Winding, Crooked Trails

Life Support

He was tan when he came in, when the crowd gathered, the family, the friends. Every day.  So many that there were times, with leniency to the rules and understanding of course, the crowds would have be dispersed out to the hall and the waiting room, giving those who were already uncomfortable an excuse to just dash in and out with condolences, cards and flowers.  For those who were uncomfortable, squeamish, those not knowing what to do with their hands and eyes, the boy was an elephant in the room.  His chest rising and falling to the rhythm of the artificial life being pumped into him, the various tubes and bags of clear liquid flowing into his veins to accompany the life breath.  There were the parents of course, the siblings and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and the youthful friends, and the  girlfriend too, every day the girlfriend who would stand bedside and rest fingers on his arm.  Only his mother talked to him, only his mother talked at a normal tone of voice in the room where the boy lay, the rest spoke in hushed tones if they spoke at all.  The girlfriend didn't speak.  She sometimes nodded at questions or introductions, sometimes wiped a single tear or two from her young girl cheek, but she didn't speak at all.

The mother did motherly things, she rubbed the boy's arm constantly, she brushed her fingers through his hair, stroked his cheek, talked to him, encouraged him, rubbed her hope into the repose that was him now, not allowing her faith to falter or waver that he would soon rise up and walk out of the room, back home with her.  The mother in her not accepting to believe what she had been told, that he would likely not rise up, walk, or ever go home with her.  The family listened intently trying to comprehend the flat toned doctor talk of comas and brain activity, and yes there was some, enough the mother would ask, her just knowing the boy was in there and would awaken and look for her first, she knew that, refused to believe otherwise and wanted to be present when he did so.  The doctors smiled softly at her faith, tempering it gently as they could with facts and wisely leaving it open ended, these men and women who knew better than to referee life.  The nurses would smile wider with crinkled hope in their wrinkled eyes, they too spoke to the boy and their voices would ring even louder than the mother while they attended to him, taking vitals and thoughtfully recording them, rustling sheets and smoothing blankets with watchful eyes on the readouts and charts, the blipping and chirping assuring them that the status quo was being maintained.  And they too talked to the boy like he could hear them, and sometimes they can they'd tell the mom, you just keep talking to him, if he hears anyone it will be you, you just keep talking.  The mom smiling, putting those words in her hope chest, nodding at what she already knew.  Smiling biggest at the one with the tag and badge that said Molly, like Molly her friend from so long ago, Molly whom she talked with of weddings and husbands, of boys and babies, way back before she could imagine one of hers taking leave for a sleep from which he couldn't be wakened.  She saw this Molly believed as she did, she thought the boy would come back too, she heard it in the way she talked to her boy, saw it in the way she cared for him like it mattered, like it was more than a duty. 

She liked this Molly, this one so nurturing for one so young, this girl of faith in what she was doing, this girl with eyes of a healer despite the death all around her.  This girl whom she would beg with her eyes and a soft touch to her arm to please stay close, be here, when I have to leave, take over for me while I'm gone.  And this Molly would smile a reassuring smile and say of course and assuage her guilt at having to leave to attend to the rest of her life, the rest of herself, send her off showing her she would be right there, this Molly not as young on the inside, nurse years turning faster on nurse legs, nurse eyes and nurse hearts. 

And the crowd of visitors, along with the boy's tan, began to fade as both always do over time, the doctors continued to test and speak in doctor voices, the nurses nursed, the mother mothered, the girl friend still didn't speak and came less frequently.  One day Molly taking her aside and telling her she knew how hard this was seeing one you loved still so strong looking yet so silent with all the life on the inside and nothing else to show for it.  Telling her it was fortunate he was youthful and strong and not accident mangled with other wounds or injuries tilting the scales, telling her how love and hope and faith aren't always enough but they can tempt fate sometimes and that we don't know what people so deep inside themselves can hear or feel and if we can maybe coax and encourage and give strength then shouldn't we?  The girl nodded, wiped another tear and muttered that she just didn't know what to do.  No, I don't suppose you do Molly thought, feeling sad for her that through no fault of her own she didn't have the hand to play this card she was dealt. 

