David E. Yee

Blue Ink

Papa Carlisle had been a man of systems. He said life should work like a train—one station leading to another, on a schedule. With order came reliability, and with reliability, happiness. That year I lived with him and grandma, he’d wake up every day at 6am and brew a pot of coffee. With a mug, two cigarettes, and the paper, he took the elevator down to the lobby and sat at a table under the awning out front. From his seat, the fifteen story high rise he managed ran straight toward the sky, like it was barely there. But I remember on those drives to Silver Spring, it towered over the strip malls and office buildings on Georgia Ave. He’d read the headlines, the sports page, then came back upstairs to set his book, leaning on the kitchen counter over a calculator, his reading glasses sliding down his nose.