“Schnapps, please,” she told the bartender. She took the drink and in a precious few minutes, turned back for another. The formerly vacant seat at the bar by her was now filled with a large man. He looked like he was mostly legs. She could not see his face as he was turned away, watching a game of billiards.
“Another schnapps, please,” she ordered. The man next to her turned and looked at the bartender. “I’ll have one, too,” he said.
“With your coffee?” asked the bartender?
“Sure. Why not,” the man smiled as he turned his head slightly to look at her.
She could not help but stare at him. Not conventionally handsome, there was something oddly compelling and familiar about his face.
“The shop by the Canteen,” he said.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“That’s where I’ve seen you,” he said. “The book shop by the bar on South Street. You like biographies, right?”
“And you like the travel section.”
He laughed, surprisingly a lighter tone than she expected and she somehow she felt lighter too.
His eyes stayed smiling even after he had stopped and he said a bit more serious in tone, “I don’t like to travel really. I’m just trying to do my homework, that’s all.”
She noticed he was at least her age and she was fast approaching 30. Homework? Her confusion must have shown on her face because when he looked at her again, his smile went from his eyes to his mouth again and he explained that he was awaiting orders to be sent overseas for work. Could be England or Switzerland or Turkey.
She said she would give a lot to be able to travel outside of her little office. Before she knew it, she was describing the trapped feeling she had been carrying around for the past year or so. How she imagined all sorts of adventures when she looked at the faces of other subway riders on the way to work in the morning. How tired she felt at the end of a long week of pretense and denial and plastering fake smiles for the rest of the world while her heart broke a little every day knowing she wasn’t living the full life she could be.
She took a deep breath. Where had all that come from? She had thought she was content. Except for some niggling feeling of anticipation that something was coming. She had started feeling it the summer before. But here, at the end of winter, with the first warm breath of spring breathing new life into the city, she thought she was content. But she realized she had been only fooling herself.
“Hello. Where did you go there?” he asked.
She had forgotten she had been pouring her strife out to him. She had forgotten herself. She sat quietly, looking at him, hoping her hopelessness was again tamped down in her face. He seemed to sense she was at a loss for something so he did the only thing he could think of.
“Dance with me,” he said. There was a bluegrass band playing some blues. It was nice. They were an odd match on the floor but they fit like laughter at a funeral.
The evening passed with schnapps and bluegrass and laughter. As the bartender was putting up the last of the clean glassware and turning out the lights, the man leaned forward on the bar stool and kissed her gently, slowly. When he sat back to look at her, he was pleased to see her open her eyes with great effort. A spell that didn’t want to be broken.
“Here’s what I want for you,” he said to her. “Do something that really makes you happy. You’re the only one stopping you.”
She laughed then. Lightly. Not wanting the spell to be broken. “I guess we all have our orders,” she said.
The Mother I’d Like to Be
She planted jelly beans and licorice in hopes of growing her own candy-land. She read the back of cereal boxes as bed-time stories and made adventures out of nutritional information. She hung artwork framed by hula-hoops. She only drank water from the hose. Her wig was always worn askew. On purpose. She reveled in the stories of her youth, but only ones that were entirely fictional and involved unicorns and rainbows and cloud cities. Her favorite game to play with her children was leap-frog but when she played, she pretended she was a tadpole. She crafted makeup from flowers and Kool-Aid. When she was feeling a little too good, she would close her eyes, rock violently in a rocking chair for hours until she felt good and sea-sick. Her bed was a custom-made large matchbox, complete with a striker. She took a two-hour siesta every afternoon and wrote her best stories after awakening. Her house was lit by hoards of fireflies that happily supplied their light. Her children never wanted for hugs and kisses because her love for them was as boundless as her appetite for old movies and off-color jokes and brownie-filled doughnuts.
Ol’ Blues Man
He spoke to me only through the music we shared
The pain was evident in his eyes
The weariness was etched with every line on his face
His fingers strummed and sifted through my memories
I couldn’t let him down
We couldn’t let the stony silence win
So I started to sing
I felt my voice take over the room even softly they could feel it in the back
While he opened his eyes for the first time and saw me and we moved together through the blues
We traveled through some craggy slopes
All that need to be said was sung
And the guitar wailed on
Between verses were only muffled curses
But there was joy in the harmony
There was harmony in the words
The words that only came in a song
And the song was all we shared.
Porphyria’s Season
She was fine with the solstice but the equinox got her every time.
He told her she was just the same as everyone else.
She thought that was not true all the time.
Someday she’d be someone’s The One and not a stand-in For Now.
She was an expert at transition
But could not abide consistency.
She didn’t see a calm pond but saw a stagnant cesspool.
She’d sing to the songs the breeze carried
He’d try to pin her like a moth to a board
When she really wanted the flame carried on the wires.
Had she really been told she could do anything
Or was that a daydream like the others?
What a lie if true, what a story if not.
There were constraints binding her to the Now but not her mind which delved into Then and Again.
For every change she built a pattern
For every room she’d create a space
In her vision he glowed like starlight
In her ears she sang for herself alone.
He thought he knew her seasons but she surprised him just the same.
Build Your Wings
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
– Ray Bradbury
The Word Rummager 