the fall of the last good listener

The croissant flakes linger on her lips as she talks. I pick up a little spoon and stir my coffee, black with nothing in it, as a distraction. I'm trying to see the girl I once knew in the face in front of me, but something has changed. Her once bleach-blond hair, now a deep chestnut color, is the most obvious difference. Using her hands to sweep up the croissant crumbs from the table, I notice the small, gold band on her left ring finger, and feel a shiver of disappointment run through me when I realize that in the hour we have spent together, I have yet to hear about a man in her life.

A memory forms in front of me, of picking her up after school, watching her weave through the other teenagers with an unnatural confidence. Her mother would often ask me to pick her up on Fridays so that we could do something that would distract Kristina from getting into trouble downtown. It wasn't really in our 'Big Sister' contract to act as a distraction, but I got the drift.

"You still with Jamie?", she asks.

"seventeen years"

"Dang. That's longer than most"

I decide not to tell her about our large, lingering fight this morning.

"How about you? Anyone special in your life?"

She twists her delicate wrist and looks at her watch.

"I need to pick up Kiera at 2 from my mom's. I should probably get going"

"You want one more cup before you go?"

"No. But you wanna share a cigarette with me outside?"

We stand up simultaneously. I can feel the adrenaline run through me from the last time we shared a cigarette, under a tree in the pouring rain, the day I lost the baby.

She pulls out a crumpled pack of American Spirits and hands one to me. I light up first. Kristina puts hers in her mouth, leans towards my face and pushes it towards the tip of mine. We stand close, cigarettes touching, light burning.

"It would be nice to see you more often. It was really nice to catch up today", I say.

She looks at me blankly, tilts her eyes up to the sky.

"I've been on a lot more meds these days. But it's good. I feel calmer."

She takes a long, slow drag.

"It looks like rain. I think I left my windows rolled down. Better go. Thanks Mia!"

A low rumble echoes from the sky. The sun disappears and I can feel the heavy pitter patter of drops fall on my head.

Eve

Lying on my back, bare feet in metallic stirrups, I stare at the faded picture pinned to the ceiling: Redwood trees standing watch over a winding road.

How much time has passed? I can hear a clock ticking somewhere and wonder whether it is my own watch, thought to be broken, buried somewhere in the depths of my purse.
Forgive me Father, for it has been approximately 1200 years since my last physical. I have had many sexual partners in that time. My periods are regular, heavy, with a good amount of cramping. I am acutely aware of a small lump in my right breast. It swells in small spasms, the timing of which I have yet to figure out. I wonder if I let it grow: will it push all of the old breast tissue out of the way or will it encompass it; ocean waves or rising tide?

Adam was the one who found this clinic: Family Tree. He turned on his computer and rode the Internet wave; no big feat considering the time he puts on that machine. I am staring at the picture of the Redwoods and remembering Adam on the winding road, naked as a boy, holding my hand. No computers and no ticking clocks.

The door opens slowly. I can hear the person on the other side looking at the chart the nurse has hung on the wall by my room:
Age:
Height: 5’2
Weight: a solid 130 lbs.
Family History:

The door continues to creep open and I pull myself slowly out of the Redwood forest.
The footsteps that come into the
room are too soft to be that of an adult.

“Ms. Wa…eea…ahhh.mm?” the female voice asks cautiously, as if she were sounding out the name in Cyrillic.

“Present”, I respond without thinking
She stares at my chart. Pushing her stylish glasses back up her nose and delicately putting her bobbed hair behind one of her ears, she assumes the position of the diminished professional. I shuffle around on the waxy paper, to remind her of the fact that my feet are up in the air and I’m already way past the point of introductions.

“Yes, I’m wondering why you left both the age and family history sections blank on your paperwork?” she pulls her eyes up from the clipboard and looks at me (or rather looks down). I can tell from her pink nose and cheeks, the icy Wintergreen breath, that she was the woman in the green parka I saw on my way in, smoking a cigarette behind the burning bush.

“Were you adopted?” she gently pulls the words out of her mouth, as if she knows exactly that I saw her smoking and we’re about to trade secrets.

My eyes try to soften back on the Redwood forest. The picture appears smaller to me now. I am aware of its flat existence amidst the sea of styrofoam squares. I can clearly see the yellowing edges and the crinkle near one of the pushpins. I can see the young doctor, after hours, afraid to return to her empty, cold 600 sq. foot apartment, coming into the room laying on the bed and firing up one of her Marlboro lights, drifting off to the coast of California.

“My family history is complicated. Do you know of the Sarmatian women, descendents of the Scythians and Amazons: warriors of the Far East?”
Our eyes lock, finally, and I can feel the lump in my right breast begin to throb. The snapping and simultaneous ripping of her pink, plastic gloves breaks the cloaked silence.
“Damn. They don’t make them like they used to” she whispers.

Malcolm meet Maureen

"Did you know that our noses continue to grow as we get older?", Malcolm asks the pretty girl, wiping ketchup from her pouty lips.

