Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Looking at the City

The city looked so peaceful from 12 stories up…a blanket of shimmering lights glowing golden in the crisp night air…a orderly jumble of movement across well-traveled avenues and byways…a soft symphony of imagined music and muted noise and rambunctious life wafting gracefully up from the Earth and out to the cosmos.

Sitting on the edge of the roof…on the edge of my world…I took it all in and let the blues shuffle off to wait for me elsewhere.

“What’re you doing?” a voice called out from the roof access door.

I frowned, annoyed at having my solitude sullied, and took a deep breath. “I’m looking at the city,” I said as curtly as I could without being unnecessarily rude (even in my annoyance I took pains to spare the feelings of other people…I’d never quite decided if that was an asset or a liability though I often leaned towards thinking of it as the latter.)

The newcomer’s steps edged closer. I didn’t know who he was and I really didn’t care, I just wanted him to go away. “It’s kinda dangerous sitting on the edge like that,” he said.

It was, I thought with forbearance, actually quite kind of him to be worried about the welfare of a stranger he imagined might be suicidal.

For a few moments a pregnant silence hung between us and then I said, “I’m not going to jump.”

The man stopped, weighing his relief against his disbelief, and waited for a couple of heartbeats. “Are you sure?” he asked finally.

I stopped myself from sighing out loud. “Quite sure,” I said. “If I jumped I would never get to look at the city at night again. That would be a damned shame.”

“It is beautiful,” he said, easing up closer to me. “But why do you have to sit on the edge like that?”

For some reason the question almost made me laugh but I refrained. “Where else would I sit?”

My question caught up unawares and he didn’t have a quick comeback.

“I’m not going to jump,” I repeated more emphatically, “I’m just looking at the city.”

He was, I was pretty sure, still not convinced about my intentions to see the next dawn. “Life is hard, friend…we can choose to deal with it…or to give up…”

I couldn’t suppress a rueful chuckle that time. “I’m sorry,” I said immediately after laughing. “I don’t disagree with you…life is a bitch but since I’m not sure of the alternative I’m in no hurry to leave it.” I paused and then added, “I’m just looking at the city…and the night sky…and trying to remind myself how insignificant my disappointments and failures are in the grander scheme of things…”

“Bad day?” he asked. He was next to me now but I didn’t turn to look at him.

“Bad year,” I said before I could censor myself. I prided myself on not taking my problems to others and the others in my life always seemed quite happy with that arrangement. “Happens to the best of us.”

“Want to talk about it?”

His concern was starting to irritate me. “Nope.”

“You sure?”

I turned to look him…his face was weathered and kindly...and he looked back expectantly. “What do you want me to say? That I have too many bills and not enough money? That I have so many dreams and almost no prospects? That love is fleeting and fickle and my heart is weary from all of it? That sometimes I want to shut myself in a dark room and make the world just go away?” I realized I was ranting and, quite embarrassed, I stopped and looked back out at the city.

“Something like that,” he replied without the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well there you go,” I said softly.

Silence fell between us again. “It’s getting a bit nippy up here,” he said hugging himself, “I’m going to go inside.”

Good, I thought. I said nothing.

“What are you going to do?”

I took in another deep breath of the admittedly brisk night air and let it out slowly. “I’m going to look at the city,” I said. “Maybe I’m going to feel sorry for myself if the mood strikes…” I let my words linger for a few moments and then added, “And then I’m going to go down to my bedroom and go to sleep and get up and start all over in the morning. Fair enough?”

It was his turn to sigh softly. “Fair enough,” he said, seemingly resolved to my lack of suicidal intention. “My name is Robert, by the way, I just moved into 715.”

“Christopher,” I replied, hoping the exchange of names might hasten his departure. “805.”

He moved away from me. “Good night, Christopher.”

“Good night, Robert.”

The roof access door opened and closed and the night…the city’s lights and muffled and imagined sounds…filled my senses again. I looked at the city…I looked into the night…and when fatigue started to take me, I pulled away from the edge and headed off the roof and downstairs to my apartment…to my life. Tomorrow would be another…maybe good, maybe not…day.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Nightswimming

It took a little while but we were both surprised to find laughter coming to us easily. Years ago we were almost something…but things happened and our paths diverged and we lost touch with each other…and now, through the most mercurial of happenstances, we were together again. Together just for an evening…but together just the same.

The lasagna was settling nicely in my belly and the wine was doing likewise in my head as we walked along the boardwalk. Our hands touched…and then tensed…and then, warily at first, intertwined.

“You remember the last time were out at this beach?”

I smiled patiently. Of course I remembered that night. “Yes, I remember it very, very well.”

“Being drunk and out at the beach at 3 AM is something that you might want to forget.”

We laughed, nervously and humidly, as the sea breezes shuddered through us. We walked onto the sand into the roaring darkness.

“It was about here I think,” I said pointing out towards the surf caressing the shore in the light of the lazy half-moon.

All those years ago when we were almost something we left David’s part feeling tipsy and silly and just adventurous enough to brave the dark night ocean on a summer’s night. We had kissed tentatively and then we’d thrown off all of our clothes and raced…hand in hand…into the icy water.

We frolicked in the icy water, laughing and kissing…night swimming…for a few long, amazing minutes. Then we swam back to shore and ran back onto the beach. We fell in the sand, our clothes as ramshackle blanket, and laughed.

Lying naked in a new moon’s light we had kissed again and then we laid back and looked up at the stars.

“We made love right here,” I said.

“We didn’t make love…we stayed on the sand until we were chilly enough and self-conscious enough to get dressed…”

“Yeah, I know,” I said with a grin, “but I created a whole other memory of that night that I quite liked and so I decided it was the true story…”

“…or at least the better story…”

“Yeah…maybe we should’ve…”

“…but we didn’t…”

I sighed wistfully. “No we didn’t…” I paused and looked out the water. “Well we’re here now…we could…”

There was a long pause. “No we could…but we shouldn’t…”

“Yeah,” I said knowing full well that the moment was back all those years ago and not here and now.

We held hands and listened to the surf until we were chilly enough and self-conscious enough to turn back to the boardwalk…back to the restaurant parking lot…back to our respective cars. We kissed…almost chastely…and then let our paths diverge once again.