She knew better, once she hadn't, before she was heart scarred, she god damn well knew better now but still, it didn't stop her from veering into the gift shop on her own way out that night, it didn't stop her from a quick spray of the scent she had recognized on the boy's mother, and it didn't stop her from turning heel with her wrist still held just under her nose, it didn't stop her from making her purchase and slipping it into her purse and it didn't stop her later that night at home with tired feet and tired heart propped up for a rest in a silence void of anyone else encouraging her to awaken.   

Letters not written

I woke with the first few words on the tip of my tongue, I have no idea why.  What follows relates to nothing and no one, although perhaps it once did, but won't again.  Maybe I should stick to weekends and evenings.

His search for a pen was to late to save the dialog but at least he found the key to the little locked box of letters, the key being buried under recipe cards and instructions to long defunct small appliances in the kitchen junk drawer, the little locked box of letters that the later ones at least had failed to elicit anything but an angry response or even worse, indifference.  If food is the way to a person's heart, indifference is the way out.   Or if certain words and actions are the way in, the absence of either is another sure way out.   Why does it take so much longer to leave than it does to arrive.  Few worry about the speed of letting someone in but locking them out can take forever and sometimes doesn't happen at all.  Funny, she said, how easy the decision was to let you in and how very difficult it's been to put you away.  After hearing that he realized that sometimes he did prefer indifference.  He could interpret indifference as he saw fit, the slicing words left no room for spin.

He unfolded the letters carefully, from a time when words were scrawled to paper and not typed to screen, the early ones part of that quick acceptance, when all was well, weller, wellest, faster, fastest, bursting.
And later less frequent but with similar expressions of gratitude and depth and love.  Then none for too long.  None of hers first, no more nightstand or in front of the coffee pot notes, he remembered when they gradually became impersonal, "pick up the dry cleaning please, then no please, no honey, baby, will you?  Then no love you.   

Then his and his alone, first of anger, then apology, anger again at the lack of acceptance of the apology, then the pleading, begging.  Begging only worked in bed when that which was being begged for was going to be given anyway.  It took too long to learn that begging for love was asking for something that was no longer there. 

He gave up his search for pen and the paper he always used to say whatever it was he had to say, once he realized there was nothing left to say and what might be left was better left unsaid, what she was doing, leaving it unsaid.  Again, hello being so easy, good-bye, so not. 

He refolded each letter, locked the box and put it back up on the shelf in the closet of the room that was once a very different place, palmed the key and stuck it in his pocket along with loose change.  Later he would toss the change in the cup where it would later be cashed in and toss the key in the trash that was in the pantry next to the junk drawer in the kitchen. 

Of all the gifts he had ever given her he was about to give her the one she least expected and wanted most of all.   

Pete loves Joella

She married him because he didn't put his hands down her shirt and didn't make fun of her hand me down dresses, nor did he try to put his hands up them, didn't chew, wear a baseball cap every waking moment, belch in front of her, honk in the driveway when he picked her up, he didn't paw her, clutch, he said mam to her Mama, sir to her Dad, he was on the honor roll, graduated tenth out of a class of forty, she was third, could have been first, second at worst, except she worked, money, grades ,money, grades, ain't that how it goes in Jimtown, two stoplights and a buncha people watching your every move, especially the way she moved.

She had a couple of asshole romps, football fucks, stupid slow gin parked on the edge of this ain't no town anyway quick grope and pumps before she realized stupid wasn't a road she wanted to take.  Those two wanted her again along with all those who hadn't including several who shouldn't  be wanting her at all. 

She married him the summer after high school in the same dress she wore to the prom, handed down but never before looking like it did on her, her Daddy selling a couple of cows so her reception could be at the Holiday Inn up the road at the interstate instead of in the church basement with nutcups and a cake off the shelf from Taylor's Pantry and Bake Shop.  She quit the Dairy Queen for a teller job at the bank the next town over which was a little bigger but no better and not nearly as pretty what with Jimtown having the creek and the wonderful old covered bridge they walked to from their honeymoon cabin at Clement's Camp and Canoe.  The old bridge with the sign saying Cross this Bridge at a Walk with guardrails to stop anyone crazy enough to try to drive across it.  She told him a certain gait or cadence could take a bridge down, even a horse or a dog, he looked at her like she was putting him on, sometimes not knowing her smart from her smartass.

