Hourglass

Editor's Note: It is recent policy at Opsis to not print the work of our current editors, but we are making an exception in this edition to honor the work of our Managing Editor, Aaron Plowman, who died in a tragic accident over Spring Break. Aaron was an avid writer and a great lover of language. We invite you to join us in celebrating the work of a writer who had far too few opportunities to share his work.

Today I've been watching sand fall through mom's old hourglass kitchen timer. Nothing is being timed, but I like the way the sand trickles through the aperture and collects into a tidy mass at the bottom. The grains slide passed each other with such ease, reminding me that not everything is as it seems to be, that sometimes solid things might behave like liquids, and vice versa. The sand that's falling, that same sand has measured countless hours. Now the sand is so worn by friction that the hourglass has become more of a 53-minutes glass.

Mom used to use the hourglass for everything. One day she watched the sand fall, counting seconds-one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four...- until she marked increments for virtually any amount of time imaginable. She preferred the hourglass to watching the clock, and she still used it even when digital timers became standard. I once watched her flip the hourglass 5 times when she was cooking a 20 pound turkey on Thanksgiving. "I bought you a digital timer, so you wouldn't have to stand at attention for this outdated timer, mom," I told her. With fingertips on the glass, eyes fixed on the falling sand, she watched the last grain fall and promptly flipped it. "Four more flips," she said.

I remember that was the first Thanksgiving I spent with both mom and dad since he got out of prison. Dad spent 8 years in the clink for cooking and selling meth, a powder that held dad's attention with as much force as the hourglass did for mom. He had heaping piles of that stuff when I was growing up. He'd rail lines off the kitchen countertop with a dollar bill. A maelstrom of dust would swirl up through the rolled dollar bill and disappear. "Mom's counting time, and I'm controlling it," he said. "With a little bit of this stuff, I make time fly. And she calls herself a cook." He had me propped up on his knee. Mom was cooking casserole, trying to figure out which increment on her hourglass corresponded to 27 minutes.

When dad got arrested, the police confiscated his glassware. One of the cops dropped his Erlenmeyer flask, and it broke into about a thousand tiny shards. Mom swept it into a neat little pile. Dad was gone, but I imagined him snorting the pile, making it all disappear. Mom set the hourglass for 8 years and awaited his return. I remember seeing the same trickling powder when I started working with dad. We were at a commercial masonry job in Escondido. Dad and I were the only white guys on the crew. The rest of the guys were from Tijuana. They called me Brown Boy because the dust from the dried tan mortar would mix with my sweat and form a flaky brown layer over my skin. I'd smile, and my face would be cracked mud. Even on days when it was 108 degrees, they didn't sweat. They were used to the heat. There were big silos containing dry mortar on the jobsite. That's where I saw the trickling powder. The old man of the crew, Sergio, would mix mud all day. Sometimes I'd watch him from the scaffolding. All day long, all he had to do was pull levers. He'd pull a lever, and the dry mortar would fall through the opening of the silo into the mixer. Then he'd pull another lever to empty the contents of the mixer into a big rectangular container, which he'd then convey to the scaffolding with a forklift, operated by more levers. I'd stock 30-pound block and run myself ragged at the behest of about 15 prima donna masons. Each one of them demanded a different consistency of mortar: They'd say, "How the fuck am I supposed to lay block with this panther piss?" or "Brown Boy, this mud is too dry! Shake it up!" or "I couldn't butter a slice of toast with this damn mud!" I'd think of Sergio pulling levers, the dust falling, and I'd long to be in his position.

On a particularly hot day, when I was wishing I was Sergio, we ran out of mud. We were all feeling the push to get the job done and got caught up in the chaos. From the side of the building we were working on, the mixing station wasn't visible, so the masons sent me over to give Sergio the business. I no longer wished to be Sergio after that. Sergio lay face first in the container full of mortar, his entire head and shoulders submerged. I tried to pull him out by his pant legs, but the mortar had hardened around him. I told the crew, and we all, grimy with sweat and dirt, stood in a half-circle tableau around the old man. The jobsite shut down early that day. Later when we were back to work, I asked Raul what happened. He put his fist to his chest and said one word: "Corazón." Mom's corazón gave out on her a few years later, just stopped beating. One of the effects of long-term meth use is premature heart failure. Turns out dad wasn't the only one controlling time. "You wanna know the best way to make 8 years go really fast?" mom had said. "Hide the hourglass." Mom was cremated, so I put her ashes in a big empty hourglass. I watched mom fall through the aperture and wondered what it would be like if we all had a visible hourglass measuring our lives. I wondered if I'd ever see mom again and how long I'd have to wait if I would. I hid that hourglass and never looked at it again.