“Yes,” he said, replying to a question she had asked almost one block ago.

He crossed the street without looking, the oncoming bus coming so close that he felt the back of his open leather jacket touch its side. He had not stopped moving since he left the house, finally stopping a few feet from her when he arrived at the bus stop.

She paused for a moment as she inhaled from her cigarette and watched another bus go by in the opposite direction. “My parents used to take me on the bus when they’d go to Church on Sundays. It was across town, somewhere on 78th Street.”

“What religion was it?” he asked.

“Armenian Orthodox,” she said, exhaling a cloud of smoke during the last half of the second word.

“I’m surprised they didn’t have an arranged marriage set up for you?” he quipped, but kept his face as expressionless as he could and faced the road. “Didn’t you tell me that before, that they did have someone picked out for you?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” she said. Her voice turned as flat as a shadow.

They sat at the bus stop and waited in silence.

He watched her stub out her cigarette just as the #14 bus pulled up. She entered first, deftly putting her monthly pass into the fare machine. He fumbled with his dollar, the machine accepting it on his third try. She took a window seat about halfway up the bus and he slid in next to her. He then watched her do what he had entitled her comfort ballet: in what almost seemed like a choreographed set of moves, she opened her leather trench coat, removed her gloves, placed them into her pockets, opened her purse, placed her sunglasses in them, closed her purse and finally crossed her legs. As she concluded and turned toward the window, he noticed a Hispanic mother sitting up front with her very young daughter next to her. The little girl had on what seemed to be a velvet dress with white stockings and patent leather shoes on her delicate feet. Every once in a while the girl would get up and stomp her feet on the bus floor just to hear the sound it made. Then her mother would gently grab her arm and place her back in her seat.

The late morning sun was beginning to poke through the clouds and spill into the bus. He looked down at his hands and saw the scar on his left hand index finger. Tilting it into the light he saw the traces of the baseball stitch line across his knuckle. It was one Labor Day and he had cut through a stalk of corn hitting his finger underneath.

Before the memory could continue, the bus made an abrupt stop, followed by a slight thud and the sound of breaking glass . The movement was hard enough to startle everyone and move them one inch forward in their seats. While nobody on the one-third full bus was hurt, the Hispanic mother grabbed her child and held her close. The little girl, however, seemed amused by it all and giggled.

At once the bus driver turned around to see if everyone was okay. He then opened the door, got out of his seat, grabbed his jacket, got out of the bus and began to swear. What had happened was an oversized pick-up truck driven by a teenaged boy had bumped into the directional signal of the bus. Everyone turned around to hear the heated conversation that was taking place. It became apparent rather quickly that the 19 year old didn’t stand a chance against the bus driver.

Just then, she looked over at him and said, “This could take a while to sort out. What do you want to do?”

“We’re not too far from the diner,” he replied. “Let’s just walk.”

“Sure,” she said and proceeded to do her ritual from a few moments before in reverse. He stood up and placed his hand in front of him, signaling the etiquette to have her walk in front of him. As they left, the Hispanic girl kicked her legs in the air as her mother held her close to her chest.

They stepped off the bus carefully, making sure the driver didn’t see them and headed south on Hennepin Ave. The snow had stopped just before dawn and was blanketing the sidewalks and cars. She walked in front of him for a few moments until he made his way to her left side. “Could you slow down a little?” he said. “I’m having a hard time keeping up with you in these sneakers.” She said nothing, but looked at him quickly, and smiled for a moment.

When they hit 24th Street the snow had piled up in front of the art cinema on the corner and they had to go single file through the snow banks the plows had made. With each step, he realized more and more the absolute futility of his sneakers. In a vain attempt to miss stepping into a hidden puddle, he used her footsteps as a guide. His feet were too big and his gait made it impossible to follow her path. It was no use. His feet were getting more soaked with each step.

When they finally arrived at the restaurant, it was cluttered with couples there for Sunday brunch, as well as assorted people sitting at the bar watching one sport or another on one of the half dozen satellite feed televisions. Within moments they were seated at his favorite location, the booth to the right of the entrance that looked out to the street. Just after they took off their coats, a waitress came over.

“Well, good morning to Mr. Benjamin and Miss Sadie. How are you two attractive people doing this fine Sunday morning? And what can I get you?” said the waitress. Her name was Jill and they had all kind of grown to know each other.

“Not bad. The usual, I guess,” he mumbled his words, hearing her voice through the fog that had been clogging his senses all morning. “My feet are freakin’ soaked and freezing. I can’t believe I didn’t wear boots.”

Jill poured the coffee into their cups and said, “Now, why did you both walk here? Didn’t you take the bus?”

