For S.M.
1
I met Suzanne by accident. An accident I caused, I admit, but an accident nonetheless.
It was a Sunday, which I remember because I heard church bells everywhere I went on my morning run. Not actual church bells--not these days--but a thin-sounding pre-recorded series of bongs and clangs that played in a loop for a half-hour or so, like hearing the ice-cream truck off in the distance without it ever getting any closer.
It was late August, I was on the home stretch, and my T-shirt was soaked with sweat despite the early hour. The neighborhood was still new to me after moving in only a few weeks earlier, and I was experimenting with routes along back alleys, the grid of decrepit, narrow asphalt lanes that ran behind the residential blocks to give homeowners access to their garages and driveways at the rear property line. This was how I came to be in the alley behind the 200-block of Orchard Avenue, my stride reduced by now to a flat-footed slog.
Half a block away I noticed a solitary figure standing in front of a garage door: tall, slender, female, immobile. She was holding the leash of a small dog which was nervously inspecting clumps of weeds in a circle around its mistress. The leash was of the extensible kind, affording the dog a large radius for its patrol but retracting neatly when something--a piece of gravel, say, or a candy wrapper--spooked it. I'm not good with dog breeds, but this one was more or less white, long-haired, short-legged, and of no particular use to anyone in an emergency.
As I got closer, I could see the woman was dressed for the weather: pink tank-top and bright-yellow shorts that stopped high on the hip--with mid-80's-period cutaways--and unlaced busted sneakers with no socks. She was facing my way but had barely moved since I first noticed her. As was my habit since moving to the area, I greeted this new neighbor with a cheery wave and a breath-strangled "Morning!"
The woman didn't acknowledge me. Her arms continued to hang by her side, the handle for the dog's leash in her right hand. If she'd been blind and deaf I would have expected the same reaction. The little dog, on the other hand, was animated enough for both of them, at first yapping and making little circles in place then, as I continued to approach, suddenly lunging forward in an attempt to ward me off. The movement caused the woman's right arm to jerk forward and up until she let go of the dog's leash.
Too late, it turned out. She immediately collapsed to the ground, going straight down like an imploded building, no teetering or staggering to regain her balance. Her butt took most of the impact, her hands ending up behind her on the rough asphalt as an afterthought.
It was so unexpected and so
unlikely
(Lapdog Fells Local Woman With Mild Tug on Leash) that at first I couldn't process what I'd just witnessed. As soon as it was free, the dog stopped in its tracks and turned its attention to a nearby weed, while the woman sat looking straight ahead, expressionless and dazed.
It dawned on me that something else was wrong here. Medication? A mental disability of some kind? I completed the last few paces between us and squatted down in front of her.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? I didn't mean to startle your dog." This all came out in a breathless rush while I automatically extended my hand in an offer to help her up, wanting to fix what I'd broken as quickly as possible.
She didn't respond and just barely glanced up at me, otherwise continuing to stare in front of her in confusion.
Her hair was chestnut brown down to her shoulders, which were deeply tanned either side of the straps of her tank-top. The rest of her was similarly tanned: her long arms and long legs, including the considerable expanse of thigh all the way up to the gusset of her running shorts. The impression I had was that she'd worn this outfit every day for the whole of the summer, possibly longer. Her legs were splayed open unflatteringly as a result of the fall, and she either hadn't thought or was unable to close them, even with me squatting down right in front of her. I felt sorry for her as well as embarrassed on her behalf, which only added to the urgency to get her back on her feet.
She still hadn't responded to me but suddenly reached forward with her left hand and grasped my right hand in a surprisingly firm grip. She looked up and finally made eye contact with me, though her expression was unchanged. There was a tightness to her face and a grim set to her mouth, as though accustomed to enduring pain. She looked older in the face than the rest of her suggested; somewhere between her late fifties and mid sixties, but I could have been way off.
"Can you make it to your feet?" I said, returning her grip to reassure her I would help.
