I see today with a newsprint frayDuncan is the picture of Kerouac-cool today. He's the only one that didn't venture into the depths of retail hell yesterday in search of jeans that weren't shredded and on life support. Every five to seven years I can get the boys to buy some new goods but it's a tough sell until their wallets, phones and cash start to disappear as they're out and about, thanks to the holes holding up their pockets and revealing all their secrets (no, not those secrets. We don't let it come to that.)
My night is colored headache-grey
Don't wake me with so much.
The ocean machine is set to nine
I'll squeeze into heaven and valentine
My bed is pulling me, gravity
Daysleeper.
Not Duncan though. He travels light and holds his ground. A pack of Belmonts, an ancient moleskin notebook with the stub of a pencil stuck in the middle and his scratched-up but spotless aviator sunglasses. Matches from restaurants he doesn't look like he can afford but can over most people I have met. Two keys. One for the front door of our house and one for his truck. A black elastic looped around one wrist to tie back his hair when it's necessary to do so. His phone. That's it. I've never seen him with anything else, ever.
I have Carte Blanche to read his notebook whenever I want, since we always seem to be sharing the same page in life anyway. He is a poet by definition and a tech by necessity only he is far more seasoned and useful than Dalton, if we are comparing. Dalton is much more pie-in-the-sky and in awe of the world and doesn't get a lot accomplished, though he tries. To his credit he will drop everything and hit the road just like his big brother and so that's how I wound up playing his unofficial real estate agent for so long and why it made so much sense for him to move into the house when August decided to play musical addresses over the winter.
They are firmly on Team Jacob, if we are keeping score, but we aren't so that's okay too. I met Dalton (we call him TJ, if you want to read more) through Jacob and then later on when they met Ben they defected quickly and wound up on Team Benjamin. But Ben doesn't actually have a team because he's an independent door to door salesman, okay?
And Duncan didn't technically need a job because he's paid his dues and got a little lucky too and he and Andrew discovered they could go around the world with backpacks and knowledge and they did it for a long time and now they have settled down a little more. I think age does that, though Duncan said he has seen the world three times over and now he just wants to be home with us and that makes me really warm when he says it like that and I really enjoy having TJ living here now, it's like yet another piece of the puzzle has fallen into place and at some point here we are finally going to see the Big Picture.
Because I still have no idea what it is.