Never in my life had I heard of such a thing as ebb and flow…
ebb and flow. .
I laughingly repeated her words.
“That’s right” she said “you have this undetermined ebb and flow thing going on. I mean, I-I truly can’t …” she paused. “I truly can’t talk. I mean, I know what I wanna say but it’s like my fucking mouth won’t form the words. Like, I can’t uh, get the whole uh, vowel thing down right now.”
She smiled at me and I could see her front teeth squinting through her lips when they tightened and the corners of her mouth wrinkled and bent upwards. She was amazing… drunk … but amazing nonetheless. I forgave her.
I sat with her for a lifetime on the wooden bench with the abstract carvings of peoples names and commonplace posting of gum under the seats. The port she drank set her back a couple of brain cells but she was all giggles not an angry drunk by far. She reached over and clasped my hand rolling my fingers back and forth and intertwining my digits with hers. She had hands of ivory. Chilly to the touch though warm in action.
She grew tired as we waited. We watched people pass and bums stagger. Watchmen patrol and children play. She leaned her head and shoulder into my chest. She sank and then slept. I placed my arm over her shoulders and backpack still affixed. I leaned my head back and found nothing to rest it on. I just sat. I wasn’t tired.
Within the moments of no conversation I was at my inside. I was forecasting and budgeting in my head and I became anxious for the first time in almost four months. My stomach ached and my body started to produce momentary cold sweats and I reviewed the options that were available to us.
Carefully I unzipped the backpack’s outer pocket and reached in amongst the now melted candy and tissue pappers. I secured my wallet and rezipped the pocket. Slowly, not taking my eyes off her, I opened the billfold to determine our fate. Eighty three dollars. Exact.
The aches and sweats came again.
Eighty three dollars representing the last trades of labor for the pieces of paper that now coordinated our practices. Paper. Smelly, dirty, musty, paper money-bills depicting faces of people long forgotten by society’s elite who possess more than us.
A man walked by pushing a car of brooms, a mop bucket, and a rubbish bag stretch across a frame on the cart. He paused in the walkway just in front of us. He took off his hat and with his right forearm he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He returned his cap and glanced at me with his eyes.
“Howdy.” He said in an undetermined drawl.
“Hi ya” I responded
“Awfully quiet isn’t it?”
“It is that.”
“I shore do love the quiet. Yes sir. Man can be getting to know his self once the world’a quieted down at night.”
“I suppose you’re right. How goes business?”
“Ah hell,” he said waving his hand down as if swatting a fly. “folks shit and folks make a mess. I just clean up after um the best’s I can”
“Ya.” I said smiling and nodding in agreement.
“You look like something’s eatin’ ya up friend.”
“Oh ya … I uh .. I just got some things on my mind and uh, you know – “
The man came closer to us leaving his cart behind. He squatted down in front of me. He paused and looked as she was asleep in my lap. He placed his right hand on my knee and his left arm on her elbow. He closed his eyes. He became still. He opened his eyes and looked into mine.
He said, “Son, don’t you eva think a negative thought the rest’yo whole life. You focus with all your inner guts and blood on the positive things in this world! You focus and you believe!! An-an-and you force folks to see the positive in yo body and the positive in yo mind and you sweat it and spit it and bleed it and you give it away when you have to!!! No mattah what comes yo way son, you be alright. Okay?”
My body was numb and my eyes were watered and blurry. I couldn’t respond with the knot in my throat.
He patted my knee and rubbed her elbow.
He stood
He walked back to his cart and smiled tipping his hat towards us as he walked away.
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