Cracked Window

We had crowded into a building filled with tables filled with wine. As we — wife and another couple — snaked through lines of people and sampled the wares of artisanal vintners, rain began drumming on the roof like it does in Florida, not Oregon. The sound drowned out the chatter. Wind swept through open doors. Curtains of rain swirled sideways. Then came thunder, and people cheered. They cheered because thunder is rare in Portland and because enough wine makes violent storms a happy backdrop on an early spring Saturday.

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In February on a rare sunny day, I helped friends dig up and move a Japanese laceleaf maple from their backyard to their front. No chance the tree was going to survive the unavoidable mugging at our hands.

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Last night during a concert of earnest and ethereal harmonies, I struggled to keep another sound at bay.

Pressed against the stage at the Crystal Ballroom, five feet from Fleet Foxes‘ lead singer Robin Pecknold and bathed in his melodic voice, I occasionally heard in my head not him but the quavering wail of a toothless derelict.

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Growing up on a lake in Florida in the 1960s, I got to know the family next door. It took awhile, maybe because a vacant lot studded with orange trees separated our houses. Three generations under the same roof, they mainly spoke Italian, making them exotic curiosities.

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When I was a kid in the 1960s and lived in an old rented house (old by Florida standards — 1930s), I was convinced it had hidden spaces.

Off the living room was an alcove we called the library. One wall had a love seat and window looking out onto an orange grove. The other two walls had built-in, floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with books. The books belonged to the original owner, who had died.

Many times I removed books and searched the wood behind them for a secret button or other devices. I was sure there was a way to reveal a mysterious room leading who knows where. This mania stemmed from watching mystery movies, including The Phantom Empire, and reading Hardy Boys books.

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