Newspapering with Charlie

You always knew he’d be there, hat askew, 
a street light cone fanned out from overhead, 
and pouring quarts of oil.  You never knew 
if Charlie’s car – whichever Ford, whatever tire tread 
remained - would make his route without a tow. 
(A tow would take his earnings in a wink.) 
You couldn’t blame him if he took it slow, 
the way he talked, the way he smoked.  You’d think --- 
to watch him --- that time didn’t matter much, 
as if not caring made the most of it. 
The supervisor liked to check his watch. 
But Charlie liked to hang around a bit, 
and light one up, and stand off to the side, 
as one by one the drivers came around 
with worn down stories.  Charlie let them slide, 
if truth was stretched a bit beyond the bounds 
of ‘might have been’.  He’d let the talk unfold, 
then wink atop an enigmatic grin 
at something some guy said --- his coffee cold, 
a cigarette burned nearly to the skin. 
All hands were glazed in oil and nicotine 
and glistened when they had a point to make, 
or paused to understand, or flashed obscene 
gestures in the laughing give and take, 
as things resolved themselves within the smoke 
and words, and cigarettes were bummed and burned, 
and all became OK as each man spoke 
of things of no particular concern. 

Grown old with repetition – cars and crew, 
the days themselves -- wore down like tire tread. 
But Charlie seemed to see it all anew, 
and watched each night unfold beneath the spread 
of lamplight strewn across the parking lot 
to glisten in the oil slicks with the moon, 
and heard the stories shared without a thought 
of endings yet unformed yet forming soon. 

A gift is hard to figure.  Charlie’s gift 
was making things OK.  Soon, obsolete 
as print he’d drive off – as if cut adrift, 
one taillight winking down the darkening street.