Even when it was still open my feet sometimes left tracks in the dust between the shelves of that little used bookstore downtown. It’s gone now, don’t bother looking for it, but before it closed I found what follows written on a piece of notebook paper. It fell from the pages of a heavy book I as looking at, I don’t remember the title, something about gardening or cooking, and at first I took it for a page come loose from the binding. I opened the book to put it back, looked at the top of the piece of paper for a page number and instead saw blue lines and handwriting.

Dear Susie,

Do your collarbones still taste like the stars?

Has anyone ever told you that? Because it’s true and has been for all the empty years in between here and there. I wonder if you even still live in that big house at the end of Sparrow Lane, its white sides and lattice guarded by a line of oak trees. Those hours spent slicked with sweat and ignoring mosquitoes in your room, summer hours between noon and three in the afternoon. Your mother left for tea at noon, your father got home from the office at three and you tied that red scarf to the rail of the balcony outside your room to let me know the coast was clear.

I still have the scar on my knee from when I spilled racing to you on a backway street. You gathered me inside and cleaned it with something from the medicine cabinet and I tried not to wince. We fell upon each other afterward, my still-bleeding knee staining your bedspread, clumsy and eager and younger than I can imagine looking back now.

I hid my bike in the bushes behind your house and you balanced a heavy book on the edge of a table by the door with a teacup on top of it.

An early warning system. We thought we were very clever.

Today when I visited my knuckles fell shy of the door. I am not a boy any longer like I was the day when the door opened and the book fell and the cup shattered on the kitchen floor. You flew into your clothes, I flew out to the balcony and over the side, landing rough and tumbled toward my Schwinn.

I never saw your red scarf again that summer or any after.

Are those sheets still stained with my blood?

At a bookstore in town I bought a heavy book, tucked this note between its pages and left it on the porch of your house. Susie did you find it? Did you read it? Will I ever see you again?

I could find my old bike, you could find that red scarf and we could do our damndest to charm away the afternoons and make three hours seem like a blink.

Love,
Aaron.

I slipped the note back between the pages and put the book back on the shelf. Maybe Susie found it.

Driftwood

Between crates smelling of saffron, gunpowder and whiskey was a pearl in the hold, a pearl of a love smuggled between them like rifles to Tunisia. Stowed away by a sailor friend for a handful of crowns, half their fortune invested in a new world and life from the docks of Liverpool to New York City.

Winds buffeted the ship and in the cries from the decks above, the pitch and roll of the hold and in the bruises the crates left on their shoulders they knew the shape of the storm as it tore the vessel to shreds and took them under. He did not make it to the surface and as she floated in the cold, cold water she felt him somewhere far below. No doubt he now sat to the dealer’s left in a game of poker with Davey Jones.

The sun rose in the calm morning like a blasphemy as she clung to a piece of timber and she was rescued by a passing ship two feverish and salty days later. To die of thirst surrounded by water was not to be her fate and she never even feared the sharks that prudence told her passed through the water just below her feet. Given water and wool blankets, she shivered on this new deck without even the strength to cry. All that remained of him, of that other ship, of their love and of that pearl was a splinter from the plank that she’d clung to, trapped in the sleeve of her dress. She kept it close as the new ship bound for Halifax neared land. Surrounded by fishermen and sympathy she drifted past the docks and into the town, taking a room near the harbor and walking in the new dusk to a place between buildings on the edge of town.

There in the spring earth she buried the splinter like a skinny coffin, speaking his eulogy in tears that fell into the makeshift grave in place of flowers or a handful of dirt.

There were no pearls in New World. There were no pearls ever again.

Image Credit: Engraving by Gustav Dore

January and Jazz

The weight’s back across his shoulders the second he opens his eyes and swings his feet to the cold wooden floor, gentle so he doesn’t jostle the bed and wake up his wife piglet snoring next to him. A shower and comfortable shoes, an untucked workshirt and coffee that will wait for the bodega, it’s quieter that way in the cavernous Bushwick loft with holes in the walls big enough to peer through. Winter comes calling often. Before he leaves he looks down at her sleeping form, the big green eyes screwed shut that used to captivate him once upon a time but now it’s all January and jazz in his head. Jazz reminds him of being alone and January reminds him of love and he wonders if bad coffee can mute nostalgia.

When did the ring on his finger turn into forty evenly spaced iron bars and her cunt a shackle?

His day job is sorting mail for a big company in midtown. He comes in the servant’s, pardon, the service entrance. Fluorescent lights and more bad coffee, frustration and paper cuts.

“Have you seen my package?”

