When I saw her
coming out of the ladies’ underwear store, I said to myself, now there’s
a girl for me.
Tall, lanky-thin, hair black and shiny like a mink coat. The flip
of her curls bounced off her shoulders, the shopping bags swung in
cadence with her assured stride.
She is coming my way. I know I shouldn’t stare but I can’t help
it—that’s who I am.
I’ll call her Barbara. I like to name the women I watch after old
girlfriends. She reminds me of Barbara.
She wasn’t my first love but I think I loved her deep and true.
It was in college. They were wild days of alcohol and marijuana. I
was a slow starter. I actually studied my freshman year. Back then
I was a country bumpkin, trying for the American dream.
My new Barbara stops where I am seated and looks right at me. There
is no recognition of shame in her large brown eyes.
She speaks, “Excuse me—, is this seat taken?”
I can’t respond. I am frozen and mute. I can only blink, no. She drops
her Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret bags next to me, pirouettes and plops
down with a big sigh.
I wonder if I can look in her bag without her noticing, but I am afraid
to look. Is she staring at me, at my deformity? This is a brave girl
to sit by a stranger in a deserted mall.
Barbara was brave too. Or at least I thought so then. She had an red
Ford convertible and drove like an enchanted witch, hair flopping
like a horse’s tail, big brown eyes, wide with excited fear, her red
lips, hair wind-stuck to her teeth, concentrating on the curves in
the road ahead.
She taught me a lot: how to drive, how to drink whiskey, and how to
suck marijuana deep into your soul. How to lose yourself in another’s
pleasure.
My
new Barbara is talking to me so I listen. I struggle, must appear
interested, but I never know if I am doing it right.
Oh God, she’s asking me about what she bought. She shows me the lace
panties and brassiere. Yes, yes I think they are very nice, but I
don’t think
It doesn’t seem to bother her. She puts the undies away and tells
me about her boyfriend. He has a sissy name like Robert, or Ronald
or Thomas. I just know that no one used their given names in my neighborhood.
He would be Bob, or Ron, or Tom, a real man’s name.
She says he doesn’t want kids. She thinks he will change. What do
I think? She says he wants to leave her. Do I think he will stay if
she wears these?
How can I answer that? How can anyone know what is in the future.
Just look at me.
Barbara didn’t want our child. I was from family, and it was good.
But she had wounds I could not see, wounds that smoldered in her womb
and could not heal.
In her mind, my baby was still her uncle’s child.
She smoked more,
drank more, and drove off a cliff one dark and rainy night.
I want to tell my new Barbara that life is danger, that life is joy
and no one knows what is around that wet and slippery curve just ahead.
But I am mute.
I try hard to talk but a single grunt escapes from deep in my
throat, my first sound in months. Elated, I want to try and tell her
more, but a young man with too pale skin, red and blotchy with excitement
comes to her side and tells her what he bought. He uses big sweeping
gestures and sing-song words. She tries to kiss him but he turns a
beef patty cheek to her.
I want to tell her that he is as shallow
as a river skiff, but I am mute.
I hear them coming to get me, to
take me away in my prison chair.
“Grandpa, are you okay? Who’s your new friend?” Janny turns to talk
to my new Barbara. “I hope he didn’t bother or scare you. He drools
and his eyes water like that since his stroke.”
My new Barbara looks at me and smiles. She says that I was great company
and that we had a nice chat.
They move behind to push my wheel chair away. My new Barbara leans
over and kisses me on my salty cheek. I blink her a fond good-bye,
but she does not know.
She turns and strides away swinging her Macy’s
bag. Robert or Ronald or Thomas quicksteps after her. And as they
turn my chair I see she has left her secret bag next to me.