"I think you're lying", she smirks.

"No...it's..."

"I'm kidding" she says, "I was making a reference to Pinocchio."

Malcolm looks at the burger on his plate, the lettuce wilting out the side. He just can't eat around pretty girls.

"You going to eat that?" Maureen asks. That's her name, Maureen, he has forgotten it, but suddenly it comes back to him. "Cause if you're not, could I have it"

He pushes his plate over towards her side of the table. Maureen lifts the bun and takes out the large slab of grade-D meat. She folds it carefully in her napkin and puts it in her purse. The purse that is large enough to potentially be carrying an entire litter of puppies.

Malcolm tries to find something else to say to fill up the awkward silence as Maureen rummages in her purse for god only knows what, but he gives up. He is no good at small talk, as is evidenced by his 'nose' trivial pursuit fact above.

What fifteen year old girl has a purse the size of the Titanic? A backpack he could understand, but a purse?

"I fink I...go ome ow", Maureen mumbles from inside the purse

"Excuse me?" I say, a bit too loudly.

Maureen pulls her small ostrich like head from the interior of her purse, "I'd like to go home now", she says as she applies deep, ruby red lipstick to her small, puffy lips.

My eyes began to water, and to stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks, I roughly rub my hands over the tops of my thighs and concentrate on finding our waitress.
'What is wrong with me?', I think as Maureen shoves her short gymnast arms through the sleeves of her nylon coat. It has taken me three years to get up the nerve to ask a girl out on a date and in that time period I haven't considered for one minute what we might talk about. I just haven't visualized talking.

Maureen pops a piece of gum in her mouth and looks at me, or I should say, she looks just a little past me, "This was fun"

I stare at her. Look right at her. Look at her sparkling eyes and small, flowery mouth. Look at her perky hair, held tight and up high on her head in a ponytail. Think about who she will call first when she gets home; where she will ask them to meet her, stealing herself out of the house again, pretending to still be out on a date with me. Our eyes meet and I force a small smile. I know something she does not.

I know that in twenty-five years I will watch Maureen, chest rising and falling, arms grabbing at the majority of our comforter. She will sleep with her mouth open, her hair still held tight on her head in a pony tail. The gymnast arms long gone; I will enjoy pressing my face into the soft flesh now at the crease of her elbow. Pressing my aging body against her small back, I will think about the smells of that old diner and the conversation we never got to have.

stripper on the roof

I work in an office. An old warehouse, actually. Situated between three of the best gentlemens clubs in the city. The one directly across the street, the one with the gold Pegasus statue stashed on the roof, is appropriately enough called, Choice. Reassuring customers and strippers alike, that, yes, you are each making a choice and by the soft glow of the neon lights, it is a good decision.

Today, as my gaze wanders out the window for the four-hundreth time, I notice a young woman, wrapped in a sweater, on a day not less than eighty degrees, sitting on top of that roof. That "no access" roof with the gold pegasus statue. Sitting behind the gold winged-horse, deep brown hair blowing in the wind, she watches the customers down below laugh and egg each other in. She turns back to the horizon, pushing her head up further and inhaling all that the open sky has to offer.

I turn to my computer screen and when my gaze strays back she is gone. Back down the winding stairs to the lit stage below. Back to two dollar cherry cokes and nonsensical intimacy. To sweaty hands at the small of her back. To the smells of cheap cologne and tater tots, new dollar bills and old coins. She will lose herself in her work, something that I can not do. Instead I will sit here and wait, watching for her to re-emerge, waiting for her next breathe of air.

trash in the sky

One last swig of Tang and he was out the door. Hurrying across the street, pushing his 1991 H210 teal-blue vacuum cleaner in front of him. His janitor keys, which he always stashed in his back pocket, usually fell out halfway through the crosswalk. Which he both predicted and could not prevent from happening. Until last Friday, when the mysterious new janitor handed him a chain belt in the break room. The moment he attached his keys to the chain belt, now attached to the loop on his pants, he felt a sense of "connectivity". He looked up and she was smiling at him. A genuine smile. And so today he ran without worry.

But he would quickly think of other things to worry about: One of the four tiny blue flames underneath his burners had blown out - emitting enough gas to blow up his treasures (and Mo, the cat). And then there was his demented mom, living on her own in the midst of the up and coming "hot" gay neighborhood. What club would he find her in at the end of the day, drug riddled and sweaty from dancing on empty tabletops, tipless, toppled.

How had he made it to forty-seven? What if today was it? Really it. Like the guy smirking at you on the corner, what if he was your last conscious image before your heart just - pop! - done...but enough of those thoughts, cause his therapist, whom he'd been seeing now for ten years had given him a new mantra "the glass of life can always be full - if you fill it. Drink up!", and then she would demo this by pulling out a beautiful Belgian beer glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels from one of the top drawers of her filing cabinets, and she would put it all away in one fast swig. He appreciated her sentiment (and her long red hair), and so he would try his own version of this every morning using an old marmalade jar and Tang.

