Stargirl 02 - Love, Stargirl

Author:* [*, ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2012-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

THE CLOCK ON THE MORNING LENAPE BUILDING

Must clocks be circles?

Time is not a circle.

Suppose the Mother of All Minutes started

right here, on the sidewalk

in front of the Morning Lenape Building, and the parade of minutes that followed-each of them, say, one inch long headed out that way, down Bridge Street. Where would Now be? This minute?

Out past the moon?

Jupiter?

The nearest star?

Who came up with minutes, anyway?

Who needs them?

Name one good thing a minute’s ever done.

They shorten fun and measure misery.

Get rid of them, I say.

Down with minutes!

And while you’re at it-take hours

with you too. Don’t get me started

on them.

Clocks-that’s the problem.

Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours.

Clocks strap us into their shape.

Instead of heading for the nearest star, all we do is corkscrew.

Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel

riders of us all, lug us round and round

from number to number,

dice the time of our lives into tiny bits

until the bits are all we know

and the only question we care to ask is

“What time is it?”

As if minutes could tell.

As if Arnold could look up at this clock on

the Lenape Building and read:

15 Minutes till Found.

As if Charlie’s time is not forever stuck

on Half Past Grace.

As if a swarm of stinging minutes waits for Betty Lou to step outside.

As if love does not tell all the time the Huffelmeyers need to know.

My mother raved over it. She put it on the refrigerator. “Wait,” she said, and left. She came back with her wristwatch and a hammer. We went out back. “You want to do it?” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

I laid the watch on the bottom step. I hit it with the hammer. The crystal cracked, that was all.

“Here,” she said, taking the hammer from me. She wound up like Paul Bunyan and down came the hammer and to pieces went the watch. Minutes flew off like fleas.

I did the same to my watch. We got a garden trowel and buried the pieces. We took down all the clocks in the house and dumped them in the trash.

“I don’t have to tear down Calendar Hill, do I?” I said.

“No,” she said. “That’s real time.”

August 30

Two more porch lights have joined the Cantellos’ along the way to Calendar Hill. Curious.

September 1

I sliced an orange in half.

In the back of our backyard sits a barbecue pit. It came with the house. We haven’t used it yet. It’s made of brick. The top row of bricks is almost as high as me. That’s where I placed an orange half, sliced side up.

September 3

Margie herself was sweeping the floor today.

“Where’s Alvina?” I asked her.

She leaned on the broom, sighed, wagged her head. “I fired her.”

(Can you be “fired” from a job that pays you in donuts?)

“What happened?” I said.

“Fighting with those boys again. I told her too many times already. Don’t bring that stuff into my shop. One more time and you’re gone. She can’t say I didn’t warn her.”

“She’s a pip,” I said.

“Tell me about it.” She stared at me. “So…you want a job?”

“Not this one.

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