“FedEx delivers at the messenger center, sir.”

Darkness comes down at five o’clock without any art at all, just mugs the whole city into an alleyway and he longs for the gentle grift of summer twilight. He changes into steel-toed boots and a black sweatshirt under his leather jacket, gets dinner at a burger joint before the second job he took after…

“We’ve gotta move you back to the mailroom.”

“But I just got married, I got a wife…”

“That department doesn’t want you anymore.”

The bar is sunny and warm, fake frost in the corners of the windows and he wonders if that was her doing, finishes his cigarette as he peers in the window at her. Fragile arms and a laugh like a crow with a bullhorn, tattoos and too much eyeliner, all blond dishwater, pale-blue eyes and swinging hips above her motorcycle boots.

He smiles and remembers that night in the basement. Cigarette gone, he drops his stuff in the back and waves to her, on his way back outside to stand at the door.

“I.D., guys.”

“Yo, for real? I ain’t got mine.”

“Then find another bar.”

“Yo, you’re a dick.”

“Yeah. Have a good night.”

Bored and aching feet, he remembers the night he fucked her in the basement and how smooth her skin was, even across the tattoos. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised but that flickers fast as she closes her mouth around him.

So warm. The basement has the boiler in it. She kisses his wedding ring with a sticky mouth.

A bum leans against the lamppost, two pigeons perch and peer down at him from on the yellow traffic lights.

“You gotta get right with all that, youngster.”

“What?” He asks the bum.

“You gotta get right with life and with god.”

“I’ll get around to it.”

“You got a dollar.”

“I got a cigarette.”

He lights the bum’s cigarette and they puff in silence.

“You gotta get right with god, young man.”

He chuckles. “Maybe some day. Now, do me a favor and find another corner.”

“No problem.”

The bum shuffles off, takes his winter-muted stink with him and the pigeons eventually follow. Eight hours later he hustles the last drunk out the door and gets his shift pay, his shift drink. She smiles at him and inclines her head toward the basement.

Why not? His shift fuck.

Fifteen minutes later he pulls out and cums on the empty Jack Daniels crate between her feet while she coos in his ear with what he can’t imagine and doesn’t try until after he’s put her in a cab without kissing her goodnight.

Grabbing a cab of his own, he unlocks the door of the loft and sees his wife as he left her as if the day had never happened. In the bathroom he washes his mouth and his dick, brushes his teeth and slips in bed next to her. She mumbles and he kisses her sleepy mouth.

“You brushed your teeth.”

“I was smoking.”

“Oh.” She settles back to sleep and as his head hits the pillow he thinks, yeah, I gotta get right with something, but I gotta get up in six hours.

The flowers in the buckets near her feet were never as bright as her smile, the flash of her eyes vibrant in the filth of Orange Street. I could have avoided the whole of it on my way to my work at the shipping company on Cedar Street. Lads like me were wise to stay out of the Points, but each morning I found myself taking my time through what the papers called the world’s worst slum.

She flirted with every tough who stopped, poking his fingers through the flowers in the bucket and talking to her through crooked smiles. How she laughed. I wished I could talk to her like that, wished she’d notice me past my narrow shoulders and pointy nose. What were they saying to her? All my stories were of weight limits on schooners, the full breadth of the hold, and just what weight of cotton and leather it would accommodate. As I watched her laugh and shove these men away, men at whom I was afraid to even look, I knew she cared nothing for shipping. She probably liked tales of duels and fistfights with the coppers.

The only fights I got into were with my own body. Nosebleeds every morning, asthma attacks in the afternoon.

“Thank god you’re here, lad. The books are fucked, we’ve misplaced a cargo and the ships are sitting in harbor under some threat of fine from the harbor master and I know I paid that crooked fuck, but I can’t find the…”

“Okay, sir, just a moment.” I hung my cap and coat and went through the files, chaos now that he’d been at them, and found what was left of my system like a boxer against the ropes. I coaxed it back to life and handed him the correct papers and proofs.

“God bless you, lad. Don’t know how we’d manage with you.”

I bet her toughs couldn’t have saved the morning’s business just like that. I smiled and looked out of the window at the masts in the Hudson River just around the southern tip of Manhattan. After close of business I walked home again, braving the falling shadows to catch another glimpse of her. That evening, like every other, I almost bought a flower. I imagine that she’d ask me if it’s for my sweetheart and I’ll smile and shake my head and a word, but I only looked at her as I passed slowly by.

“I can’t go out tonight, Edward, some of us have to work for a living.”

