I carefully walked down the broken sidewalk to preserve the soft curls I so hastily created, to give him a chance to turn the wheel before I crossed the busy street. I smelled the blunt air, heard birds being welcomed into the world, and watched as they pushed open their heavy outlets in the hopes of a single gust of warm air. Instead they felt the harshness of a youthful spring struggling to hold on. Immersed in this quietly simple world, I failed to notice the man towering over me in a 49ers jacket stained with the filth of his life, its fibers desperately reaching for fresh odors to swallow. He stared silently at me, a patch of fiery warmth hanging down to the bulge in his throat, his hands nervously moving his hat over his unwashed head, soaking up the life he needed to let go of, like a mother of the lost youth she sees in her child riding his bike down a road that is unmatched in length. His eyes ran side to side, up and down, and not once did he remove them from his target, a young woman seemingly unable to go disregarded.
I pretend not to notice as a cold chill penetrates my flesh. It is all too familiar but this time I fail to quicken my step as my eyes furiously scan the world for curious bystanders. He is behind me now, allowing me to smell the unused washer, the cold misery, the stifled warmth. I concentrate on the man trimming the greens, the painter on the roof struggling to cover the harshness of the wind that we try to escape with the strongest winces we can muster. I feel a hand brush across the back of my shoulder as I keep walking, I don’t look until I feel a second chill rushing down my spine, covering my lower back, radiating down my legs.
As the tips of a stranger’s fingers graze thin fabric, she flinches and races to her destination. She turns slowly to face the man who provides such familiar discomfort, such violating intimacy, looks him directly in the eye with pleasant disgust as he runs his broken finger through a single ringlet that the wind has separated from its comfortable cluster. His eyes are empty, as empty as his unsympathetic mouth, his hands impolite and scarred, his face hidden by the same fiery warmth that dips downward and blossoms into an uncivil creature of rage and anxiety, desire and confusion. She sees the self-loathing in his stature, the conformity he distastefully rejects, the longing he resentfully displaces, the beauty he inappropriately recognizes. She understands, but not before the painter notices and forces a yell from up above. Everything okay? Feet are quickly moving over the broken pavement, he is running, he is slowly walking away. She knows, she turns, he knows, nobody really knows. She understands, she always understands.
