Silence is delicious after the companionship of constant street noise below. I wrap up in it, know how short-lived the quiet will be.
Perhaps silence is what awakened me, teaming up with a full bladder and the tendency to run hot between 2:30 am and 5:00 am. The mattress is sagging toward the middle where our bodies meet. Uncharacteristic silence plays to the background of gentle popping of floorboard heaters and the rhythm of James’ breathing, slow and deep. I wait. For what? Noise.
The heavy sound of silence interrupts my slumber. I lie still, hoping to not wake. The partiers from the Cannery have finally passed out. Thank God.
In the stillness of the pre-dawn morning, a fly is trapped between the window and storm glass or maybe inside the lampshade…sounds like a jackhammer. After falling asleep in my book, I awoke out of a dream, where I was yelling at a construction crew several stories up– who would dare to chisel into the frozen concrete at this hour?! I’ve grown accustomed to the daytime commotion of real builders and progress across Main Street and behind the Baxter—hotels and high end condos being raised with cranes, hammers, saws, bulldozers.
The hum of traffic is beginning. The clock reads 5:30. Diesel trucks mainly, those spawn of satan, destroyers of fossil fuels, peace and clean air, prove more civil at this hour than when I last tuned them out at 2 am.
I no sooner wonder when the garbage truck will pummel the night, and I hear it approaching down the alley. The high-pitched airbrake, creating a wheezing series of squeaks which punctuate the resolute calm. Then acceleration, a grind of gears, hydraulics… then the clattering of hundreds of glass wine and beer bottles cascading from the metal dumpster below Ted’s and the Bacchus into the truck. The truck makes its way across the night, remarkably audible after streets come between us. Dumpsters slam and bang with thunder of garbage collection, back up beep, beep, beep, beep…