“So what did you have, and when?” asked a woman at the next bar table over.
“I had a little girl grandbaby on May 10,” said the other woman at the table. “She’s a Human Race baby. She was born on the Day of the Human Race.”
“Throw out peanuts,” the antiques hawker said. “He’ll follow you home.”
We checked our pockets, which were, sadly, legume-free. We left the ceramic elephant in that parking lot. He remained behind, waiting to follow someone else.
“I don’t know how to make you love me,” she said toward the end. And it was true—as accomplished as she was, as able as she was to set her mind on success, this one result eluded her grasp.
He never said anything in return. That’s the way he was—silent and monolithic, unable to make a statement on his own behalf.
I prefer the Civil War term. “Soldier’s Heart” is what I have, and mine is broken, bitten in half by the women and children I gunned down.
I did it for you, America. You asked for my protection, and I gave it. In return, the screaming wakens me, every night, after I’ve barely fallen asleep.
Across the street, the man in the rasta hat slams a hand—then the back of the same hand—against the green street sign pole. He is close enough to the bus stop to be waiting, but shifts his body in ways that make it clear he’s going to be there awhile.
He shouts into windows of passing cars while tapping a complex rhythm against his hip. From what I can tell, I am the only one paying him mind.
They drive cars like bats, black ones with flat profiles. They are always out at night. She likes that she never hears them until they are all around her, that they know just where she is, even when the lights are out.
