Thanksgiving Morning

Rain falling soft on the statue of Nathan Hale outside City Hall Park, rain like tears on his bronze face, always looking southward down Broadway. Rain falling as the sky goes from black to grey. Rain falling in 1975.

Rain glistening on her strawberry hair as she kissed him good morning in front of the statue, rain sparkling on the shoulders of his pea jacket. They walked east across the park and up the ramp onto the bridge, walking up into the fog and the clouds. Rain hissing on the grey river beneath them while they kissed in the middle of the bridge. Rain walking with them right up to the door of the little diner at sunrise.

She held her coffee mug in both hands and looked at him over the brim; he loved looking at her eyes through the steam. On the night when they'd first kissed, just a couple of weeks earlier, they'd stood looking into each others' eyes for more than an hour, still as bronze statues themselves, on a rooftop so close to the bridge that  the traffic drowned out every other sound. He'd never felt anything like that before, and he never would again.

They finished their breakfast and walked back out into Thanksgiving morning in the rain.

An hour later in Prospect Park with the gravel crunching under their shoes on the hiking trail and the rain making the leaves shine like prayer flags from Atlantis. She takes out her journal and does a sketch of the polar bears' den, just a quick drawing before the page can get soaked. The bears are sleeping in their den; very new lovers are the only people who find a morning like this beautiful.

By noon they'd made it to Coney Island. No place left to walk to, but the foam and the sand still tossed and rolled just like they do in the summer. Only now they were the only ones watching. The rain was blowing out to the east, toward Jones Beach and Montauk and all those miles of waves and sky. They watched the back edge of the storm pass overhead and the sun broke through, turning the spray into glitter.

The Night Of September 11

Took a walk on the Promenade tonight, because I didn't know what else to do. I had a candle in one pocket, a camera in another. Casey came with me, and he knew it wasn't an ordinary evening walk. The people on the street were acting different, more people than usual were petting him, telling him how cute he is. More people than usual were acting like they weren't the only souls on the planet who matter.

Then there were the lights in the sky, the two shining towers of  bright blue light so square and straight you could almost believe they were solid, instead of just luminous reminders of what we'd lost. You could almost see yourself walking up to the base of those lights, going in through a door made of metal and light, and taking an elevator to the top, up in the clouds, just like in the old days. Only now the towers of light were so much higher than what they'd replaced. So high that when you looked up at the top they seemed to bend forward over your head. They were like pedestals of light, put there to keep the stars from falling down into the pit. The pit that is all that remains of what was there before.

At the flag pole I lit a candle because I didn't know what else to do. I put it in a glass and set it on the paving stones in front of a child's very earnest crayon drawing of the towers. I knelt down to take a picture of it and Casey leaned up close against me. Now I know I make fun of him a lot, but at heart he's a very intuitive dog. He knew what I was feeling, even if I never could have come up with a word for it. He knew it had something to do with the bright blue lights in the sky and the candles on the pavement. Maybe he didn't know the why of it, but he didn't need to. For the rest of the evening he licked the hands of everyone who petted him. It was just his way of doing what he could.

After a while I walked him back home again, because I didn't know what else to do.

Eponine

I met Eponine on Pearl Street, just a block in from the river. The fog was so thick that at first I thought she was just another shadow, but she has that glow about her that you can never really mistake, no matter how hard you try. The old army trenchcoat hung loose on her shoulders and brushed the cobblestones. She's still so tiny, still just sixteen. The mist sparkled in her long dark hair. I took her by the hand, slipped both our hands into the pocket of my jacket.

We walked north on Pearl, the fog turning to mist and then to rain. She told me she remembered when the street got its name, from the hard packed layer of crushed oyster shells that was its first pavement. It's still there today, sleeping under the cement and the asphalt. "But how could you know that?" I asked. "You've never been in New York before tonight, and you're only here now because I thought about you so hard last night." She laughed and shook her finger in my face, "Too true, Jim. You really must control this thing you have for young French girls. I could understand how you felt about Joan, she was so beautiful, so brave and so crazy, and she died like a hero. But me? What can you possibly see here?"

God, I wish I had a mirror that could show her the answer to that....

I took her to the little bar where my friends and I always drank,  back when this corner of the waterfront was the center of the world for me. It's not there anymore, it's been gone for years now, but that didn't seem to matter tonight. We took the little table by the corner of the fireplace and she stretched her hands out gratefully to the warmth.

Smell of wood smoke, smell of brandy, touch of Eponine curling up against me, pulling my arm around her shoulder. We talked all night, about pain and kindness, about hunger, about hope. When the sky began to grow light outside she sat in my lap and threw her arms around my neck. I kissed her, even though I knew she'd died so many years ago. She kissed me, even though she knew what a coward I was. Then she stood up and walked to the door, the morning light on her face. She smiled and blew me a kiss, winked and said, "I'll see you later, love!"

