undetected

Saturday – August 30th, 2025 – 7:55 am

It can go on like this for a long time. Putting together casual observations. Gut to brain. Heart to vein. Paper to pen. And still, I struggle with penmanship.

I recognize—finally—it’s part of my process. Journaling fills the well.

I sort paper, plastic, and cardboard at the township fire station. I’m putting garbage in big metal containers so it can be trailered away by big, dinosaur-eating trucks, to become something else—renewed, repurposed, then garbage again. All the while, I have a soft spot. Warm and soggy below my sternum.

I texted my Dad early. Three minutes to seven. I knew he’d be up. So, I asked if he wanted to ride along with me—backroads. Or if he needed anything from town. I’d pick him up. We’d catch up. But he said no. Thanks. He has stuff to do today.

I was hoping for a story. Maybe from his mid-twenties. Half in the bag. Shooting deer out the Bel Air window with Uncle Vaughn.

Fourteen. Racing motorcycles through Gapski’s cornfield with Cousin Pete. Wearing nothing but cowboy hats and cutoff jean shorts. Beaten by rough leaves and woody stalks.

Even a story about a story he’d heard one day. A former tenth-grade classmate, Becker Smith, didn’t show up for school for a week. A troubled kid from a troubled family. Principal Steele checked in after calls home went unanswered. Becker’s parents were shot dead in bed. But Becker, the family’s Dodge Power Wagon, and Sandy, their beagle, were gone.

Or maybe I’d have one. About being six. Standing barefoot on the hot pebble gravel at Grandma’s. Between Dad and my Mom’s brother, Stan. Watching my Dad listen. Quiet. Pabst in one hand. A Basic smoking away in the other. All while Uncle Stan rattled on about the ’59 Electra 225 he found. An old lady on Schooker Road. Dead husband. Garage sale. He noticed the car behind the barn. Grass grown up all around it. Massive fins. Spotless chrome. A 401 Nailhead. And floors so clean, you could eat off them. He got it, and all the dead husband’s fishing tackle, for two-hundred-and-twenty-five bucks.

My Dad drank. Smoked. Nodded. Stan moved on to a fishing boat he found. Maybe my Dad would be interested in it. Sixteen foot. Deep-V. Little eight horse Johnson. Stan would even throw in some of the tackle he’d recently acquired. Any other day, this would have sent hope radiating—but I was still at the Buick.

How could it stay so perfect left to the weather like that?

Was the old lady sad to sell it?

Was she all alone? Did she have a dog?

Or a big orange tomcat at least?

How did the husband die?

And most importantly, what was he talking about—eating off floors? Was that something adults did when kids weren’t around?

It came and went like everything else. I knew better than to ask questions because I wanted to always be there—listening, learning—as much as possible, without detection.

You discover a lot when people don’t notice. Don’t remember, or care you are there.

That’s how I pick up information.

And that’s how I fill the well.

~ KJ