, for a few minutes while I am brushing my teeth.  But the walk at night, especially when it is raining slowly, when it’s raining patiently, is a wonderful walk.  I open my shirt to catch a few rogue rain drops.  My glasses are almost foggy, wet, and slide upon my nose.  I do not clean the glass -- the raindrops make my view a kaleidoscopic outlook.  The city now looks like it has had too much of that brandy they serve at Fells Point.  As I walk, as I stop, the city, now in circles, hexagons and isosceles moves in front of me. As if I have had too much of that sweet brandy they serve at the port when the beer is sold out, when Lucie looks for someone to take home. Tik-tok, “why don’t you come with me big boy, I will tell you a funny story.”  But most nights, Lucie goes home alone.

And the doors shut in a rhythm peculiar to row-houses.  They seem to know when the door on their left will close and the one on the right is about to open.  A harmonious rhythm to my walk along those interminable brick homes, which now are shaped as hexagons in my kaleidoscope.  I realize that the rain is now heavy, and that my chest is wet.  My dog shakes the rain off misting my pants of that rain that now smells like a wet dog.  And I take the turn, next a row-house, just when a bold man, opulent and slow, puts out his trash can.  Aluminum trash cans make a peculiar sound when slammed upon wet concrete.  And he shuts his door without grace.

I find my keys, wait for the dog to shake one more time, take my shoes off and get into my apartment. All is dark and unknown, and I realize that my glasses are now opaque.  I clean them slowly while the dog shakes again and sprinkles the hallway wall of that rain that still smells like the city by the sea.  I go in, find a bottle of beer behind the soy milk carton, and head out to the balcony.  Tik-tok. Now I can watch the city without getting wet.  And, while I do so, my dog will jump on the bed.  My wet dog that now smells like the long walk he did not want to take

Tik-tok.

September 22, 2011

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013