The apartment wooden, a little rickety
for earthquakes , but appealing in
the bright sea-fronted air, overshadowed by
the recent concrete apartment next door,
the street outside busy, bright flags of
a Chevy dealership across the street
and the whafes of a taqueria
around the corner
there were five of them or six at times,
it wasn`t clear who was living there
of course there were those who
watched the TV and those who didn`t,
those who washed dishes and those
who didn`t
The landlady at the apartments next door
recalls she offered a room to one of them
cause he was spanish, or part, she herself
from an old California-Mexican family,
she saw them all as boys, though some
well into their twenties, drinking beer or wine
on the deck, in the sun, she had little to do
but sit and watch from above like a peering bird,
their girlfriends, generally blonde, their conversations
well, a little odd
Nixon always making his funny speeches,
with which she half agreed, the Pinto one of them
bought, modified engine, rumbling to a start or stop
late at night, and the kind of joy she felt when she
watched them, a kind of family of children
in a playground, so different from
the salary-bound tenants before,
she recalls the guitars ragged and accoustic that
would fade in the wind and reach her in snatches
of improvised joy and sadness.
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