They walked the uneven planked floor, dank dark and cooler inside with the fading light beaming through cracks in weathered wood.  She skipped ahead to the windowed openings to look down at the rain swollen June creek, a creek which would be shallow enough to ground a canoe by August, muddy brown, leaning her elbows on the broad window rail, watching limbs and logs speed downstream.  I wonder where they'll end up she said, not really a question, just wondering, thinking a river is always a river, but a creek is only a river sometimes. 

He grinned the boyish grin she still loved on that June day, in the twilight over the rushing debris strewn creek, pulled the can from his back pocket and while she watched, sprayed his love on the wood that had been a wall nearly as long as it had been a tree, sprayed it above the window she was  standing next to, put his love in writing along with all the other names and dates and similar declarations, stood back and admired his handiwork and took his new bride in his arms and kissed her, there on the bridge, kissed her until her grin broke the kiss, he knew that look, the one where he always wondered what was next, her always being a step or two ahead of him,  already her fingers lifting her shirt up over her head, her eyes bright from the light through the window, thumbs working her jeans down over her hips, bra and panties tossed aside before he could even exhale, the paint not yet dry on his love, he took her there, her hands grasping the rail below the window with the setting sun on her face, her breasts, all the light on her with her back arched to him, smell of paint still heady in the musty air.  He loved her there, on the wall, in the window and when she had him shaken and spent, while he was wary of being discovered, shying and retreating, she spun on him, brighteyed full of mischief and challenge, said, let's jump, seeing his eyes form the question marks she would see time and time again, jump, from the bridge, it's deep enough, already climbing up on the rail, crouching and looking at him over her shoulder, come on, let's jump, not waiting for him, leg muscles taut and corded pushing herself out, ducking just enough to clear the top of the window and hurtling into space, not a jump, a dive, he got there just in time to see her enter the water, her form beautiful and bare slicing into the muddy water, seeing a log float by, thinking christ she could have landed on it, watching her surface, laughing, her arms waving just under the surface barely visible, laughing with her head thrown back, looking up at him, this moment, waiting.

He didn't jump, he didn't, couldn't.  It just wasn't in him.

And now, all these years later, his love still in his heart, still on this wall, at these windows, with his hand on the rail she held while he took her on that June day, took her as his new bride, that June day she was still his, and on that June day he started losing her, when he didn't jump.  Lost her all the other times he didn't jump, the times when she did, and he just didn't.  It wasn't long before she stopped asking, jumped on her own, out farther and farther, taking longer to get back, til she finally jumped too far, jumped away, didn't come back, leaving him here with his love sprayed on the wall in an August twilight, alone this time, wondering if things might have turned out differently, if he had jumped, wondering even now, if he could, would.


   

