Our love is simple. It’s a crystal glass on a black marble counter. It’s a shopping trolley left out in the rain that accidentally gets clean. It’s the twelve bar blues.
Mother shakes salt over our potatoes. They don’t need salt, but then again, maybe they do. The golden rule in our house is that things can always get better. Mother asks me what I’m going to do today and I say that I’ll probably put the car up onto blocks and take a look at it. She nods, and she doesn’t have to say that it’s good I’m doing this because I know this is what she’s thinking. Ever since Father slipped off the road on a rainy afternoon and went down into a valley because of faulty brake cables, I have taken it as my responsibility to make sure our new car is safe. Father was one thing, but I don’t want Mother going down into a valley as well.
So we finish our breakfast, which to you might sound strange, but Mother believes that breakfast should be the big meal and besides I’ve gotten very used to eating meat and potatoes first thing in the morning so I clear away our plates and then go out to the garage with the big auto manual I borrowed from the library and start jacking up the car so I can slide underneath it on a little trolley I made and make sure everything’s running okay and is clean. Mother has her musician friends over this morning, which is why I make myself scarce, because Mother’s musician friends are also members of her jazz band, and they don’t like any “extraneous noise” interrupting them when they’re playing.
They’re a three piece. Mother on piano, one musician friend on drums, and the other on double bass. They build songs, this is what they often tell me when they finally take a break after one good long jam and come out to the garage to smoke and maybe have a cup of something. They are powerful, my Mother’s jazz band. They are pure. Like our love.
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