Sebastian Matthews

Inside the standard lunch hour din they rise, four seamless voices fused into one, floating somewhere between a low hum and a vibration, like the sound of a train rumbling beneath noisy traffic. The men are hunched around a booth table, a fire circle of coffee cups and loose fists, leaning in around the thing they are summoning forth from inside this suddenly beating four-chambered heart.   I’ve taken Avery out on a whim, ordered quesadillas and onion rings, a kiddy milk with three straws. We’re already deep in the meal, extra napkins and wipes for the grease coating our faces and hands like mid-summer sweat.   And because we’re happy, lost in the small pleasures of father and son, at first their voices seem to come from inside us.Who’s that boy singing? Avery asks, unable to see these men wrapped in their act.   I let him keep looking, rapt.   And when no one is paying attention, I put down my fork and take my boy’s hand, and together we dive into the song.   Or maybe it pours into us, and we’re the ones brimming with it.