One from Two

The first time they were one was in the old cracked and creaky overstuffed leather chair, fitted to him like a baseball in the pocket of a catcher's mitt used season after season, taking his shape from countless hours of sitting, reading, then hauled here to accommodate other shapes flipping pages, reading, sometimes dozing, sometimes buying, sometimes not.  With the door locked, closed sign facing the street, half an hour before opening, their time, with coffee and each other, every day now.  Him thinking about the irony of her being in the same skirt, some shade of blue, that had first touched his leg back before either had touched each other.  And now, her fitting his lap like he fit the chair, every day for how many days now?  Or was it weeks, surely it was, maybe a month, maybe more, he should figure it but the time together mattered so much more than what time it was or how much of it had passed.  This half hour every morning, with coffee on the little wooden low table that held books not yet replaced on the shelves, and always a book in her lap, sometimes of her choosing, sometimes his, always him reading to her while she closed her eyes, the book just far enough away for him to make out the words and reach the pages to turn making sure he brushed her fingers when he did, she expected that now, as much as it was his intention to do so.  He loved her now, hadn't told her, but he knew she was struggling to accept it, wanted to, was trying to.  It was a day to love her more and like he didn't plan to love her in the first place, he hadn't planned for her hips to settle just so nor had he planned the way she molded to him with her eyes closed while his words got caught in his throat, his eyes losing the focus to read as he stumbled into a whisper saying some words whether they were the right ones or not.  Then his words weren't from any book, she had dropped it to the table anyway to turn and open her eyes, the ones that were bright and light, on his now, as surprised as he was, showing him a look he had never seen, heavy lidded but with eyes still bright.  He knew her moods by her breath, not the scent of it but how she breathed it, it was warmer now, deeper.  It shouldn't have been so easy but it was, in that skirt some shade of blue with that breath as deep and warm as her eyes were light and bright.  What might have been in the way soon wasn't, so easy, easy, sweet easy heaven, no need or reason to move, not even really kissing, just holding and pressing open mouths together, slacked open oval mouths of wonder, eyes, mouth, her, open.   Deep and deeply moved, a shade of blue fanned on his lap, her shoes dropped to the floor, legs together and hanging over the arm of the chair, sideways on his lap.

One seat, one chair.

One from two.

it was a Friday that first time they sat side by side, he couldn't possibly forget that, having to go two days after touching her for the first time before he saw her again.  She had mentioned that she usually  worked on the weekends, sometimes both days, and he didn't like that much not only because he thought she worked too much and could see it taking its toll but he didn't like the idea of her here without him.  Thinking, at least it's not crowded and she would have a seat and not have to rely on someone else to smile and rise and offer her theirs, not liking that idea much at all, him wanting this rolling microcosm to belong to them and them alone.  Crazy he thought, being possessive of that which he didn't even possess, it had been a long time since he felt possessive.

Not really touching her but touching each other, no hands, upper thighs brushing without intent but from the spacing of the seats, seats gradually divided in their plastic scooping, each scoop representing one ass, no scrunching possible, one ass per rounded indent, one ticket, one place to sit, unless you had to stand.   First thing was her skirt, a longish mid calf some shade of blue, kind of twirly full gypsy like, he wasn't good at materials or styles but he knew he liked it resting against his lower leg, not yet touching her but touching something of hers which was close enough to catch his breath in his chest and swell him up.  That damn trance like thing again, he wondered if she could see his lids go heavy.  He sat quietly enjoying the intimacy, adjusting to them both looking in the same direction, and how close their faces were when they did speak which wasn't much, both getting used to this new proximity and not knowing exactly what to do with it.  Faces startlingly close with her eyes even brighter and lighter from the inches away, brighter and lighter those same eyes that he looked back at, to see her small smile watching him, every day now when he stepped down and off, every day looking back.  He caught himself thinking that the train had a sensual movement with a gentle swaying and the click clacking, sometimes hitting a rough spot in the tracks causing a slight jolt, then back to the rolling hum.  He understood the romance of trains better now and he fantasized a cross country trip with her on one of those old fashioned elegantly maintained passenger trains with the narrow corridors and the dining car with the insignia of the line on the china and crystal, the bar car at the very end where you could sip some libation just as old fashioned and look back to where you had been, not really caring where you were going, the journey the joy, not the destination.  And a tiny berth to share where everything was on a small scale and folded up or down from the walls.  If he allowed his fantasy to get away from him, and it often did, he knew that's how he would want to honeymoon with her, to be together in such intimacy for days, get so used to it that even when it was over they kept the closeness, even in more open spaces.

Her name was Chloe and he delighted in that, so much so that she thought he was making fun of her when she said it, no, no, he said, it's perfect, you are a Chloe.  All Chloe's are Chloe's, it's preordained upon the naming.  Chloe's don't need any other name, like Meg Tilly in The Big Chill, she was a Chloe and all the other characters had last names but she was just Chloe.  They went silent when they touched that first time, it was so inadvertent, a divine accident that stilled them, her leg so softly against his, not pressed, not so direct as that, just a leaning, the vibration from the steel wheels like sighing, both almost afraid to breathe.  She made him aware of everything, how close their hands were, his left, her right, her smell, not a scent from a bottle sprayed on, just her smell, maybe a hint of soap but mostly just her.  Most days it would linger with him, he stopped wearing cologne so as not to interfere with it. 