“We did, but...” he paused a moment to feel the warmth of the cup in his hands. “But some kid in a pick-up hit the turn signal on our bus. I really didn’t feel like waiting around just to go another five blocks. Thanks,” he said and sipped the coffee. Then they both ordered and sat in silence smoking cigarettes, watching people go by the front of the diner.

“So,” Sadie said. The word fractured the silence like a tray of ice cubes hitting the floor. “What were you interested in as a kid, I mean like hobbies?”

He sat there for a moment, silent, playing with his cigarette in the ashtray. “Didn’t we cover this topic somewhere over the past whenever? Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. I’m just...” she paused nervously and said, “...curious, I guess?”

There was a long pause as he watched the smoke and steam curl in front of him. “When I was a kid, back in the fifth grade, I think I really liked reading books on mythology,” he stated.

“Greek or Roman?”

“I don’t remember. My mind was so cluttered back then.” When he said this, he forced a slight smile to his face. “I guess I just really liked the myths, how the gods were like comic book characters. It was weird, though, how they were gods but never happy and always getting revenge on somebody. It’s such a long time...” he paused, trying to find the right memory. “Yeah, I remember Icarus, the guy with the wings and Sisyphus, the guy who had to roll the rock up the hill forever as punishment. My favorite, though, wasn't a god at all. It was Achilles, the guy with the weak spot just above his feet.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember him,” she blurted. At this, he turned his face to look at her. She blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth, looked at him for a moment, then quickly shifted her gaze out the window. “Whatever happened to him?”

He paused to light another cigarette and take a sip of coffee. “I’m not sure of the details, but his life seemed different from the rest. It wasn't perfect. I liked that. He was a warrior. His one weakness was his heel. I think it was a woman, or the love of a woman, that was his downfall. Don't quote me on that, though.”

As if on cue she said, “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” got up, and left. After she disappeared from sight, he stared out the window, unable to think. He was so tired, not having slept at all last night. He looked out the window and saw a bus unload people. When the bus pulled away he saw a man and a woman walking towards the entrance of the Calhoun Square Mall. He stared at them. Were they even moving? Their pace was so slow. He could see the woman’s arm in the man’s, but they were moving..... so..... slowly. The waitress came by and placed both the orders on the table, filled both the cups with coffee, smiled knowingly, and left. He noticed nothing, but continued staring out the window, mesmerized.

“Did you mean what you said last night?” the words came out of his mouth two seconds after Sadie returned to the table. They seemed to hover in the air, sink, and hit the floor. He was not sure why he said them. They just came out.

“What?” she replied.

“Did you mean. What you said. Last night. About us.” he stated calmly, though his chest seemed to grow colder by the minute.

She didn’t speak for a minute or two, but picked at her food, tasted some, and then placed her fork on her plate. “Yes, I meant it.” She did not look up as she delivered her words.

He found another cigarette and lit it, watching the smoke swirl, expand and disperse. The answer came as a shock to him even though he remembered last night far too well. He was hoping that perhaps, like anyone during a tragedy, that it was all a dream or that the time since those memories was twelve years, not twelve hours. But it wasn’t. This was all happening in real time, he just wished it would move faster.

“I find it terribly ironic,” he said with his lungs growing colder, “that everything could come to a complete stop between you and I yet we could still sleep in the same bed and...”

“Don’t say it, just don’t say it,” she interrupted, somewhat defensively. “I don’t find it strange at all. It is what both of us wanted. We’re adults...”

His mind began to ache, a faint pain starting in the back of his head. “I suppose it is the ballad of the long distance relationship. Get what you can while you can.” He had cut her off mid-sentence but had no idea what he was saying anymore. His mouth was moving like that of a marionette. He took a long drag from his cigarette and began to feel an anger rise inside of him. “Another version of, what did you call it again, ‘explode and make up’?”

“No!” she interjected. He saw her lips barely move and her eyes harden. Her calm exterior melted and her anger began to show. “No, no, no. That is NOT what this is!”

“Alright,” he said, raising his left hand up and averting his eyes from her, turning them to the couple in the booth across the room. He paused and without looking at her, said, “What is it?”

When she didn’t respond, he turned and looked at her, catching her gaze as she calculated her words while exhaling her cigarette smoke. Her eyes, once a source of love and hope for him, had turned black with anger. He felt as though he were falling in on himself, like a space inside of him was collapsing into a black hole. Then, with precision in every word, she spoke.

“You cannot sit there and look at me like that. I never said we would be together forever. I never promised you that. I was dating someone else when we met and wasn’t ready for commitment. I thought that being in a long distance relationship would be a good thing for me. I needed space to think, to find out who I am, to move a little in my skin. And don’t make me feel bad about not writing you. I told you I wasn’t a letter writer. We called each other. But that isn’t enough for me. I need someone here. I need to be held, touched. You letters and flowers and gifts didn’t do that. Face it, you and I are two different people. Your beliefs are just different than mine and I don’t agree with them. And I know that I could never marry you, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t know, I just... don’t know anymore.”

