THE AURIAN HALLER BAND

After September 11th, I moved to Athens, Georgia to find work and see magnolia trees. Turns out most of the streets are named after the flower, which is pretty, but geographically pointless.  It was the same with peaches in Atlanta.  We moved with our two cats to Best Drive in the part of town called, Normal Town.  After the events, the lawns and supersized SUVs were sprouting flags, the local Walmart had a wall where you could leave flowers and pay your respects while you shopped.  People mowed the lawn and barbecued with an almost pathological regularity.  The neighbourhood where we lived was built during World War II and had its own white-picket-fence desperation.  We lost the cats the first day and found them up the chimney, as dark as night.  There is a tree in Athens that grows in the middle of a cobbled street.  In a bid to save the tree, the land on which it grew was deeded to the tree itself.  A small chain fence protects it from wayward bumpers.  Every night, a trumpet player from the navy base down the road ushered in the evening.  This was the canvas.  Creepy, but also hopeful in a odd sort of way.  We gathered pecans that fell on the back deck, learned to love grits and mint juleps.