THE WEATHER CHANNEL
Three weeks before he died,
lying in his bed with his head propped up with three pillows,
so he could properly see the TV screen,
watching the Weather Channel,
the Local on the 8s segment,
I heard the smooth jazz,
but there were no more destinations,
only the weather in Darien, Illinois,
where we lived and had lived for thirty years.
It was mostly cloudy with a high of 60 and a low of 45,
normal for that time of year in Illinois.
There were winds coming in from the northeast.
There had been many destinations once, a long time ago.
Atlanta was a destination for us in 1993.
We were inside a motel in Chattanooga,
across the highway from Lookout Mountain.
He stepped onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette,
I felt the muggy Southern air from the balcony
invade the air conditioning in the room like some desperate Confederate army.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this humid down here,” he said.
He told me once he had wanted to be a meteorologist when he was a child.
He attached a higher importance to weather,
something between science and religion,
like what the ancient people used to do.
He switched the baseball game I was watching to the Weather Channel.
I looked at the screen with tired eyes
and listened to the smooth jazz as a flash across the screen
said there was a thunderstorm warning in effect for Atlanta
that night and the following day.
The storm never arrived.
Shortly after he died,
I read that the smooth jazz played during the Local on the 8s
has gained a cult following.
They even released official compilation albums.
I bought one last week and played it as I tried falling asleep in a hotel near Memphis.
It helped.
*
Chris Pellizzari is a poet from Willowbrook, Illinois. His work appears in Lake Effect, The Citron Review, Hobart, Gone Lawn, SOFLOPOJO, Compressed Arts, Neologism, ONE ART, and Third Wednesday. He is a member of The Society of Midland Authors.
