+
One end of my street runs into the river, so on days when the weather is fine I can sit on my small balcony and lean on the wrought-iron rail, watching a parade of children and parents make their way to the park. Sometimes there are couples who have given themselves an hour or two to wander out of doors, and their fingers twine together or arms reach around each other so tightly that they can only walk at a common pace, only look in the same direction. I haven't seen one of those couples come apart yet. Sometimes professional dog- and cat-walkers tow entire menageries of house-pets past on strings. Once I saw a man with a monkey tied to his wrist with a leather thong, and I thought — Oh, the jailer cares enough to walk his prisoner! Then I had to smile and wonder who was jailer and who was jailed?
From above, everyone's expression is hidden by the angle of my chair to the street, by the shadow that covers their brow, hidden even by the sunlight at times, in the way it catches and washes their features. But now and then, in a particularly animated conversation, someone will throw their head back, and I can see their eyes. The day's events take place in the body, I know, but the
eyes are the window to the soul
… Who said that?
The body is a ship the spirit chooses to sail, and the eyes are little portholes looking out…
I said that. If you look closely enough, you can see who the passenger is. There, look at that huge smile! But the eyes are almost unbearably lonely and hungry. And that woman there seemed so drab as she approached my balcony, but now that I see her face I notice there is some bonfire burning inside of her. — Look out, you're going to set your ship on fire! But maybe she is careful to keep everything flammable away from her heart.
It's not hard to see, if you stop to look. There's nothing at all to learn; you only have to watch, and avoid getting caught up in the masquerade that each one puts up in their own defense. I guess that's how old Trace busted me. Her masquerade is that she's a flake, but even if she drives you crazy with her talk, she watches everybody, and she sees behind your mask. She looked behind my mask.
Some days when enough of my work is behind me - like today - I'll put my phone lists aside, grab whatever book I am reading, or grab a light magazine to get me flirting with myself, like
Elle
, and skip downstairs, out the door, to become part of the parade myself. I really do skip downstairs. There is nothing that makes you feel younger than leaving pages of work behind you, and aiming yourself at the sun. Except maybe talking to Tracy, I suppose. The street is often noisy, because River Road traffic is close at hand, with the hum of the city a constant in the background. If my copy of
Elle
is too stale, there is a newsstand two doors down where I can pick up a fresher edition, or something else, maybe even the Times if my mood is running cool. Next to that is my favorite coffee shop, favorite because it serves up acceptable brew at all hours, and Julio, who runs the place, always looks so happy to see me. He looks happy to see everyone, must be whatever Latin blood he's got in him, or maybe it's just Julio shining out of his portholes. His eyes match his face, by the way, and that's why I like his coffee, even if I have to load it up with cream to drink it.
After Julio's, there are a few apartment buildings like mine, each one more upscale than the last, as their view of the river widens. The windows of the last one catch dawn, follow the sun over the entire skyline to the west and then, if you move to the dining room, you can watch it set. When it has just about dipped below the horizon you can casually make your way to the bedroom, letting the last rays warm the walls with deep red. That's how I imagine it. I actually don't know how they lay the rooms out in those chic flats. But if one were mine, the sun would follow me to the bedroom, and put me to bed.
In the last building there is a sheltered, ground-level veranda where, rain or shine, and at almost any time of day, Mrs. Wheeler sits rocking in her chair, with knitting on her knees and in her hands. She must produce a tremendous number of sweaters. If you live on my block, it is impossible not to meet her. At least, you can't help notice her, and sooner or later you'll stop to ask what she is knitting, and hear for whom, and make small talk that ends in learning her name. She wears a wig; I hope I never have to wear a wig. Imagining my long, silky hair falling strand by strand… I feel sad. Mrs. Wheeler must be eighty-five or ninety, and she hasn't much to say. Simply a hello, a how are you, a question about the weather tomorrow, and perhaps a short comment about something she noticed in the neighborhood. She doesn't put much into words, really; but she was born before the 20s, and you can see all of that history piled up inside of her when you meet her eyes. Like an attic filled with dusty books. Those eyes are slightly clouded with age, as if they had filled up with wisps of smoke left over from the wars, or the storm clouds that blew away the prairie farms. Or just the attic dust. She told me she lost her husband in '44. I suppose she never remarried.
Along the river is a dirt path most people use for walking, and a paved sidewalk that is owned by everything with wheels. Between the walk and the water is an old iron railing that the city repaints every few years. Its points and edges have softened under many layers of paint. My favorite place to sit is under a sycamore tree, right there at the end of my street. I love the smell of sycamore, and how it is made of hidden gold, as if it were in a perpetual Autumn. There always seem to be a few leaves scattered around my feet.
If I had been sitting in my balcony this time yesterday, I could have looked down and framed that whole scene: the branches of the huge tree reaching out over the water and above the bench, and there below them the back of my head as I sat facing away, above the graying slats of the bench, my beautiful hair like a blond cascade whose currents the breeze brushed from side to side, as if it were threading the strands through its fingers. My body would have been hidden and revealed by the weathered wood, the brief stretch of grass beneath me, the blurred railing beyond and then, sparking in the sun, the river and its paddlers and sailboats.
This time yesterday, if I had been sitting on my balcony and looking toward the river, I would have seen myself, and around me the day's motion, a steady stream of roller blades working their way up-river, while pedestrians hurried out of the way of their chaos. Moving slowly in the other direction, the same anonymous faces you would see any other day, out walking through a pleasant afternoon, mothers with their new babies - I always set down my book to meet them, if they are talkative, to hold or coo at their children - and bicyclists either coasting down or pedaling up the slight slope.
Yesterday, if I had been watching the river from above, I would have seen myself and the day moving past me, and against its palette of colors a bright yellow bicycle, similar to all the others, would have come over the crest of the hill, coasting downward in the direction of my bench, as though pulled toward me by gravity. I might have seen it hidden briefly by the bulk of the sycamore, then rush by me. I would have seen my head raised just as the bicycle was passing, and when the wheels were exactly opposite, I would have seen the rider look over his shoulder. I would have seen his face brighten as he glanced quickly forward and back several times while he spun away, making sure he neither fell nor missed contact. I would have watched myself suddenly sit up very straight, almost rising from my seat, as though my body were ready to leap up, but my mind was slow and undecided. I don't think I could have heard myself say — Hey...! I doubt any sound actually passed my lips. But I may have seen those lips move, even from so far away, and my hand shoot half-mast in a greeting that was also a parting, as one of his hands waved back over his shoulder, waved twice before spinning around the corner. Then he was gone, and everything that was not me was frozen in time.
I would have seen myself stand up. —
Damn
it! Aren't you going to stop? I might even have stamped my foot. But that I don't remember.
+
— What happened to
you
? You look like you've seen a ghost.
— Trace… where do you come
up
with lines like that? Do you have to read things somewhere before you say them? Jesus, I walk in here, I feel like I'm living in a B-movie, and you're the star.
Her eyebrows raised and she pursed her mouth into an
Ooh
- or maybe it was a
Whoa
- then turned away to rummage for something to eat. I think we always meet in the kitchen. I can't remember the last time I saw Tracy in the living room or on the street.
— And for your information I
have
seen a ghost. And I
am
living in a B-movie.
There was a moment waiting for that to sink in, and another moment for it to wander around in Tracy's head, looking for a home. But she was pretty quick. She whirled around with a grin on her face that in my opinion was bigger than it should have been. — Heeey BABY!
