Rico Cleffi


Hold the weight

On my nightly forays up onto the roof
I used to have some semblance of faith 
the fire escape ladder would hold my weight
now, rust has overtaken it, and me

The wobbly creak extends from the railing 
right through my bones
or maybe vice versa
Best not to concern oneself with origins at such hours	
when control is not even a remote possibility
Up and down that fire escape, 
I used to take the clandestine sojourns with ease
now I’m not so sure either the fire escape 
or my own rickety edifice can hold the weight
at some point the brick can no longer hold its own sooty red,
the stuff just slides right off itself
so many runny eggs sliding off a plate
I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole building erodes into itself
You hear about these things sometimes
on the news, in the paper
in a stray bit of shittalk in front of the liquor store
Crazy, they say, 
sometimes the whole goddamn thing crumbles right down



ceremonial 

I hear little as they speak, sobbing
awkwardly relating memories
funny anecdotes
only the pain conveyed
what do you say in these moments?

Not supposed to happen, someone says
So young, another person says 
Tragic, another says

Unable to focus on anything other than the box
sitting there, a reminder of the gravity of it all

When the parents run to the box,
collapsing onto the thing, 
howling, moaning
I want to join them, 
throw myself onto the boy no longer a boy

I have nothing to offer you but my grief
trade my diminished light 
for yours, extinguished 

Nothing good can come of this

They carry it out now, carrying him,
the box, a terrible finality to all this

Later, in an unmemorable restaurant
I slurp noodles
tasting nothing aside from my tongue
the earthy rot of my gums
I think of the boy no longer boy,
he will never know this experience

How many years affixed to this skull?
flesh regenerated how many times?
held on by what?

Times like this, best to be busy
I have no job to return to
I make for the library archive 
commiserate with history
a trusty partner
always faithful to the script 

Evaluating my request,
a librarian tells me 
we’ll have to fetch that one from down in the morgue

No, not that word, it floors me
When she turns to put the order in
I duck out, walk in a direction I don’t recognize
hoping to get lost in some living-feeling place,
anywhere not here



vintage static

Quite pleasant, the tour 
the Vintage Radio and TV Museum
crammed therein, all manner of telegraphs
radios, early cylinder players
we tap out some morse code
dot dot dash and all that
duck into an ancient  phone booth
peep some of the first tv shows 
running on some of the first tvs 
hear the sound, the warmth of tubes, transistors
crackling as the guide flips the switch on
1936 model, listen to that, he nods
a ballgame in progress, 
live yet sounding the way ballgames might have sounded
in the way back when
a bit of the feel of the flea market 
the Old Weird America, still around,  
though already receded by the time I was born 

We are glad we took the detour off the highway 
adding an hour to our already long drive back
I pay the six bucks, buy a mug

A view of the way things once were, preserved, quaint

And there, halfway out the door, I spot on a coat rack, 
a baseball cap with the words USA freedom
and a confederate flag

what do you do in such a situation, knock the thing over?

call out the lady who sold me the mug?
I run the variable through my head—
maybe it was left there by a member of the large group
stopped in only to use the bathroom
maybe it belonged to the tour guide

we are out the door by now, no one else notices it

A view of the way things once were, and still are, 
preserved, not-so-quaint
banal in its evil, evil in its banality