He knew nothing about her but she wore no ring, no wedding ring anyway, just a silver ring on her thumb, no watch, and he had caught glimpse of a silver piece chained loosely at her neck.  It was warmer now and she usually sat with a sweater folded in her lap, small hands folded on top of it, the black tote behind her legs against the seat.  He didn't press her for details, he didn't care, no, he cared, it just didn't matter.  He knew she had children, she mentioned them after an absent day, that they were ill, he assumed two although she didn't say, just said the children were ill and needed tending to.  She knew he was a bookseller, he told her, and they talked books and movies from books and he got to bringing her small tomes he thought she would enjoy, she sometimes began reading as soon as he gave them to her.  She always returned them, always seemed to enjoy them and he took smug contentment in making selections that fit her tastes, which he really knew very little about.  He would thumb through the pages, fanning them, before he returned them to the shelf, her scent wafting up to fill him.

To be seated side by side was a gift, some regular rider staying home for the day perhaps, he should find him and thank him, ask him just how much vacation he had, how often was he sick?  It wasn't to be repeated for nearly two weeks but by then she had come to his store, walked the aisles with him, seemed hesitant to leave.  He put her in a taxi, insisting against her protest.  He wanted to give her something but he didn't think she was ready to accept anything.  He wanted to be careful with her, contain his exuberance, he knew she didn't even realize her finger was always resting right there on his giddy switch.  She was wrapped in caution, not fear of him he didn't think, more like a fear within, he had to hold her like a bird, which he did the second time she came to the shop and he showed her his first editions, dusty and yellowed, reading some of the inscriptions to her in the narrow aisle between the cases, held her carefully just by the upper arms and kissed her as light as her skirt rested on his leg weeks before, kissed her and called her Chloe, her smiling when he said it, both smiling when she kissed him back.   

Chapter one's are easy

it's those chapter two's that are such a bitch.

She had eyes light, bright, like they were photoshopped into her face, that color adjustment that highlights one color to stand out, the rest of the picture neutralized, the color drawing you in.  Not that her face didn't bear notice, she wasn't a made up girl, he didn't think much about her would be because of that, that maybe pushing his speculation to the extreme but he didn't think so.  She was pale but not like milk, more like thick cream or rich cheese veined with blue.   Skin he would want his lips on.  Face, hands, feet, all of her, small, frail maybe, but again, he didn't think so, his damn mind either playing tricks on him or the everyday nearness of her somehow allowing him some absorption of her into him.  Crazy, he knew, not much of anything else about his day jumped out of the bounds of routine or outside any lines but she had him wondering about himself.  He remembered a feeling he had as a boy, one of those feelings that can't  be explained, just felt, sitting in the back seat while his parents occupied the front, the days when an attendant scurried out to fill your tank and ask to check the oil, the gray uniformed man with the red star on his cap squirting the cleaner on the windshield from a spray bottle and then slowly drawing the long handled rubber squeegee across the glass making squeaking sounds with small thumps as the rubber thunked back down after a long pull across the clearing glass.  Some kind of warm heavy lidded feeling, what?  from someone doing something for you? Putting you in some kind of trance, some crazy kid thing to remember but she made him feel like that.  Almost hypnotic, drawing time out like that squeegee slowly scraping before his eyes or like the pendulum swing of a dangling coin on a chain or the rhythm of a grandfather clock.  He wondered if he was losing his grip, or his mind, and he wished he knew better but he wasn't quite sure he did.    But he knew he wasn't going to even try to talk himself out of her, this twenty-five minute trance that sometimes seemed like hours and others like a zipped by moment.  No, he couldn't if he tried.  Besides, didn't people every day, everywhere hook up with much greater haste, a few blurred words exchanged in a bar or under the guise of propriety in a coffee shop or an online dating service? 

