Before: Coffee, April 22, 1994
I turn on to Maplewood from North Avenue and think this is probably not a good idea. The corners are populated with young Hispanic men who shout out “Park! Rocks! Park!” when they see me in my little gray Escort. I creep down the street watching the street numbers and my rearview mirror at the same time.
I pull up in front of the house and think Oh, this is definitely not a good idea. Just inside the fence, two brown pit bulls bark and tug at their leashes, and piles of dogshit strew the bare dirt yard. There are three black men on the front porch, and they watch me as I approach the gate and pause.
“They won’t hurt you,” one of the men says. “You can c’mon.”
But it’s not just the dogs, or the men, or the neighborhood. It’s not just that I’m married; it’s just that I’m here, that on some level I know I shouldn’t be. But I open the gate and it squeals shut behind me as I walk up the broken steps.
I can feel the weight of the men’s eyes on my body; their gazes are a mix of heat and curiosity. The curiosity makes perfect sense—what is this mousy white girl doing here?—but the heat is something I do not understand. I drop my gaze and hunch my shoulders as I pass between them through the door.
The stairs are dirty, bare and empty, and the old dark wood creaks as I climb. Third floor, JP told me, and as I reach the landing a door opens.
It has been almost a year since I saw him last, a year of acrimony and accusations passed through third parties, and I have forgotten how beautiful he is. His hair is long now, braids that hang down around his shoulders. He reaches for me; we always were huggers, he and I, back in the day when we were still friends. I realize how much I have missed those days, how much I have missed him, and I return his hug fiercely.
“Wow,” he says, and smiles down at me. “That was some hug.”
We have planned to go for coffee, he and I, and so when we sit down on the sofa it’s just a momentary diversion, just a few minutes taken to watch TV and chat for a bit. And then the television breaks in with a news bulletin saying that Richard Nixon is dead.
We watch the coverage and laugh at all the short memories, all the forgetting and forgiving that never came while he was still alive. We crack jokes and from our opposite ends of the couch we move closer together, and suddenly we are right up next to each other and he is whispering to me.
Remember? he asks me. Do you remember how we were? Do you remember when we used to stand out on that balcony and look out over the city and dream together, and you were so good and perfect and wanting to do right? I never told you what I used to think about when we were out there…I used to dream of taking you and putting you up against that big window…remember that little skirt you used to wear to all the parties? In this dream you were wearing that, and I would pin you up against that window and get inside you, all outside with the city right behind us in the dark…
And I am listening and barely breathing, holding my breath for fear of drowning out any single word of what he is saying to me, because I know it is the last time I will hear it and I want to remember. I want to remember that one night he told me, before I left and never came back, that he ever felt this way about me.
Come in here, he says, and leads me to his room off the living room. It is sparse and sparely furnished—a bed, an old console TV, a small table, and an old hutch that serves as his bookcase. I sit down on the bed knowing that this was a bad, bad, bad idea and he moves to kiss me, and finally I say it—this would be a bad idea—and he smiles his most irresistible smile because he knows it too, and he knows I know it, and he knows something which I do not know—that none of that matters, that this is what will happen. And he whispers just one kiss, he says to me, just one kiss and we can leave it at that. And even though I know that is a lie, it is not just his lie, and so I close my eyes and his mouth is against mine, sweet, as I remember. And one becomes two becomes five and when I open my eyes I look around the apartment and I think Nice place…it’s a shame I can never come back and something in me braces up hard, a frame of iron against my paper walls.
I pull up in front of the house and think Oh, this is definitely not a good idea. Just inside the fence, two brown pit bulls bark and tug at their leashes, and piles of dogshit strew the bare dirt yard. There are three black men on the front porch, and they watch me as I approach the gate and pause.
“They won’t hurt you,” one of the men says. “You can c’mon.”
But it’s not just the dogs, or the men, or the neighborhood. It’s not just that I’m married; it’s just that I’m here, that on some level I know I shouldn’t be. But I open the gate and it squeals shut behind me as I walk up the broken steps.
I can feel the weight of the men’s eyes on my body; their gazes are a mix of heat and curiosity. The curiosity makes perfect sense—what is this mousy white girl doing here?—but the heat is something I do not understand. I drop my gaze and hunch my shoulders as I pass between them through the door.
The stairs are dirty, bare and empty, and the old dark wood creaks as I climb. Third floor, JP told me, and as I reach the landing a door opens.
It has been almost a year since I saw him last, a year of acrimony and accusations passed through third parties, and I have forgotten how beautiful he is. His hair is long now, braids that hang down around his shoulders. He reaches for me; we always were huggers, he and I, back in the day when we were still friends. I realize how much I have missed those days, how much I have missed him, and I return his hug fiercely.
“Wow,” he says, and smiles down at me. “That was some hug.”
We have planned to go for coffee, he and I, and so when we sit down on the sofa it’s just a momentary diversion, just a few minutes taken to watch TV and chat for a bit. And then the television breaks in with a news bulletin saying that Richard Nixon is dead.
We watch the coverage and laugh at all the short memories, all the forgetting and forgiving that never came while he was still alive. We crack jokes and from our opposite ends of the couch we move closer together, and suddenly we are right up next to each other and he is whispering to me.
Remember? he asks me. Do you remember how we were? Do you remember when we used to stand out on that balcony and look out over the city and dream together, and you were so good and perfect and wanting to do right? I never told you what I used to think about when we were out there…I used to dream of taking you and putting you up against that big window…remember that little skirt you used to wear to all the parties? In this dream you were wearing that, and I would pin you up against that window and get inside you, all outside with the city right behind us in the dark…
And I am listening and barely breathing, holding my breath for fear of drowning out any single word of what he is saying to me, because I know it is the last time I will hear it and I want to remember. I want to remember that one night he told me, before I left and never came back, that he ever felt this way about me.
Come in here, he says, and leads me to his room off the living room. It is sparse and sparely furnished—a bed, an old console TV, a small table, and an old hutch that serves as his bookcase. I sit down on the bed knowing that this was a bad, bad, bad idea and he moves to kiss me, and finally I say it—this would be a bad idea—and he smiles his most irresistible smile because he knows it too, and he knows I know it, and he knows something which I do not know—that none of that matters, that this is what will happen. And he whispers just one kiss, he says to me, just one kiss and we can leave it at that. And even though I know that is a lie, it is not just his lie, and so I close my eyes and his mouth is against mine, sweet, as I remember. And one becomes two becomes five and when I open my eyes I look around the apartment and I think Nice place…it’s a shame I can never come back and something in me braces up hard, a frame of iron against my paper walls.
posted by GJC at 8:41 PM
1 Comments:
Beautiful
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