shopping

Old Town Goleta was London, but the embassy was closed. Next door on the corner, Larry’s shop was a vast warehouse of piled antiques. Dad and I snuck in and jumped onto a decaying tapestry on the wall that unraveled as we climbed.

Later in the hallway, I loaned a young girl a torn sheet of paper and a pen. We stood and watched dad perform Tom Waits songs for the store atop a pile of accordions, each expanding and contracting on its own in excitement. I leaned over to see what the girl was writing, and she coyly showed me her neat handwriting: “It’s night, and the thing walks through the valleys so slowly.”