Since The Gorbals

Actual stories involve little encounters

With littler encounters in them

Each smaller encounter closer to fiction

Four older people in a Dollar store

On a Thanksgiving afternoon in Caliente

Town of a few hundred remaining souls

Surrounded by rail lines and rocky desert

One is the frizzy-haired and heavy-set

Pallid white woman working the holiday

At the only business open in town

The other three just drifting through

Including a tall Back man in a coat

Who smells a bit of stale cigarette smoke

Plus his partner who is even frizzier

Paler and heavier than the cashier

And a very short white man with a cane

And a long white beard to his chest

And at first no one says anything at all

The out-of-state customers wander

The aisles and nearly intersect

As they collect their odds and ends

Then the partnered pair go to the counter

And chat to the clerk as she rings them up

Until the woman decides to return an item

And the tall man waits for her to do that

And the little man now waits behind him

And the tall man still chats and steps back

Nearly tripping over the little man silent

Behind him I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there

I’m easy to miss says the very little man

You’re just so quiet the tall man protests

Not wanting to seem to be making small

Of the small as the clerk chuckles Yes

You were quiet all around the store

And the tall man to be jovial adds

I bet you weren’t quiet twenty years ago

We all start out rowdier don’t we?

The small man waiting considers this

Seriously as if it were a serious suggestion

And then says I think I was rowdier then

But maybe I was always kind of quiet

By which point the clerk has rung him up

And the extra-frizzy woman ambles back

But as she and her partner turn to leave

The little man asks What part of Scotland

Are you from? so that the extra-frizzy

Woman wheels in delight to say Glasgow!

How did you know? People guess Ireland

All the time or even England which

Is just incredible and the small man grins

Through his beard and says loudly Great!

Rolling the r hard so that the delighted

Woman coos Oh that was very good!

He adds I spent a winter in Glasgow

In The Gorbals back in the early eighties

And gives her a significant look

The Gorbals! Oh that’s rough she exclaims

You know they’ve all gentrified now

Tore all those all old slums down

Oh no! I thought where will the poor go?

Dearie! She calls to her partner who is

Already half out the door This man knew

I was from Scotland straightaway!

He lived in The Gorbals for a year

That was a hard hard part of town!

The tall man turns and smiles I see

And the quiet little man now loquacious

Says One Sunday morning pissing rain

As usual I was just walking down a street

When I hear a building alarm and then

A minute later this pale scrawny fellow

Comes legging by me carrying a huge

Boxy TV set with the cord still dragging

Like a tail and off he goes into the rain

He grins O! the Glaswegian woman says

That was The Gorbals alright but

They’re all changed now all changed

I try to go back but it’s been a few years

The tall man chuckles Did they scare you

Back then? Oh yeh Laughs the small man

Happily I’ve been quiet ever since