Dangerous Lifestyles

(Sorry for the long post. A short story.)

Lawrence stoically waits out a frigid gust, staring east down Granville Avenue towards the lake. He shifts his weight and feels the foot-warmer packets in his boots squish between his toes and he's reminded of the way the mud in the delta of the Mekong felt between his toes as he stood watch that night.

His company, the 83rd Airborne Division, "The Hirsute Eagles," had made camp under the jungle canopy and it was up to him, First Sergeant Lawrence, to watch for Charlie as they slept. A crunching sound in the dark; there it is again. VC boot? Or just the sound of some other poor creature getting his in this god-forsaken wilderness? A squawk and the noise of futilely flapping wings answers Lawrence's question. Suddenly, to his right, headlights!

Headlights? Lawrence is close enough to the oncoming Xterra to read the lips of its irate driver ("Motherfucker get out the street!") before he jumps out of the way. Picking himself up, he does his best to ignore the blaring car horns, the disparaging gazes, the tsk-tsks and head-shakes. Like a soldier at attention, he stands on the white painted dash line between two lanes of heedless westward Chicago traffic, and holds his cardboard in front of him."Vietnam Vet PLEASE HELP God bless you" reads his signal flare made out in Sharpie.

He hopes and prays for an airlift. Any second now a helo will emerge from that murky horizon over Lake Michigan: the cascading shades of blue where water meets sky will part like a theater curtain and Lieutenant Gumble will appear, grinning that stupid Gumble grin of his and riding that bird for all she's worth to come rescue his comrade-in-arms. Lawrence can see the eagle painted on the side of it, the symbol of the 83rd Airborne, a diving hirsute eagle: its proud beak pointing towards the earth, manly Robert Redford-like auburn hair flowing in the wind.

Traffic changes and Lawrence pivots. His back to the lake, he surveys the perimeter. West-southwest is the CVS where he buys liquor and shoplifts foot-warmer packets. West-northwest, the picture framing shop Lawrence has never had occasion to enter. Someone is crossing the street over there, but they don't have the light.

Upon closer examination, Lawrence realizes they aren't actually crossing at all. A dark figure, bundled in work wear and a black beanie, stands in the intersection of Broadway and Granville during evening rush hour, in the middle of January. Who else occupies this no-man's land? Who would risk life and limb so recklessly, but another soul with nothing left to lose?

The light turns and with the same mechanical fluidity so does Lawrence. His soldier's training doesn't allow him to peek at the mysterious person though it's all he can think of. As soon as the ranks of headlights shining in his face begin to slow he spins around, and finds himself almost face to face with a beautiful young woman.

She pulls up the collar on her coat and walks faster through the crosswalk, allowing Lawrence to see the short, plump lady in hunter camo behind her, gathering her surveyor's equipment and walking in his direction. Pretty Woman, walk my way, thinks Lawrence, and he forgets to lower his sign as she approaches with a rosy-cheeked smile on her face and matronly crow's feet around her eyes.

"Helluva cold one, ain't it?" she asks flirtatiously.

Lawrence's chapped lips crack in several places as he returns her schoolgirl grin.

"No worse than it's been," says a voice scorched by cheap cigarettes and lonely nights. "Don't you have kind of a dangerous job?" he asks, nodding at her bag full of calibrating devices.

"Someone's got to do it," she laughs, and reaching into her pocket, procures 55 cents in nickels, dimes and pennies. As she hands it to Lawrence, their fingers linger, wool momentarily caressing wool.

"Hey, uh, listen," says Lawrence lamely. Pretty Woman bats her eyelashes innocently.

"It is getting cold out here. How about we get some coffee at the Dunkin' down the street?"

Pretty Woman glances away, looks at her toes.

Thinking quickly, "Or Beam is seven bucks a handle at that CVS."

"Now you're speaking my language, stranger," says Pretty Woman with a twang of Appalachia in her voice.

Now Lawrence watches dawn start to creep across the sky as the two lounge underneath a dewy sleeping bag in the alley behind CVS, basking in the lingering warmth of liquor and each others' passion. He can tell by her breathing that his companion is awake also, only keeping her eyes closed to shut out the harsh rays.

"There's something I'd like to tell you, just so's were on the same page here."

"Mrhrm?"

"I've never been to Vietnam. I never even served in the military."

Pretty Woman didn't open her eyes, just pushed her face into Lawrence's ribs to stifle her giggling.

"Are you making fun of me?"

Still giggling, she only points to the black duffel bag at her feet. Puzzled, Lawrence reaches for it and pulls open the zipper. Then he starts to giggle as well.

A tough job but someone's got to do it. The surveyor's equipment that he thought he had seen, but of course it was dark and he only assumed that was her job. Empty aluminum cans, a greasy brush with most of its tines missing, broken Fisher-Price toys and junk food wrappers spill out of her bag.

