December 20

I saw you fidget at the northern tip of the sidewalk, as we waited patiently, after the show, for the traffic lights to turn red from green. You took out your cellular phone from the side of your coat pocket, punched in a few numbers, and slid it back in, several times, over the course of four minutes. This was 66th Street and Broadway; about 7pm on a cold December night when Christmas lights were sparkling on the facade of the Lincoln Center plaza. 

You had Tracy tattooed across your pale left palm, and 2006 across your right. And you fanned yourself vigorously with the Playbill brochure, till the bus came and stopped in front of you. You looked at me and smiled, alerted by the inexplicable sensitivity that comes with being observed. You walked up the steps, scanned your bus ticket, and instead of walking to a seat you gave the bus driver a large bag filled with cake you recently bought from Cafe Boulud. And then stepped down from the bus, with water in your eyes, tears that you could no longer hide, and walked away.

I followed you for almost three and a half blocks, and yelled Hey there! Are you okay? You stopped immediately. And folded your knees, and contorted your elbows, and sat on the sidewalk. I walked up to you and asked, Is everything okay, Sir? You paused for a while and then said, It's just the memories, you know? They're rough tonight. What about them? I asked. To which you pulled out a picture from your wallet and gave it to me. She died, eight years ago, when a bus hit her in that exact spot on this very day. I let you talk, as tears rolled down your eyes, and your fingers quivered in paternal angst. 

After a minute of silence, you said to me, And so I buy cake from her favorite shop and give it to the bus driver who comes at the exact same time every year, in memory of my girl, the person who always made me smile. And then you looked at the sky, cleared your throat and whispered softly, Sweetie, do you hear me? Daddy loves you very much.  

 

chocolate bar

A little chocolate wrapper, fluttering around the corner edge of 85th Street and Lexington, speckled with mud and fractured snowflakes, reminded me of our encounter with Harold in the summer of 2004. Remember him from your old neighborhood? He used to live with his mother and a widowed aunt who made tulip bracelets for supplementary income down the alleyway from the train tracks. When he came up to you and said, can you give me food? I haven't eaten in two days, you grabbed my hand, and let go of the lilac vase you were carrying to give to Rita before the circus. The hand-grabbing didn't mean anything. It was friendly, impulsive, and reactionary. A lot of things we did as kids didn't have double meanings or distorted motives. They were simple; heartfelt, sincere, and playfully innocent. Adulthood, on the other hand, brought in layers and layers of unnecessary complexity; things that didn't have to have meaning, things that didn't have to offend, or make anyone uncomfortable about anything. 

But you grabbed my hand, as a reflux, perhaps, and while the vase shattered into pieces, you took out a chocolate bar and gave it to him. He cried, took the chocolate bar and ran away --dropping the wrapper by a driveway. Three days later, he died in a car accident. I lay a tube rose at our meeting spot. It made the news.