On a Summer Night in Clairvoyance

I was surprised to hear a vehicle pull into the driveway. It was late, after midnight.

I was sitting on the porch we called the deck. Screened-in, which a deck would never be. I had Leonard Cohen on in the kitchen, speaker propped against the open window. Wheels against gravel, a little VW. I had no idea who it would be. I don’t remember even wondering. And I wasn’t high. It was just the rain and the music and, after all, I did this every night. Just sit, the rest of them asleep upstairs.

I could see him as he came forward, opening the wooden screen door. I knew him. A friend of my brother’s. I didn’t know him too well, he was younger. He had some records under his arm. We talked for a while about music. I had been away a few years. We might have had some tea.