I balked, man, I balked

How T-Bone became a god among men

               Floodlights from the empty football stadium are so intense I can barely see T-Bone walk up from a baseball diamond. T-Bone uses the lights as a prompt to talk about his high school football days, not that it takes much to get him going. I stretch out over the steel utility crate chained to a fence, try to keep the light out of my eyes, tune T-Bone out.
               “I ever tell you about that season I was MVP? They had me in the paper and everything.”
               He has told me this before, I don’t bother to remind him. T-Bone is alright when he doesn’t get caught up in his nostalgia trip. We meet here to get high. I take the risk of copping and hook him up at a slight mark-up. A lot of people don’t like to deal with the guy because he pulls this sanctimonious bit. Doesn’t help that he strong-armed the wrong people early on. He’s not really cut out for this life, though honestly I’m not sure he’s much cut out for any life at all.
               T-Bone stops talking enough for us to fix ourselves. I take my turn, watching my breath mist up with those harsh lights as a backdrop. The mist brings a small sense of validation, a reminder that I have some impact on the world.
               “Don’t the lights look warm?”
               They don’t look warm to me at all. The only lights that seem warm are the ones in all the buildings surrounding the empty athletic fields. I’m feeling warm enough from the dope, but I’m looking forward to Larry’s Inn tonight. Larry keeps extra sleeping bags in the basement of the building where he works as a porter. There’s a utility shower and he has access to the building’s laundry room. Larry isn’t a junkie but he likes to get high once in a while. All I have to do is hook him up with a taste and I can crash there. He enjoys the company and likes the idea of having guests, just like when you have an actual home. I tell T-Bone he can come with me. Larry will tolerate anyone, even a social liability like him.
               “I got a bedspread stashed behind the tennis shed. I set up in the baseball dugout.”
               I tell T-Bone, “It’s going to snow tonight. They are expecting several feet.” This doesn’t seem to register with him.
               “You see this week’s specials?” T-Bone pulls a supermarket circular out of a plastic bag. “Ideal Market, mangos five for four dollars. Tuna, eighty-nine cents a can. Some great specials, they got.”
               “That place is usually a rip off.”
               “I picked this circular up when I was there earlier. I boosted a ton of shit. You like fruit roll-ups? Got a box right here.”
               I’ve seen T-Bone’s face in the blown-up surveillance camera stills posted in the entrance of the neighborhood supermarkets. How this guy keeps out of jail is anybody’s guess. Jail undergirds everything in this world. As American as football, always underneath the surface, ready to swallow you up at any moment. I wonder if T-Bone is a snitch, it just doesn’t make sense that he’s never been locked up.
               “That fuckin’ stadium. It’s like they keep the lights on to mock me. I ever tell you about the game against City Tech? We crushed them. I took the record in rushing that game. That was the one put me over the top. Before I got injured and the doctors turned me into an addict.”
               He always stresses that part of his story. I heard from Luke, who used to run with T-Bone that he embellishes his biography. That he was a promising player but he fucked up on his own and probably would have fizzled out early in his college career. Who knows? I could give a shit one way or another.
               “It’s funny how things turned out,” T-Bone says, as he starts doing jumping jacks. “Two people as different as us would never have hung out back in high school. Did you even play ball? What were you doing back then?”
               “No, I never played ball. I never went to school. I was on my way to becoming who I am today. Just like you were. Difference is, I knew who I was.” I’m not in the mood to have him throw the trophies and the stats in my face right now. I couldn’t care less about all the cheerleader girlfriends he claims to have had or the stories about where they are now.
               Jogging in place now, T-Bone jabs his fists into the air. “Bring it on! Let me see those snowflakes try and get a piece of me. Did I tell you about the cop who shook me down last week outside the stadium? He recognized me. Let me off with a warning.”
               “Sure he did.”
               “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I could go for one of those snack bar burgers. What say we break the lock and cook up some eats?” Pretending he’s got the pigskin tucked under his arm, T-Bone darts off full speed. He runs to the closed snack bar, loops back. Soaked with sweat and panting, he says, “I lost my virginity behind that snack bar.”
               “That explains why you are so winded.”
               “Aw, shut up. A lot of people lost their virginity behind that snack bar. Many of them with assistance from me. Did I ever tell you about Cindy Diaz?”
               “I don’t want to know about Cindy Diaz.”
               “Let’s play pass. What do you say? I know where they keep the footballs. I’ll teach you some combinations: The Flying Dutchman. The Steely Dan. The Sky Low Low.”
               Thankfully a passing bus drowns T-Bone out. Traffic’s still pretty thick, it’s not that late yet. “Listen man, you can sleep in the fields any time. Tonight there’s a warm sleeping bag for you in Larry’s building.”
               “Thanks for the offer, but I need to be here at this point in my life. I wake up with the rhythm of the athletic fields. Joggers at sunrise. Delivery guys playing soccer at six in the morning. You really get a sense of how the whole universe unfolds watching all the people going to work, all the kids going to school.” He runs off again, returns a few minutes later carrying a ladder. “Check this out. This puppy was on the snack bar roof.” He props the ladder against the stadium fence, which has got to be about 15 feet tall. The ladder puts him about five feet from the top. From there he somehow musters the strength to hurl himself over the fence. T-Bone makes this clumsy plummet, leading with his barrel chest. His body straightens out midair and he lands feet-first, one foot twisting underneath his weight. He picks himself up, runs toward the field, quickly falling over. Up once more, he charges head-on into a padded training sled. Upon hitting the thing, T-Bone is knocked onto his back.
               “T-Bone? You ok?”
               No response. I think about how I could possibly get over the fence to help him. I’m practically nodding off. There’s no way I can climb that fence, even with the ladder. All the gates are padlocked. How would I get out? I call his name a few more times, start walking away.
               “The champ is back, the man, the myth, the legend. T-Bone is back, baby!” He’s up again, running on his twisted foot. “Come on in! I’ll teach you some moves!”
               “Listen, man. You’ve got to get out of there.” Befitting the situation, the snow comes on with severity. The sound of the sharp flakes reminds me of roaches scurrying across tinfoil.
               “I’m good,” T-Bone yells. “I’ve never been better!”
               I grab the ladder, pushing it up along the fence, making my best effort to throw it over the top. The ladder catches on one of the fence posts. About half the thing dangles over the top of the fence, too high to reach.
               “Don’t worry, man, I’m staying here.” Running again, T-Bone shouts all sorts of football jumbo I don’t understand: Lateral wishbone, pincers maneuver! This is too stupid, too cliché. If this was some buddy movie where the guys return to their hometown years later and the football star makes one last go of it, T-Bone might ascend the goal post, shout platitudes about valor, get felled by lightning. Instead he’s shirtless, sopping wet, running in circles, falling facedown in the snow. I resent this guy making his problems my problems. I have better things to do than watch some asshole playing Joe Namath get buried alive in a snowstorm.
               T-Bone molds snow into a football-shaped lump, squats into an imaginary huddle. “34-78-34-23, hut-hut-huttt!” Among the geology of scars across his torso, I can see his ripply muscles glistening in the floodlights. A transformation takes place. He looks less like T-Bone the washed-out junkie and more like T-Bone the gladiator ready to wreak vengeance upon the world.
               He looks directly at me, says, “You see this? We are the champions! We are gods now!” He launches the snowy football in an immaculate arc across the field. In the thrall of slow-motion replay, I witness the ball, somehow gathering snow as it travels, expanding into something much larger, missile-like as it sails upward into the floodlights, finally disappearing into the squall.
               I see it, T-Bone in his splendor, as he wants the world to see him once again. “I see it, T-Bone, I see it. It’s beautiful. C’mon, man, let’s go.”
               T-Bone runs across the field, toward his football, disappearing into the whiteness. The snow is over my ankles now. I can’t see more than five feet in front of me anymore. I make my way through the onslaught toward Larry’s building, glad to have seen T-Bone make something of himself.



Rico Cleffi’s work has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Flatbush Review, Urban Omnibus, the Village Voice and elsewhere. He edits the radio-issues website, Frequency and Amplitude (freq-amp.com). Originally from New Bedford, Mass, he lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he works against futility, against encroaching automation, as a proofreader and copyeditor.

 
 

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