Two weeks later I'm back on the street. I wander the concrete canyons of the city like an unholy ghost and I remember the lost and lonely. I had kind of forgotten them. Living with Emilia... watching Seinfeld every afternoon... having a place to call home...
I had forgotten them.
It's kind of easy in a way. At least in the city. The outcasts and pariahs, the lepers and the blind... They can just kind of fade into the background. But when you fall into the scenery, when you slip back stage, they stand out like beacons. Their light shines from beneath the bushels of their sorrows.
The food I took with me when I left the brownstone lasts me a lot longer than it should. I meet a man named Joe who lost his sight in The War. We sit and chat over tuna fish sandwiches on rye bread for a while, and before I leave him, he sees the world differently.
I drink bottled water but when I close my eyes it tastes like wine.
I don't sleep. I don't need sleep.
Night falls and the girls step out onto the corners. I've known a prostitute or two in my day. They're beautiful people. We all are. But you can see something in the way they pose and carry themselves. There's something in the way they move. There's a sadness in their eyes. They don't want to give their beauty away but they don't seem to have a choice.
Throughout the night the girls slip away from the streets. A little later, I see some of them again and then they slip away for a while. It happens two or three times in the darkness, but by sunrise, they're all gone.
The city wakes up. The streets become crowded with the morning rush. Men and women in nice suits and power ties and no-nonsense skirts hail taxis to take them off to their livelihoods. Shops open along the boulevards. Children wait for school buses.
Everywhere I look I think I see my father.
I had forgotten them.
It's kind of easy in a way. At least in the city. The outcasts and pariahs, the lepers and the blind... They can just kind of fade into the background. But when you fall into the scenery, when you slip back stage, they stand out like beacons. Their light shines from beneath the bushels of their sorrows.
The food I took with me when I left the brownstone lasts me a lot longer than it should. I meet a man named Joe who lost his sight in The War. We sit and chat over tuna fish sandwiches on rye bread for a while, and before I leave him, he sees the world differently.
I drink bottled water but when I close my eyes it tastes like wine.
I don't sleep. I don't need sleep.
Night falls and the girls step out onto the corners. I've known a prostitute or two in my day. They're beautiful people. We all are. But you can see something in the way they pose and carry themselves. There's something in the way they move. There's a sadness in their eyes. They don't want to give their beauty away but they don't seem to have a choice.
Throughout the night the girls slip away from the streets. A little later, I see some of them again and then they slip away for a while. It happens two or three times in the darkness, but by sunrise, they're all gone.
The city wakes up. The streets become crowded with the morning rush. Men and women in nice suits and power ties and no-nonsense skirts hail taxis to take them off to their livelihoods. Shops open along the boulevards. Children wait for school buses.
Everywhere I look I think I see my father.
posted by The Little Black Duck at 2:22 PM
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