Lawrence lays back, content in his lover's arms, and closes his eyes. There they remain as the morning rush crescendos around them, two soldiers making camp in no-man's land.

Coffee

Hours I spent standing at the end of a pier on Lake Michigan. I set my back against a concrete wall so that I was invisible to the humans on the shore, and stared out straight ahead so that all I could see was blue horizon. Waves and clouds were perpetually unfurling toward me but never quite reaching. I felt like I could stand there forever, weathering the frigid winds like a carved face on a totem pole.

At the base of the wall behind me was srawled this message:

"you can put out the fire that started at the but you can't put out leaves when they burn in autumn"

I realized that the numbness in my toes had crept up the length of my legs. I decided to walk.

"Do you have coffee?"

"Yes."

Her simple response meant so much more to me than she could know. To her I was just another New Year's day hangover. To me she was my first reconnection with the community of humans in some 36 hours.

The simple phenomenon of being able to slap my lips, tongue, and teeth together, while exhaling, in a way so as to perfectly communicate my desire for a very specific object. A verbal magic trick, like pulling a dime from behind her ear.

She arrived at my table and she served me the object. I could see the coffee; my eyes vouched for its existence. My nose was useless, the odor of the cup cast adrift on a background sea of scent: an ebb and flow of eggs, beans, sweat, pork, farts, halitosis; pumped through the cramped diner with every breath of its patrons, like a galley full of steadily rowing slaves.

I picked up the cup and I felt its warmth radiate through Styrofoam and skin and hair and tissue and it warmed my bones.

I tried to thank her but I couldn't express it. So I drank my cup and when it was empty I went up to the counter and asked quietly, humbly, for another cup of coffee.

"What?"

Patty Revere Pt. 5

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Patty thinks first of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, but then she thinks of Rebecca, the woman who stops by to visit Patty every once in a while, and to bring her a plastic CVS bag. Inside the CVS bag are orange tubes with words written on the side, but Patty can't read, so she has to remember exactly what Rebecca tells her.

"This is medicine for you Patty. It make you feel better so remember to take them, okay? Is okay? You take your medicine Patty?" Rebecca would say.

Rebecca is very funny. The way she talks is funny, like the people on Channel 4 but slower and using words Patty can understand. The way she is so small but moves so fast around Patty's apartment, nimbly stepping over mounds of dirty laundry and VHS tapes, is funny. Patty can never do anything but nod when Rebecca talks to her because if she opens her mouth she knows she'll laugh and she doesn't want to hurt Rebecca's feelings. In the winter Rebecca wears a lime green coat and this is Patty's favorite, because with it on she looks just like one of those tiny green bugs, the kind you forget about until one day you look at a rock very closely and you see one scurrying across the surface.

"You can have some of my medicine. Rebecca tells me I have to take it to feel better, but she's just a silly little bug."

Laboriously, wheezing, Patty rises from her seat. The CVS bag is stashed under the bathroom sink, along with many others full of orange tubes from other visits.

"Rebecca's just a silly little bug. You can have all my medicine. I don't need any."

Alex claws through the bags, their contents spilling out at Patty's feet like the entrails of a fresh kill. Patty begins to laugh.

Alex looks up momentarily, the expired Prolixin capsules he was studying momentarily forgotten. Patty's laugh is harsh and raspy and doesn't decrescendo the way most people's laughs do, but instead repeats itself in a loop, like a broken laugh track. He pops a handful of multicolored pills into his mouth like they were Skittles. He starts to laugh too.

-----

The Magic Bullet sits in the middle of a long marble counter top. Myriad glass bowls, each filled with a measured amount of ingredient, form constellations around it.

Patty and Alex sit at rapt attention as one by one eggs, sugar and cream cheese are poured into the device and subsequently pulverized. An ecstatic young woman in a salmon-colored cardigan pours the homogenized substance into a pie plate, a wan moon set among the stars.

Patty leans forward to flick an inch of ash off her cigarette onto the carpet and it vanishes immediately, whisked away to an invisible realm of forgotten detritus; kept company by gum wrappers and lint. Alex is cleaning himself in the manner of a cat, pharmacopoeia vibrating through his veins like a subway train on a loose track.

The camera cuts to an old woman. Upon seeing a cheesecake made in just five minutes, she raises her eyebrows disapprovingly.

Patty hears it first. "Ooh, another cat come to visit?"

Alex hears the second knock. "Pittsburgh police! Open up!"

Deer may freeze in headlights but not cheetahs. Alex is halfway to the back door when Patty starts to unlock the front.

