October

October

The cold woke her like her mother used to. She turned her eyes to the
straw-yellow sun and let the light burn through her still-closed lids.
She picked up her cardboard mat and found she could still walk.

"Thank you, mat, for seeing me through the night and creating me a
walking morning." She bowed her head and left it bowed so they wouldn't
see.

They probably didn't see her, not one of them, except for the royal
blue magic marker that came rolling down the sidewalk and bumped
against her toes. Its single "Crayola" eye sat staring at her
knees.

She picked up the marker and thought out loud, "Fate is playing today."
She wanted to say "God," but she knew God wasn't cruel. She popped the
cap off with the thumb of the hand that held the marker while she still
held the mat in the other.

She sniffed big and listened to the cap bounce through a sewer grate.
She looked at the mat. Only one corner of it was wet, and she wouldn't
even need to write on that part. She scribbled something, big and
quickly, then she set the marker rolling down the sidewalk again.

She tucked the mat up under her arm and walked into a fast-food
restaurant. She hugged the mat close to her chest so the words didn't
show. They weren't ready to see them yet.

The face of the young woman behind the register sat sour as she
approached. They looked at each other for a moment: one behind the
counter with twisted lips and frowning brows, the other behind an old
piece of cardboard trying to hide with downcast eyes.

"Small coffee," she finally said wincing at her own rasping
voice.

"Dollar fifteen," came the response that somehow slipped through lips
that never moved.

"And a large cup of water."

"Dollar fifteen."

Her hand burrowed through her old coat's folds and pockets until she
felt the cold metal of change. She grabbed a handful and spilled it on
the counter. One by one she separated the coins until a dollar fifteen
was on the cashier's side and the rest on hers.

"I'm not a fuck up...fucked up." She needed to say that, but not out
loud. "Was that out loud?" She looked at the cashier's face; there was
no change. Maybe she had said it. Maybe not.

The man in front of her let the door close on her as she was leaving.
She spilled water on her coat. The woman behind her waited at a
distance for her to get out of the doorway. With a cup in each hand and
her cardboard sign pinched tight under her elbow she stumbled through
the door and stepped back onto the busy street.

She walked hurriedly toward the bridge watching the cold sidewalk pass
under her feet. On the bridge she listened to the dull metallic ring of
her weight on the walkway. Through drill-holes in the rusted steel she
could see the river flowing brown and slow.

The metal bridge passed, and she turned to the left, avoiding cracks
as she crossed over the rectanglular slabs of granite sidewalk.

She looked up at the building in front of her. In the dark glass
windows another woman stared back at her. She was dirty, ugly. Her hair
fell in thick waxen strands from under a dusty grey stocking cap. It
was dirty blonde, blonde and dirty. A fish hook nose stuck out of her
dull face. It quivered and twitched involuntarily. The smell of the
city was thick with decomposing fast-food wrappers and the stale metal
air from buildings' ventilation systems. Now and then she caught the
smell of cheap perfumes and colognes, and these lent an artificial,
neon brightness to the dreary air. She looked like she was fishing for
smells, or maybe just constantly tugging at the thin line of mucous
that wanted to sink down to her upper lip. Somewhere above her busy
nose, amidst the strands of grey-yellow hair were her eyes?but she
didn't like to look at those. The rest of her body was formless,
ageless. It was a mess of heavy cloth coats, button-down shirts, sweaty
scarves and unmatched gloves, all caked with dirt and dried sweat that
kept her heat in better than any cloth.

"I am not ugly."

She placed her coffee and water against the building and turned her
sign around so it faced the dark window. The woman there mimicked her
actions.

GNIEB NAMUH A SA NOITINGOCER ROF KROW LLIW

A brilliant sentence. Half the men with business suits and brief cases
would have fucked it up. "Will work for recognition as a human
being."

"See, I think," she thought, perhaps to herself but probably out loud.
"Recog?cog-something. I think. Isn't that supposed to mean
something?"

She turned and sat facing the street, boldly displaying her sign. Legs
were constantly passing her by, so many knees hard at work. Nylon
stretched. Cotton flapped against shins. Metal chains swung
rhythmically, clapping against the hips of sagging jeans.