Her words had become a blur of sounds. Moment by moment, his stomach was turning colder, the sinking feeling getting deeper, and his back was beginning to ache, his shoulder muscles beginning to burn. Somehow, perhaps through some sort of reflex, his mouth began to move and, much to his surprise, words came out.

“Just one thing before I fly home today...” he paused, trying to remember how to breathe. “Did you, I mean, what.... when I heard you say ‘I love you,’ what did you...”

“I never said I loved you. No. I never said that. No. Even if I did, I didn’t mean...” she stopped, her razor sharp tone making her point clear.

“Okay,” he said. The words came from a strange calm within his storm. He must have sounded direct because she said nothing else and merely sat there not smoking or drinking.

They sat there in the booth for what seemed to be forever.

“Look,” she said, looking down at the ashtray in front of her. The tone of her voice was almost apologetic. “I need to get some keys made across the street in the mall. Why don’t we go there and then go back to the house so you can get to your plane on time?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay. Let me just go to the bathroom first.” She left the booth and disappeared around the corner. He sat there in a free fall. He debated touching the lit cigarette to his hand to be sure that he wasn’t dreaming. As he watched one of the hairs on his hand crinkle and burn after he touched it, he decided not to. This was all real and he knew it.

Looking out the window, he noticed that the sun was again trying to poke through the patchwork of clouds that insulated everything underneath them. He recognized his emotion, or lack thereof, as panic, as the shock after the trauma. He was never one to debate with a woman to try to salvage what she did not want. It was over and he wanted to run, run as fast as he could from all the pain that would ambush him as the reality of all this unfolded before him in retrospect, like a bruise after being hit.

He loved her. He knew that, too. He also knew she would not change her mind. A mutual friend of theirs mentioned to him a month ago that they had seen her kissing a man at a café off Washington Ave. He, on the other hand, would be returning to nothing. He was not very good with women, he never knew how to start a conversation with a stranger. In a few hours, he would drag his lead feet onto a plane, she would be in the arms of someone else, more beautiful, better dressed, and most likely less neurotic than he. Maybe he should stay, try to regain his balance before going back? He could crash at a friend’s place, a person he knew from when he was in school. Yes, maybe it would be a good thing to stay here for a little longer and figure things out.

When she returned, they got dressed and left money on the table for the check and tip. In a moment of generosity, he left $25 for the $10 check. Leaving the diner, they crossed the street and entered Calhoun Square, a two-story mall in the middle of downtown. The mall at this time was filled with people looming about. It all seemed like a bad dream, the masses apathetic to his own hell. While a small light of optimism filled him after deciding to stay in town, his legs felt as though they were filled with sand. He was getting sicker by the moment and though he tried to save face, he knew he looked like hell. Realizing he could go no further, he decided to sit down on one of the wire benches by the elevators. “I’m, umm, I’m going to wait here. You go do what you have to do.” She said nothing and went off towards the pavilion where the kiosk that sold and made keys was located. He stared at her black figure as she moved away.

He closed his eyes and the hope inside him vanished. He felt himself falling. He wanted to throw up but didn’t want to make a scene. He wanted to run but he could barely move his legs. The reality of the situation began to wash over him and he thought he was drowning. It was hopeless! He knew it now! There was nothing here for him. He had always wanted to be loved as he loved someone else but it never seemed to happen. She said she loved him. He knew she did. Wait, did she? Yes? No? What did it matter now? Yes, goddamn it, it DID matter! Was he a fool? Was he lied to? There was nothing back home for him, nothing but the weight of history’s unrealized dreams. He wanted to pray, but couldn’t. Why should he? Didn’t he do this to himself? God helped the lepers, the dying if He helped anyone at all, not some jag-off in a leather jacket who just got his soul destroyed by some woman he loved. Why did he bother to believe then? What was the point? Was there a point?

Suddenly, the screaming inside his head stopped and the sounds of the world around him came to him. Slowly, he raised his head and opened his eyes. Everything seemed clear and sharp. Couples walked by him in every direction with the occasional single person floating by. Suddenly, he saw an elderly couple, a man and a woman in the distance. He recognized them. They were the couple he saw as he sat in the restaurant. For a moment he thought they were standing still, but they weren’t. The man held the woman as she took the smallest of steps. His eyes became transfixed on them. From the distance they both looked terribly old and poor. Busy shoppers maneuvered around them like fish around a coral reef. The faces of the old couple were stoic with sadness and an expression of slight pain amidst the wrinkles that reminded him of the oak trees he climbed as a child. The old man seemed to have infinite patience. He was at least ten inches taller than she, but plodded along next to her, making sure she would not fall over. While he watched, they moved only about ten feet, seeming to go towards the east entrance/exit wing of the mall.