He knew, no question about it, that he wanted to enter through her mind, maybe not always his portal of choice in the past, not that he didn't think about kissing her, he did, but he didn't even get his first physical jittery jolt until the day she appeared with arms bare affording him his first glimpse of her skin other than her face, freckled and moled, like chips of chocolate in the cream that was her, that did catch his breath that day, it most certainly did. Freckled and moled like he was, maybe he shouldn't have taken that as a sign but he did.

It was a week after they first spoke that he brought her a coffee, he wasn't sure she was going to accept it at first, not that she didn't want it or wasn't appreciative, she just seemed taken aback at taking something from someone.  The coffee coming from an exchange a couple of days before when she mentioned she didn't really know how to make coffee, always drinking instant at home and waiting til she got to the office for a real cup, she said office, office, and he wondered, what kind of office, but didn't ask.  I said, no here, please, the same words he used to give her his seat weeks ago, it was easy to get an extra, I don't know how you take it  but I have cream and sugar, she took both, two sugars, stirring and he knew there was a smile on her face even if no one else would have caught it, smug with himself for knowing he saw more. 

Then it was different, after that, not because he kept bringing her coffee, she tried to hand him coins one day, two times actually, and he said no, no, every day it seemed hard for her to accept it but she would hold the cup in both small hands without the lid, sipping so she could inhale the aroma he thought, tiny sips with that smile no one else could see.

It was awkward, him standing over her sitting, they spaced and paced their conversation as best they could, some days not saying much at all.  But always good morning, or hi, or both and every day, almost worth leaving for but not quite, not near really, the way she said bye and the way it followed him down the steps, down the street, but he didn't skip.... until the train was out of sight anyway he didn't, one day something making him turn, look back, before the doors closed, seeing those eyes still on him, the ones photoshopped bright and light in her face, still on him.   He skipped that day.....before the train was out of sight.   
 

Three dollar a gallon gas altered the routine of train travel into the city, crowding and cramming what was once an every other seat experience, a protocol of allowing space, for newspapers, laptops, bags and purses, coats and scarves, or just breathing room  to absorb the clacks and the passing cityscape.   Ironically it was the regulars who were unseated, those from the farthest out benefiting the most from the economy of mass transit, taking the prized space and relegating those who once enjoyed a degree of comfort to shoulder to shoulder narrow spacing and for the late boarders, standing, holding the finger and palm smudged shiny poles that kept the rail rocking from pitching the rider fore or aft.

She had been riding a little over two months now, he knew she walked to her stop from somewhere, from the window he had seen her small steps quicken more than once from a direction opposite the parking lot used by the car poolers and kiss and ride combo commuters, quick pecks before the ferrying spouse would depart to taxi kids to school, dance, sports practice or who knows what other assignations and destinations.  She clutched her tickets and transfers like prizes, always in an ungloved hand even when it was much colder, the grasp not secure enough unless she could feel them held tight in her fingers.  He was sure she didn't ride the train to save money, she rode to get where she had to go and it was the only way she could get there.  Early on bundled from the cold in a long black puffy paneled nylon coat that he didn't think was originally hers by the fit, now usually jacketed or sweatered, very casually dressed among others more slick suited and polished to professional sheens.  Always with a simple black canvas tote, book and paper stuffed, young enough to still be a student but he didn't think so, tools of her trade whatever that was, he wanted to know but they had never spoken, aloud, so he hadn't asked. Something social maybe set up over a storefront off the beaten path of the steel and glass shiny districts, somewhere with alleys and street people who offered greetings even when there weren't coins to be plunked into cups or hats, a motley menagerie who at first would have her fearful of being confronted, later knowing they most likely had her back.  There is a fragile honor to the street and he sensed that she was aware of that, at least that was one of his many speculations about her. 

