The Blog of citysky

I think a good book is one that takes you back into yourself. Good or bad. it takes you where you used to walk and lets you relive that time and place.

I just finished reading a book called "Knockemstiff" - I hope that spelling is right - but it's just intertwined stories of some people who live in Knockemstiff, OH. They lived in a hollow - much like I did growing up The grinding poverty, the sad dirty lives brought back memories for me.

There was always a cigarette hanging off someones lip. No need to introduce yourself - just about every guy in town had his name stitched on the pocket of his shirt. Either a grease monkey or a delivery boy. A good catch was the guy who did set ups down at the bowling alley. You could get free games if you went out with him.

One guy I remember in particular. His name was Taylor Bray. He lived down the street from us. It worked like this. The lower into the Hollow you were, the less you were worth. We lived above Taylor so that made us some better.

Anyway he lived in this old house that used to be a general store. It had been closed for years when he moved in and he slept upstairs as the 1st floor was about gutted. He had an old mattress, beer cans everywhere and always, always a lit cigarette in his mouth. I remember heading down to see him once in awhile. My mother or someone having pissed me off. He would always mumble about being careful where you stepped around there. Your foot could go right through the ceiling if you weren't careful.

We'd sit on the floor and bum cigarettes off each other flicking the ashes into an empty beer can as dusk settled in. I remember the window open across the room - no blinds or curtains, paint edging the glass where someone didn't give enough of a damn to tape it off. It was open just a few inches, I remember it being so cold but Taylor was embarrassed that the room smelled so musty. Sometimes we'd smoke some pot if we had any and then lay back on the mattress to stare up at the water stained ceiling. Laughing at what we thought we saw there.

One day there were police cars outside Taylor's house and it wasn't the usual picking him up on some warrant. An ambulance pulled up. We all stood around watching and whispering. Wondering what was going on. Finally a cop came back out and told us to move away as the ambulance attendants wheeled out a gurney with a figure on it - Taylor. Seems he'd fallen though the 2nd floor and then down through the 1st and been impaled on some pipes in the basement.

After Taylor was gone the old house sat there empty. It was a place little kids would dare each other to go into and one that mother's threatened to whoop some ass if they did. When I left that town several years later it was still there. Paint gone off gray wooden siding. The roof caved and leaking. Trash on the little concrete steps going up to the side door.

I remember the room he lived in at the top of the stairs was painted blue. Robin's egg blue. A funny color for a guy like Taylor to paint his room. Maybe just once in his life he wanted to look at something beautiful before he slipped off into oblivion each night - like me - hoping he wouldn't wake up tomorrow and have to look past the blue.

I never forgot Taylor and twenty years later I named my son after him.