Edward adjusted his silk cravat, a pearl-headed stickpin through it. “Christ, lad, you’re going to waste away in here. Stay this virginal and some day a knight will try to rescue you, thinking you’re a princess in disguise.”

“He ain’t a prisoner.” My boss shouted from his office.

“I’ve got too much work.”

“No he doesn’t. Christ get him out of here he’s starting to smell funny.”

I cast a hurt look at my grinning boss and Edward rubbed his hands together.

“Excellent. I’ve got just the place.”

The brandy was as warm and plentiful as the women. Dimly I was aware of the piano and Edward’s laughter the way I was aware of being coaxed into bed next to a lady who seemed mostly bosom. I did not even get her name before she slipped me inside her and before I knew it I was back out on the street, sitting on the curb and trying to clear my head before the walk home. I was a man now. Between deep breaths I tried to smile and failed. If I was a man, why were my shoulders as narrow and stooped as ever?

Somewhere near Spring Street I dodged a horse and carriage and heard a familiar laugh. Music seeped from the dancehall and in the alley behind was my flower girl pinned to the wall, legs up and holding onto broad shoulders. He braced her to the brick while she laughed, breathless and delighted, slapping his shoulders and biting at his mouth. I envied his power, his possession of her as he groaned and shuddered, letting go of her hips while she stroked his face and cooed against his collar. He pushed her away and turned to buckle his trousers. She looked at his back and raised a hand, reaching out almost to touch his shoulder but letting it drop. As he walked back inside the dancehall, she slumped to the ground and I expected to see tears on her face at being used so cruelly. There was nothing, just a smile I’d never seen as she lit a thin cigar and I hurried away before she noticed me watching.

In the morning she stood by her flowers the smile I knew in place. I walked over and picked up a single yellow tulip.

“That for somebody special, handsome?”

That smiled turned full on me, my knees almost buckled. Handing her a quarter I smiled and shrugged as I handed it to her. Her smiled flickered and she looked confused as I turned around and walked away.

“You forgot your flower.” She called after me but I kept walking.

The next morning I walked to work on West Broadway, the Points far to my left.

I Wrote a Song About You

I wrote a song about you little darlin, and it’s called God-damn. That’s every verse, the chorus and the hook.

Can I take you to the bridge?

I just wanted to tell you that the way you sit that barstool makes me think you could reduce my walls to picket fences if you’d just throw your leg over. Curves like a hand-shaped cello, if I drag my bow just right will you rumble a low-bass purr into the hollow of my throat?

I don’t mean to get fresh. Fresh, you know, like racy. Ribald. Not fresh like new, like this rap isn’t one you’ve heard a thousand times with those eyelashes like razors with a stroke of indigo across the lids. How did I know it’s that color when it’s so dark under these lights? You kiss the rim of your glass, just a peck of whiskey not a bushel and I bet your pretty neck on nothing. Big silver hoops dangle from your ears and look like bullseyes. I’d let you shoot an apple off my head as long as you promise to aim at my heart.

I imagine your mouth tastes like dark wine and smoke and while we’re on the subject have you got an extra cigarette?

No? That’s cool. I don’t smoke anyway, I just wanted you to give me something besides your attention. I’d steal the whole world just so I can pawn it for a kiss.

Maybe I just crossed the line but please don’t think me insincere.

Much as I like looking at the back of your shoulder, the sliver of your chin, the cut of your eyes, it looks like you’re running. Maybe I’ll drive you to flee just so I can watch you leave. Angry footsteps, muffled trumpets, and your backward glances are the sound of Junior Wells’ harp. The pitch and roll of your hips like nothing else.

If I said you done hoodooed man would you get the reference?

Don’t tell me. I scare you, right? I think the web of skin between my thumb and index was made for your hip, but we won’t know for sure unless we try. Gotta be careful, you look sharp enough to cut, and you glamour like the moon shining on broken glass just after the rain. Two kind words from you, the gold coins on a dead man’s eyes. If you give me five and a smile I’ll see if the boatman can make change before he ferries me across the river.

I wager the contents of my pockets you’d dig a moonlit walk on the banks of the Styx.

Sure, I’m getting ahead of myself but I can see your curiosity like an eye at a keyhole.

Just open the door, sugar. I’m only asking for all the time you have in this world, which is to say right now, this moment. All the things you aren’t saying are like the lost pages from old books, ripped out and burned for our sanity, flashing incandescent yellow and blue as the flames bite down and chew.

Too bad we’re not really talking. Too bad you’re all the way over on the other side of the bar. Too bad I’m only gonna rip this page out of my notebook and burn it to see if the ashes will be some color other than gray.