Men noticed her and if she noticed them noticing she didn't let on, her small face almost always straight ahead, the one thing he couldn't even begin to speculate, what was going on behind eyes older than her young  face, lined tired some days more than others, once he'd seen exhaustion. Maybe it was the air of vulnerability, the appearance of fragility, but if you looked closely, and he did, there was a toughness, a skin of armor, thin but strong enough to deflect that which needed deflecting.

She wore clothes, not many, he had seen most of them several times, that might not have looked like much until she put them on.   The train was full of men and women made by labels and thread count, colors and dry cleaning, cuffs and creases and he wondered if she noticed that his own dress had been toned down, learning from her?  Or not wanting to intimidate her or have her think he cared about that, or maybe it was some of all that.

It was two weeks maybe, give or take, that he had been rising to give her his seat, first time she declined, he said no, please, she sat with shy smile.  Nearly every day now he collected his wrap, his crap, and began to stand while she was handing her crimped clutched ticket to the collection conductor, and every day, just like that first time, not thanks, soft barely heard but genuinely expressed, but girl voiced thank you.  He didn't stare, she wasn't one to be comfortable with that, he was aware of her there, close, seated only inches from where he stood with one hand holding on and the other usually in his pocket, not knowing what else to do with it.  He got off before she did, he didn't know how much farther she rode and he never saw her on the ride back out of the city.  He wondered, wanted to know, didn't ask, not yet.  Three days, spaced by a week or more, she didn't show and he felt a loss, the first time a slight panic that he wouldn't see her again, maybe the smile was bigger, the thank you a little more meaningful, he wanted to thank her back for coming back, when she boarded once again the day after she didn't.

He was attracted to her differently, not the way he would be to the lawyer, jeweled and coiffed, who had more than one man quickly rise when she hauled Vuitton bag and briefcase, cell phone usually at her ear, up the steps fumbling for her ticket, her air of you can all wait for me can't you everyone else does.  Not like that at all.   He wondered how she saw him, wondered if she felt him, sensed him, his deliberate interest becoming a warm fascination.  If the train was somewhere else, a bar, a luncheonette, he would have spoken to her by now, he didn't know why he hadn't, something held him back, wanting her to trust him? 

He didn't know if she was available, interested, approachable, didn't know anything but that he had some unexplainable deep feelings for her.
Crazy, this waif of girl who had stepped onto his train, into his mind, taken his seat, crazy. 

He wasn't tongue tied, shy, without words, inarticulate, at least until he saw the smile, welcoming open smile that she smiled when he almost hoarsely pushed the hi up from somewhere deep in his chest up his throat and past his lips.  He took a deep breath before he asked how she was doing this beautiful morning, the deep breath not helping much at all when he saw she was still smiling, this waif of girl.   

   

Eight the hard way

Dime sized bruises the color of a banana just going bad above her right elbow on either side of her arm, ringed and older underneath, newly bruised on top, the place he handles her.   I'd watched him at the table relentlessly chasing the hard eight, his eyes steely and hard watching for the seven or soft eight whenever he saw the fours appear, riding the eight like it was his meal ticket.   It felt like he was playing with the rent, the way her eyes dropped  as side bets went sideways and his chips unpiled.  Biker T shirt and a football school hat grimed dirty with a white jagged sweat line, jaw set permanently loser mean.  Her head, voice and expectations lowered speaking softly in his direction, no doubt imploring him to cut losses and cash in.  Punk was ambidextrous tipping the long neck bottle to his thin scowl at the same time squeezing the handle he had on her, thumb and forefinger layering another pair of bruises, only her eyes winced, straightening and shutting up, her skin smooth and flawless but for where he imprisioned her, skin soft under muted casino lighting, never day or night lit, just lit enough for money to be found and lost.

He didn't get his seven, curled his lip like he was being cheated, caught my eyes watching her, and when I knew he was looking I dropped my gaze to her arm and the freshly squeezed spots still white from finger pressure but soon to be red then yellow then purple, raising my eyes to pierce his til I broke him, a coward can't hold it, knowing he would look back and snarl something face saving about an old man with his best thousand yard stare, or so he thought, he and his face beyond saving.  The stickman was not far from the security button and the cocktail waitress was stiff lipped at being stiffed.  He scooped up the short chip stack scattering them in the process not even bothering to pick up the one that fell to the floor, reached for her arm, stopped short and stormed off in a huffed tantrum almost childlike in frustration, leaving the best part of him behind.  Alcohol and resolve drained from his head,  he staggered off, careening like the dice that had bounced down the table only moments before but unlike them, he didn't come to a rest. 