 

Another Sunday

Nobody saw her, slipping out of the window frame. Funny how they never did. In the beginning she moved slowly, carefully, sure somebody would catch the movement in the corner of their eye and blow everything for her. But over time she realized they only see what they expect to see, and she relaxed.

In the window frame her body was stained glass, and when she moved she sounded like wind chimes, so far away you could barely hear them. When she stepped down into the aisle she was made flesh, but even then nobody noticed her. Not even with the long white robe, not even with the wings. It amazed her that people could be so blind and still function in the world.

The priest left by the rear door, thinking about what to eat for lunch. The big main doors bumped closed behind the last of the congregation. The only movement in the church was the smoke rising from the wicks of the candles the priest had blown out. She stood for a moment watching it, then slipped into the ladies room.

Ten minutes later she stepped out, hair day glo yellow with streaks of bright pink. Mini, fishnets, low boots. Hot pink tank top that showed off the little wings tattooed on her bare shoulders. She looked about sixteen and she looked joyful. Hand on the doorknob, she turned back and smiled at the altar. I'll be back tonight, God, kneeling in the stained glass at the foot of the manger. It's who I am and I love it. But right now it's my day off. Yay!

The Last Week Of June

There's no other sound in the whole world, just the slapping of her sandals on the empty sidewalk. And even that doesn't last long, the warm wet air smothers it and it disappears into the summer quiet of a heat wave afternoon. In the momentary darkness of her shadow the pavement cools for a second, then heats up again as she moves on, the instant of relief coming and leaving so fast there's no time to appreciate it. The thought makes her laugh, one short sound that might have been bitter, or sad, or just accepting of the truth of that metaphor.

She kept walking south, the ocean on her right and the town on the hill on her left. At the center of town she walked out to the middle of the street, stood on the yellow line. She flickered like a ghost, in the heat shimmer rising from the pavement. She took a cigarette from her t shirt pocket and lit it, took a long deep drag. Right now she really needed to feel defiant and rebellious, and she really, really didn't want to cry. Not here, not now. She put the cigarette between her lips and squinted against the smoke, against the tears. She stuffed her lighter in the back pocket of her jeans and started walking. And she prayed she'd never pass this way again.

Rain

Rain again, rattling like pebbles in a tin can, hissing lonely in the empty streets of friday night. Nobody's even watching because they're all so tired of it. The rain is tired of itself, so it spends its time dreaming.

In its dream each raindrop is a grain of warm dry sand, floating down to the dry streets, rolling along the dry curb stones and making sand rivers that sound like the memory of a snare drum as they pour into the storm drains. Sand puddles fill the low spots in the streets like the opposite of tide pools and wait for someone to jump in and splash them empty. Sand is rolling down windows and walls, and making dunes in the empty parks.

The rain's happy inside its dream. In here there's no cold and wet, just bright sunshine on hot yellow sand. In here the grains are polishing each other bright as they roll down the dry warm streets. In here nobody hates the rain.

Jane and Sarah

Jane and Sarah are so much alike, even though they've never met. They might even be sisters, I'm not sure. They have the same eyes, and when you look it's hard to look away. Sometimes you might see stars and comets, sometimes just a mirror showing your own reflection. Sometimes you see the world the way you always wished it could be. Each one's a magician in her own way, but you don't want to lift the curtain to see how the trick was done. It's enough to just feel the wonder.

Jane's my muse, my sometimes co-conspirator, my favorite acting student and the first person I think of when I hear some incredible new music, or find a singer who totally moves me. She's my friend. I'm not sure what I ever did to deserve her, but I hope I keep on doing it forever.

I've never met Sarah, but whenever I look at my life so much of the soundtrack is her music, her words.

Jane and I have walked in the sun, and sat in darkened theaters. We've shared meals and secrets, laughed like fools and taken away each others' tears. A long time ago when the bottom fell out of everything I almost crossed a line that would have turned us into a train wreck, but she stopped me short with the gentlest smile I've ever seen, and she laughed and told me, "Screw romance, our friendship will last forever!" I had a hard time believing it back then; now it's something I never think about because it's so true you don't even notice it.

I got to share the evening with both of them last night, and what a gift it was. All those people we didn't know, sitting in the dark with us and watching Sarah sing, watching her sway in the moonlight under those haunted trees while the lightning flashed and the summer rain fell as gently as a cloud of ghosts. Did we lose it, watching all those memories rise like fog? What do you think? Laughing together is so good, but crying together....that's a whole other level. If you've never been there I feel sorry for you.

Later when it was all over and the lights had come up and the rain had come down and we were back in the world as it is, we walked in a slow trance down Seventh Avenue. It was one of those nights when you actually notice the stars, reflected in the wet pavement. Thank you, Jane!