“Where do you want to go now?” a female voice called.

He turned to Sadie who was now standing over him, his eyes wide open. He stared at her for a second. She seemed like a stranger. “Oh, let’s go to the bookstore by the entrance.”

They walked together in silence, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. He passed the couple who did not look up. He wanted to yell something, but he didn’t know what, or even how for that matter. Something inside him was shifting, turning... rising.

When they entered the bookstore, they did their ritual with the parting of the ways, she to the art or philosophy section, he to the fiction and clearance tables. Nothing interested him, not even a copy of Camus’ The Fall that he had always wanted. It was then that something inside of him snapped and he began to act without thinking. He rushed over to her and said in a fevered tone, “Look, I think I dropped my wallet by the chair, maybe even back at the restaurant. I’m going to go see if I can find it.”

“Okay,” she replied.

For one brief moment that seemed to last an hour, he stared at her and saw her as he did when he met her for the first time. Her large beautiful eyes, dark, olive colored skin, and the thick black hair that enchanted him for hours on end. He remembered the first time he awoke before her and saw her asleep and at peace nestled next to him. She was everything to him. He wanted to propose to her, he wanted to say he loved her more than any other woman he had ever known, he wanted to kiss her and smell her perfume one last time... but he didn’t.

Sprinting out of the bookstore, he looked for the older couple. They weren’t near the exit he expected so he ran outside to see if they were anywhere outside. Where would they have gone? Without pausing, he turned around and ran back to the mall, heading for the stairs to take him to the second level. His only chance was to search the entire complex. He pushed his way past anyone who would not get out of his way fast enough, all the while scanning his field of vision for his quest. Finally, as he rounded a corner, he spotted them by the shoe store. He sprinted back to the stairs, descending them two at a time. The flower store was right in front of him at the end of the stairs. He stood in front of it for a moment and, without thinking, ran inside to the counter.

“Give me two roses, please. One red, one white. Those there,” he pointed into the refrigerated case, “the two long stems.” Only after he said all that did he realize he was almost shouting at the clerk. “And, um, wrap them separately. Please hurry.” The rather indifferent florist went about her business sullen and silent. While she was turned, he quickly took one of the blank name tags that was lying on the counter and placed it in his jacket. Rummaging through his pants pockets, he tossed ten dollars on the counter, grabbed the roses and ran out of the store. He didn’t care about the change. He didn’t care about anything. The only thing that mattered to him was that couple.

After ascending the stairs again two at a time, he spotted them and froze. He had no idea what he was going to say. He pinned the name tag to his shirt. Again, he didn’t think, simply acted.

He approached them slowly and confidently, looking directly at them as he introduced himself. “Hello. My name is Bob Sutol.” He quickly opened and closed his jacket, flashing the name tag. “I am the assistant manager of the flower store downstairs, and the owner asked me to give you these.” The couple stood there silent, looking at him with an almost blank expression. “You see, he, well, actually both of us, thought you two both made such a beautiful couple that we wanted to give you these.” With that, the roses were presented before them. He looked at the woman’s eyes. They seemed filled with the pain she had to endure day in and day out. And then he saw the man. His eyes carried a sorrow that weighed upon him so heavily for so long that his face seemed etched like a dried river bed. However, when they saw the flowers within their hands, their faces turned from vacant to quietly happy. A smile came upon each of them.”Actually,” he said, “he said you reminded him...reminded him of his grandparents and seeing as today is National Grandparents Day, he wanted you to have them.”

“Thank you,” the man said softly.

“No, thank you,” Ben said. “Thank you both so very, very much. Both of you are absolutely beautiful. I, I mean we, the owner and I, just want to be sure you both know that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Giving them one last smile, he turned around and slowly walked out of their sight.

When he hit the stairs, he sprinted down them and ran past the bookstore, forgetting to look to see if Sadie had noticed him. Once outside the mall he spotted a cab making a drop-off and ran over to it, convincing the driver to take him where he needed to be. When he arrived at the house, he told the driver to wait as he wouldn’t be long. The front door was unlocked as usual and he ran up the stairs, grabbed his suitcase and carry on and returned to the cab. Throwing his two bags into the back seat, he shut the door behind him and told the driver, “The airport, please. Hurry, if you could.”

He stared out the window and saw some birds playing by a nearby lake. He didn’t bother to check his bags for his ticket. He knew, this time, he had left nothing behind.

Copyright 2005 Brimstone and Blue Productions

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