She looked me the look that said she'd been left before, more relief than loss, gathered herself, slid off her stool, bent to retrieve the errant chip and did her best not to slink away.  I watched her, eyes furtive, chin dropped to her chest, bluejeaned bottom rounder than I would have guessed from the frailness of her arms, walking off considering the direction she would take, stopping, turning, lifting her chin, and with the resolve he didn't have she retraced her steps, stopped at my side, and with a voice stronger than I would have expected said, I don't need a hero, but I could use a cup of coffee.

I almost took her arm to guide her through the crowd, caught myself, offered her mine instead, saying, anywhere in particular, no she says, just somewhere else.

Drinks without dinner

He expertly guided the thirty-six foot Hatteras along the intracoastal and into the slip at the restaurant's dock side.  She marveled once again at his finesse on the water and his comfort and ease with everything marine.  She knew that once tied up and docked and walking across the weathered wooden pier to the waterfront lounge that the quiet confidence of the man on the boat would become just a wish out of water.  He was not a man to be landed, only on water was he something close to what she  needed him to be.  She had traded all the trappings of comfort, no joy, but a steadfast consistency of dull love for the wispy smoke of a dream that thinned and faded and finally disappeared the way dreams do when you wake.  That was a long time ago, before she bought the lush lips and full breasts and the pumped up manufactured smile and the condo in the highrise that had the seaview if you stood on the balcony and leaned, before she bought the boat that bought the man who didn't pull her chair out for her in the lounge lit with colored globes and piped in Jimmy Buffet muzak that wasn't really to be heard but to act as a partition of sound so you couldn't hear the conversation at the next table.   His shoulders rounded and drew in when the cocktail waitress approached, his blurt without greeting or deference to her order, of rum and coke was the end of conversation other than her softly spoken request for Campari and soda with eyes that were sad and sheepishly apologetic but with no wrinkles at the corners.  The color of the light and it's softness dulled  sharp edges and the second drink further blurred the lines.  Her thoughts drifted across some town somewhere to her lost dull love and she wondered if he was sipping his second scotch and not saying anything to someone he couldn't talk to. 

Her eyes drifted to the colored reflection of the brightly lit sign blurred and inverted  on moonlit water lapping at wooden pilings, beckoning those seaborne to the place called Yesterday's.

Leaving

Settled  gaze dead set deep into her eyes held an intimate second too long, unsettling her.   Knowing he could then look away and she wouldn't,  sensing her unease at his having seen beneath her surface.  He didn't pause at her normal portals, didn't knock, always finding the key hidden from everyone else and using his own private entrance without waiting to be asked in.  He could do that, enter at will and make himself at home there inside her spots bare and places sweet, afraid of neither the corners dark nor the lowest sunken hidden level, dank, dark and sooty, unclean, unadorned and never expecting company. She hadn't intended on giving him access to all areas but he had an ease of movement that allowed him to walk through closed doors, ghosting his way through her. 

Later behind drawn blinds and locked doors he stripped her and with legs close, tight,together, back straight except for curve of spine, lifted her arms out to her sides palms up, soothing her with hushed whispers slow and soft through lips pursed with the words  moist breath on her face.  He ran fingertips up the swell of each hip dipping up the soft sides to where she should flinch but didn't, relaxed and zoned, across new stubble under her arms and the baby skinned upper arms to graze the elbow with thumb and index finger and seeing the drowse in her eyes from the imperceptibe touch  to inner wrists where  blood courses strongest and closest to the the surface,  faint tiny hairs on her forearms standing from the current running through her wanting this one last memory of what she could give him,  both knowing the only thing more difficult than staying with someone with whom you don't want to stay is leaving someone you don't want to leave.