useless art

Stop here.
From Arthur’s Drug, you take
a right, and then bear right
at the fork – you’ll find
The Tobacco Shed across
the street from Jim’s Pizza.
It burned down a couple
weeks ago. It was a pleasant
little hole, if you’re fond
of Windsor.

Arthur’s Drug now shares
space with Freddy’s Liquor
& Spirits.
Arthur’s used to be the sole
occupant, but when Freddy’s
building (neighboring Bart’s)
was bought by
dominos pizza incorporated
he decided to move into
Arthur’s building –
a nice gesture.

The video store
next to Arthur’s
closed a couple years ago.

If you turn left,
you’ll see a cvs pharmacy
next to the Post Office.
The Windsor House
occupied that space –
my friend’s sister (or his brother?)
washed dishes for a few weeks.
He – yeah, it was his brother – he
talked about smoking pot by
the dumpster with the busboys.
It shut down sometime
after that.

You’re right, that cvs sign is pretty small –
it once hung outside the pharmacy’s
storefront at the Windsor Shopping Center
(which wasn’t actually in Windsor,
but in Wilson, the part of Windsor
abutting Hartford that all the
little white kids on the Enfield side
of town learned to fear) (and even if it
wasn’t officially in Wilson, it sure was
close enough), but that sign came down
and moved to the new location.
You cut corners where you can.

Don’t worry about Wilson – that’s not
on the map. To get there, you have to drive
north, past the Public Library, Geissler’s Supermarket,
the Farm Shop – sorry, the Broad Street
Eatery – then St. Gabriel’s, and then
drive up this deceitfully steep hill.
I broke a Richard Scarey book coming down
that very hill in 1980. My mom
split her chin on the steering wheel.
My sister banged her head on the dash,
but she was OK. I bit my tongue, too –
I stuck it out at the telephone pole
just before we stopped.

And the Donut Shoppe!
I can’t say much about it, though
I heard the new owners disposed
of all the Christian propaganda
on the boxes and the windows.
Just as many folks go there now
that God’s gone as they did when
He nursed a coffee in the front booth
like a tired cop.

There used to be a comic book store
in the center – it’s a driving school now.
I loved that store. I even skipped school
a few times my senior year just to
go there and look and browse and stay cool.
On weekends, I’d bike up to the center
and go to the comic store for a few hours,
and then the library for a few more, and then
that soaped-up Baskin Robbins over there.
I’d buy a large Coke and sit by the window,
flipping through my books and sucking in
conditioned air so cold I could almost see
my breath.

And then the Plaza,
waiting for a bus
between the comic store
and the Baskin Robbins.
The town uses the marquee to
CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 1996
and
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS

but that theatre used to be amazing –
walls draped with statuesque pictures
of Jane Russell and Errol Flynn,
the smell of popcorn palpable
even from the doorway, Red Hots
and Junior Mints sugaring the
display case, and steep carpeted
aisles careening towards the screen.

One night, my friends and I
were totally bored, so it was decided
we would drive to the Plaza to watch
this awful Dabney Coleman movie –
he played a cop with only 24 hours
left to live –

and afterwards, when I stepped outside,
the streets were barren but for
a few crickets and the lamps
humming to themselves –
the town green, the town hall,
the library and the church and
the restaurant and the grocery store,
even those fake cobblestone crosswalks,
they looked so gorgeous in this honeyed repose,
gorgeous like a young widow,
and I couldn’t help but think

this is what Windsor would look like
when I graduated
when I grew up
when I found myself on one of those
unmapped highways doing 80
in a 55 and I disappeared
like a tree within a forest
and emerged
this grand, glorious noise

and I was almost right.