By: Ryfe Greenwood

The bumpy aggregate sidewalk melded seamlessly into the receptive rubber outsole of my Jordan 6’s. Leaving modernity’s memorial to concrete, aka the parking garage, I crossed a nondescript street then waited for a young man to cross in front of me. (When I attended here, he must have been in fifth grade?) Ofc, I said this to myself lest the Jesuits find out I was on campus and attempt to collect that mean sum of greenbacks, they claim I still owe them. Owe them.

According to the news a group of enslaved people’s descendants claim the Jesuits owe them reparations. Owe them. Reparations. “Something done or given as amends or satisfaction.” Aside from the claim being ludicrous, actually though, if we are a people who believe in justice, how are we to measure an historic injury? The justice we have [unequal] access to, is a shadow of the true, substantive form. For me it is a question of identity. What is our system of justice capable of being? Is it trying to be the real justice from God? Or a flawed, second-rate institution?

I didn’t have long to ponder this subject. After waiting for the oversized fifth grader to pass I was immediately enamored with the image in my eyes. White-petaled splendor shouted at me from the midst of a plain landscaping bed. Two arboreal denizens of diminutive size, gleamed with a snowlike mimic. As if beckoning their unadorned neighbors to join in the Spring jubilee by hearkening to the midwest’s cruel winter. This was not winter. This was mid-April in St. Louis, where the increased clemency revealed slightly more kindness in the locals. For a minute I was lost… mmm, white petals.. I forgot about C’s nap time and the chores awaiting my arrival at home… petals dangling like fine earrings.. I forgot about the rent. I left my corporeal form and drifted well past the billows of Marijuana smoke enshrouding the gateway city. My aversion to people with my penchant for lonely walks were dually stayed. As all I wanted was to stay.

Pushing an infant in a stroller meant I couldn’t let myself get lost in my reverie, like the kid in Shel Silverstein’s ‘Falling Up’. Remaining mentally tethered to the current plane was not only necessary, but probably the recommended course if I didn’t want to be reported to CPS as a derelict father. Skirting the cul-de-sac on the hard curvilinear sidewalk, took me underneath that oddly shaped Black Locust tree. It appeared to have a long-standing beef with the Simon Recreation Center, adjacent left, or the passersby. Or the tree was phototropic- swooping into an open patch of ether to be touched by sunlight. Whether the tree regretted this is unclear. Dead, fingerlike branch tips indicated a losing battle with the defensive orb around the rec center, simultaneously jarring my inner lover of healthy landscapes while provoking the powerless tree hugger into devising a pruning plan. All these years later I decided I still loved that Black Locust, despite the deadwood. Like me it was still here, had some issues, but that was comforting enough.

Passing the discomforting bronze statue of a nude man, forever stuck in mid-discus throw, my Persol’s were processing the next frame of images. Just so happened a tour group of prospective students with their parents were on their way to getting ambushed by the beloved Black Locust. Down the path, under more trees, soaking in the sunlight and sideways glances from current students, I trotted. On my left-

-pardon the interruption. The scribbling of this entry was unexpectedly paused due to an urgent matter in the kitchen involving PVC and water. If the subsequent tone and meter of this post are disunified with what precedes, blame the faceless, faulty plumbing installer. Ere I attempt to write, distractions invariably accost my schedule. Refusing to hail the landlord, not for pride, mind, I cleared the lone shelf below the sinks, replaced a pipe that had somehow detached itself from necessity and functionality. Finally applying a ratchet strap to keep the assemblage, well… assembled.

Where were we?–Ah, yes.-

-a large aqueous flesh magnet was ensnaring souls. Behind a trio of erect Baldcypresses loomed a dungeon of knowledge I had once loved. Man, I spent volumes of minutes over volumes of pleasure and scholastic endeavor. (A conversation comes to mind… he and I shared a class on some banal topic. He was in the ROTC program. At the time he was double-majoring in something and Russian. Because, according to him, Russia was our biggest geopolitical threat. Like who selects their majors based on the criteria of geopolitical threats!? Ha! Maybe patriots do. I wouldnt know. Wonder if he still believes that. He can’t, surely. Still, I fondly remember the earnest, unsmiling arrangement of his face. It became a hobby of mine to crack jokes with the sole intent of taking pleasure in my being able to alter his face on-command.) I loved that library. Then I stopped paying tuition so I became unworthy of touching the University’s books.

Assuming a catty-corner trajectory between the pool and library, there stood my objet d’art: Cupple’s House. Vivaldi’s spring concerto accompanied me past the nonstandard Pine trees,-(What!? When did they cut the Ginkgo tree down??)- up the granite steps to an anticipatory selfie with C for mom. Here-here at the threshold of this beautiful old edifice, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata took over at the threshold as one of the five hundred pound doors effortlessly permitted my entry.

I never feel so alive than being inside a dying house. Walnut, Oak, memories, and sadness dominated my senses. Here my transmission must cease, fore what happened today in that house, what happened every time I entered 1889, is sacred.

This would be the last time I entered Cupple’s House. Goodbye mansion, goodbye me.