Patty Revere Pt. 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Patty has a clock. It stopped ticking at 3:27 p.m. years ago and she never took it off the wall. It still hangs over her kitchen sink and now she misses its steady rhythm for the way it seemed to fill the silence.

Silence is an uncomfortable rarity in Patty's life, but she felt she should turn the TV off when entertaining a guest. When there is silence just before Final Jeopardy, music starts playing to pass the time.

Alex looks across the small, sticky aluminum table at his hostess. Before him is a fruity-smelling bowl of creamer. His stomach growls and he thinks that perhaps he is hungry. Patty starts singing.

The cheetah, invited into the den of the antelope, is momentarily paralyzed with confusion.

Alex is tempted but wary. The singing only serves to put him more on edge.

Abruptly the singing stops.

"Are you hurt?" asks Patty.

The bowl of spoiled creamer is a pale pink hue. Another drop of red falls in as Alex looks down. The scab on his forehead is pinched between two fingers in his right hand. He hadn't noticed.

"Do you have medicine?" asks Alex.

Patty Revere Pt. 3

Part 1
Part 2

Patty doesn't understand. There is a cat at her door, scratching to be let in. It must smell the spilled creamer, or the empty cans of meat in the garbage. This has happened before, and Patty likes to let the cat in. She doesn't mind if it makes a mess out of her garbage or pukes the rotten meat on her sofa. But the cat has never rung her doorbell before.

Patty's vocal chords, unused to the exercise, slap together and issue a trembling call through the door.

"Who is it?"

"Alex."

Alex rubs his fingers frantically on his thigh. He looks down but the paint is still there. He hadn't thought this far ahead. What will he do if she doesn't open the door?

There is a long pause. Cars honk in the street behind him. He feels like he's standing on the bank of a river.

He hears Patty inhale through the door.

"I thought you were a cat."

Without thinking

"I am a cat!"

A pause. Patty inhales and clears her throat.

"May I come in?"

Both of them are surprised when Patty opens the door.

Patty Revere Pt. 2

Part 1

Alex looks blankly at the peeling yellow paint on the door in front of him, and he thinks about what it would be like to run his finger down it.

When he was a boy he knocked on his neighbors' doors selling candies to raise funds for his school.

Somewhere in Africa a cheetah crouches unseen in a field of tall grass.

Alex scratches at a scab above his brow. Don't pick the scab.

If you pick the scab before it's healed you'll have a big nasty scar.

The cheetah smells the wind and scans the horizon.

Alex rings the doorbell again. Then he runs his finger in a long horizontal stroke across the width of the door. He looks at his hand and there are flecks of yellow. Rubbing his fingers together doesn't seem to help much. Transfixed, he picks at a hanging strip of paint. It peels off the wood like dead skin from a sun-burnt back.

Patty Revere Pt. 1

(Trying my hand at fiction. First installment below.)

Patty empties her ashtray into the coffee pot to give it some flavor. One part coffee to one part sour Irish Creamer; Patty knows it's good till the last drop. She imagines herself in the Folgers commercial, as the sprightly ballet dancer who awakes looking radiant in a pink bathrobe to prepare her morning joe. Patty sports a moth-eaten baby blue nightshirt, draped across her large frame like a tarp over a swimming pool. After taking the first sip of her coffee, Patty sighs with relief like the dancer. Unlike the dancer she's barely able to get a breath out without four or five wet coughs. Hacking a wad of phlegm into the sink, Patty retires to the sofa in front of the TV to smoke three Newports before the last segment of "The View" has ended.

45-year-old Patty Revere doesn't leave her north side Pittsburgh one-bedroom very often. She never feels the need to. She's more comfortable watching the people on Full House or Family Matters. Nothing much seems to happen outside in those programs; if it does it's usually a special episode and seeing it disturbs Patty. When she was a child her father watched a show with her on the public access channel. Unlike her usual programs, it took place completely outdoors. The ground was made of dust and Jay told her it was the beach,

"Bleach?"

"No, Patty. Beach."

and that you could walk on it for hours and not reach the end. Patty thought about all the debris that fell off her rugs when she shook them off, all the dust she'd swept out her back door. All of it had to go someplace. Maybe that's where beaches come from. All the dust bunnies and rug debris of the world combined to create a vast tan landscape, where people could walk all day.

A strange-looking red bug appeared, crawling on the dusty tundra. An invisible man called it a "hermit crab."

"Decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea fashion their own habitats in a novel way.

'One beast's trash is another's treasure for the hermit crab: a discarded sea shell makes for a cozy home."

Patty awakes with a start when the cherry at the end of her cigarette falls on her thigh. She yelps and flicks it into the shag rug at her feet. The pain helps bring her out of the thick snooze brought on by too much spoiled milkfat. The doorbell rings and Patty realizes with a bolt of fear that it is the second time.