He had to admit, things were looking better. The new girl hadn't ignored him, like everyone else. She had even given him an entire pack of gum on her first day. For no reason. Just like that. No one had ever given him gum. Sometimes people would hand him their trash, instead of dumping it directly in the receptacle, which always made him feel recognized and at the same time shitty. Because in the end, what does the handling of trash have to do with anything but dealing with other people's crap.

Persephone

Three quiet knocks on the old wooden door. "mama? You ok?"

Munching on a cookie, she thought about the small seed of a baby that was growing in her mama's belly. It might not have been bigger than one of the chocolate chips smearing her little chubby hand.

"Don't be eatin' no cookies before dinner, Persephone" her mama yelled from inside the small bathroom. It was hotter than Hades, and Bella Jean wasn't sure if it was the baby or the heat that was making her feel so bad. She had been laying down on the cool kitchen floor when the cramping began. The waves of pain increased and forced her into the bathroom. She had a feeling that last nights tumble down the stairs would cause this small child to bear the brunt of it's violent instigator.

Blood poured from her in an amount that seemed implausible. She focused on the sounds of Persephone's small hands drumming on the other side of the door.

"Perse, I need you to run and get Gigi"
"But I'm hungry, mama"
"Perse, I need you to run to Gigi's right now. very quickly. Before your daddy gets home. Tell her I need her right quick"
"Mama, why you been in there so long?"

Persephone pushed her ear against the door.

"Mama?"

Silence. Without a thought in her head, motivated by the purest form of fear, Persephone shoved herself out the front door of their tiny shack on the hill and took off running for her grandmother's house, a mile down the old dirt road. The trees watched as her little six year old legs worked harder than they ever had before. The neighbor's dog, an old Siberian husky, had felt the girl coming and was waiting by the road. He quickly joined her crusade and gallantly took the lead, every so often turning his head to check that she was keeping her pace.

Persephone felt herself being pulled down. Her little legs were growing heavy from the slapping of her bare feet against the thick earth. All she could think about was her mama sitting in that little bathroom all by herself. The sight of Gigi walking towards her seemed a mirage. Burying the tears into Gigi's legs, she felt her grandmother's strong arms pull the girl up and place her on her back. Connected once again, Persephone closed her eyes and prepared herself for the long way up.

maddog

Poppin' fizzies like it's hot, Maddog saunters towards the open bus door. The bus driver, five minutes late and pushing traffic, begins to pull away from the curb the moment the doors suck shut. Maddog shoves a crumpled dollar bill in the machine while juggling a medium sized taxidermied dog under her other arm.

"You can't bring no dead animals on the bus"

"This isn't a dead animal. It's a prop"

She drops two more quarters, 'clink, clink' and turns towards the bus full of people. Her eyes scan the riders, looking for a sign of life.

Her large, puffy black coat makes swishing noises as she makes her way down the aisle. One open seat--next to me. I make room for her, removing my gym bag and shoving it underneath our bench. Her hair is a tangled mass of beautiful brown curls. The stuffed dog's tail gets caught in it while she sits and I automatically raise my hand to brush her hair aside. She turns towards me and glares.

"I know you, Rufio, don't be touching me with your gym bag hands"

I'm speechless. She knows me. My heart flutters a bit as I imagine Maddog, standing outside Seko's house, watching me whip bang the speed bag. She lets go of a belch and I can smell the fruit fizzies on her breath. It's the first time I've ever been less than forty feet from her. Her stature is overwhelming and I feel dwarfed by not only her beauty but her size. The dog is impeding my view of her face. I try and lean forward, elbows on my knees, but it's too obvious when I sneak glances her way.

"Don't be starin' at my props, Rufio"

"You goin' to a shoot today or somethin'?"

"Yeah. My bike busted out on 42nd and I've gotta get this dog to a photo shoot by 4"

"Why don't those production people pay for you to use a car or somethin?"

"Yo, I wouldn't get hired if I told them I didn't have a car, ok? So this is just between you and me."

A number of tired faces turn around at the sound of Maddog's booming voice. The bus suddenly takes a big slide on a long piece of black ice and we all grab for whatever we can. Maddog's taxidermied prop loosens from her hold and goes spinning down the aisle.

"Fantastic. Will someone please kick that dead dog back here?" Her voice is like thunder on a quiet summer day.

Maddog charges at the old man, trying to push the dog back with his weathered cane. Grabbing the stuffed animal by his tail she pushes the stop button and braces herself while the bus comes to a quick halt.

"Can I get a receipt?" She boldly asks the driver.

"I don't have no receipts. You want a transfer?"

"I need somethin' for my records. This is part of my work travel expense."

A nice regular, sitting in the front seat near the driver has already made out a nice, handwritten receipt for Maddog on the back of one of her food stamps.

"Here you go, honey. Don't forget to file everything by April."

I watch as her chestnut curls fly out the bus doors, a small piece catching on the side mirror. She's running now, stuffed dog under her arm. This girl's going places.