She gave a small groan that barely made it past her lips, but I felt her pull on my hand. I wondered if she understood what I was saying. Did she even speak English? Was that the problem?
I watched her move her legs ineffectually, swaying her knees side to side but giving no indication she had any strength or flexibility to rely on.
"Maybe I should try to lift you," I said, wanting this peculiar scene to be over with. I loosened my hold on her hand and stood up to walk around her. The little dog had been calmly sniffing weeds clustered at the corner of the garage, but stirred itself now at the movement and began its circling routine, this time getting the cord of the leash tangled around its legs. I thought it might take off any moment, so I reached for the plastic handle of the leash.
"Hold this?" I said to the woman.
She took the leash and manipulated the button to retract some of the excess. "She won't go anywhere," she said. It was the first time I heard her speak and I was surprised by her deep voice, soft with an underlying burr suggesting a long-time smoker.
"Okay," I said, relieved that she at least had the power of speech and understood what I was saying to her. All manner of possible ailments had crossed my mind, stroke or incipient heart attack among them, and now the situation suddenly appeared less catastrophic. But I still didn't know what was wrong with her, and I still had to get her to her feet.
I squatted behind her, uncomfortably close, in order to take a firm hold of her. "Sorry about this," I said, my crotch dangerously proximate to her back.
I took hold of her upper arms and squeezed, trying to gauge her weight and the effort needed to lift her. There would be no help from her, of course, so I had to be sure I could get her upright in one movement. But her arms were too mobile around the shoulders and I couldn't be sure I wouldn't do more damage.
"Listen, I think I'd better try around your ribs. Sorry. Again."
"It's fine," she said. There was a resignation in her voice that suggested being manhandled was nothing new to her, so perhaps this was some chronic condition that often required her to shelve her dignity and accept any available assistance.
The rising heat of the day--stacked on top of the heat already generated from my run, plus the specific heat of awkwardness arising from this encounter--had produced a sweat that filtered through my eyebrows and down into my eyes, that streamed down my back, that caused my feet to squelch in their sneakers. But it was nothing compared to the fire emanating from this woman's armpits. Her skin was remarkably dry, however, even relatively cool to the touch, as though her sweat glands were in shutdown. Was that possible? It made me think of the flu, and the chills you get while your body cooks at a temperature of one-oh-eight.
The large armholes of her tank-top meant I would necessarily be in at least partial contact with skin. My fingers naturally found the contours of her ribs and extended forward until my palms were tight up against her. I felt her body stiffen and she turned her head slightly towards one shoulder, an involuntary reaction. My fingertips sensed breasts up ahead and confirmed the absence of a bra. The intimacy of the moment was strangely intense, like a bristling electrical charge; my face tingled slightly with the proximity of my nose and lips to her hair.
"Okay," I said, "this is going to be all in one go. Ready?"
And instead of waiting for her response I launched from my haunches and powered to my feet, hoping I was sufficiently balanced with the weight I was lifting to avoid back injuries, hernias, ripped muscles, and the like.
In less than a second we were both standing. The woman said, "Oh," sounding mildly surprised but otherwise unmoved. I continued to hold tight to her ribs until I knew she could bear her own weight.
"Are you okay?" I spoke inches from her right ear.
There was a pause, then she said, "About the same as usual."
I was increasingly conscious of my hands being where they were and that there was no longer a good reason for it, so I slid them out quickly and placed them around the tops of her arms, in case she began to crumple again. I also stepped to the right because I'd become unmistakably erect during the rescue mission and the proximity risked discovery.
She turned her face towards me.
"Suzanne," she said.
I looked down to see her right hand extended. I took it automatically. "Freddie."
Again I was struck by the strength of her grip. When all else about this woman seemed so weak, even frail, the force of her handshake was almost shocking.
"Thank you, Freddie."
"The least I could do," I said, "since I scared your dog in the first place."
"She's a moron. I should have known she'd freak out when I first saw you coming up the alley. I just forgot to push the button." She held up the leash's handle and worked the sliding retractor back and forth.