Today she forced herself to look up. So many faces. One by one they
came, each blending into the ones past. First, a short man with heavy
stern eyebrows and a grey mustache. Then this face melted into the
sharp angles and heavily pasted features of a woman in a dark suit,
hair in a tight bun. A little boy softened the cheeks, adding a bright
stupidity to the eyes. But she didn't like to look at those. More and
more faces passed. Jaws stretched wide and pulled thin, now stern, now
soft. Noses rose and fell in waves, first a gentle bump in the middle
of the face, then a hard thin angular wall, then sinking back down
again. But none of the faces faced hers.

She felt her own face. The skin felt like dry grease. Her lips were
thin, bumpy strips chapped by the weather. Her fishhook nose was sharp
and cold, its tip chilled by the wind. Her eyebrows felt like thin
dust. Her sockets were shallow and puffy with fatigue. Her eyes?but she
drew her hand from her face.

"Eye contact!" she called aloud, or maybe only thought to herself.
"Anyone spare a smile, friendly nod? Eye contact?"

Somewhere between herself and the sun thick clouds were rolling
through. The sound of Fate bowling echoed through the streets, bouncing
off billboards and buildings. She wanted to say "God," but?she knew.
The air stayed thick but not raining. Fate was playing today. Maybe it
would be done soon. Maybe not.

Her coffee and water were gone now and she held an empty cup in each
hand. Her body was slumped comfortably against the building. She felt
molded to her corner.

"Eye contact! Anyone spare a smile? Friendly nod? Eye contact?"

A tall white woman in a navy blue rayon skirt slowed from the crowd
that was passing her by. Maybe she saw the sign. She swerved toward the
building. Her hair was long and brown, dried out from too many showers
and curling irons. It covered her face and eyes. She reached into a
pocket of her coat and threw a nickel toward the corner. Then she
walked away, dangerously fast for her high-heeled shoes.

There was nickel in her cup now.

A nickel in the cup, but not even its head would look at her. The
shoulder was turned showing a silver-cold profile.

She flung it from her cup and watched it skitter across the sidewalk
until it landed face up, cold eyes still staring away from her. She
felt a pang of pain.

"Eye contact?" Her voice broke. She was wearily aware of its ugly
grating sound. "Anyone spare a smile, friendly nod? Eye contact?"

A man with salt and pepper slicked-back hair heard her, but he
sidestepped away. The dull silver of her nickel caught his downcast
eyes. He glanced left, right, never at her. He stooped swiftly so his
knee-length wool coat brushed the pavement as he scooped the nickel
into a pocket. Quickly he escaped.

"Oh, fuck you!" her voice reverberated like a shrill belch.

"Was that out loud?"

She wanted to say, "Excuse me," but she wasn't sure whom she had
cursed: the man, herself or Thomas Jefferson's silver portrait.

"Eye contact?" It was tired out. Cold and tired. "Anyone spare a smile?
Friendly nod? Eye contact?"

The sun had long gone down. Hours ago the pasty-faced people stopped
singing German in their downtown opera houses. The audience too had
gone home. All of them were gone. There were forms like humans skulking
in alleyways and under bridges, sleeping over sewer grates, but they
were rats and dogs.

"I am not a dirty bitch."

She rose stiffly and hugged her sign as she walked toward the bridge.
The water below flowed dirty and peaceful. "Will work for recognition
as a human being." She flung it over the rail and watched as the thin
cardboard flipped over and over in the wind. It landed facedown in the
dark water.

Maybe she'd make another sign tomorrow. Maybe not.

This one would wash up somewhere, an oddity for white women in rayon
skirts to point and laugh at.

Maybe she'd follow that sign tomorrow. Maybe she'd wash up somewhere,
an oddity for men with salt and pepper slicked-back hair to point and
laugh at. Maybe they'd close her eyes before they burned her
body.

Maybe not.

"Eye contact?" And what if, what if they looked her in the eye? What if
they remembered and wrote it down? Maybe they could make ink on paper
look like her. Maybe not.

She looked up at the rusty brown city night sky. "Eye contact! Anyone
spare a smile? Friendly nod? Eye contact?" Orange streetlights outshone
the stars.