35th Street Girl
Author's note: All Joan of Arcadia characters, etc., belong to Barbara Hall. I just miss them. Please review!
She's there again. For the past two weeks, she's been there every morning like clockwork, ticking away at time and at life. She sits there with her arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles and stares into the distance like she's looking for someone or something. She never panhandles or hands out pamphlets or shouts warning of the apocalypse. She doesn't juggle bowling pins; she's not a mime. She doesn't play the trumpet or sing. She doesn't have a cup in which passerby's throw coins. She is not something you can guess at and for that reason she is something that more than anything you want to know.
In your head, you've named her 35th Street Girl, even though she's more a women than a girl. You've made up stories about her, fake explanations because you can't get real ones. She's been a mental patient, an undercover agent and a reporter all in your head. She's been rich, poor, and middle class, a wanderer and a rock. She's been lucky and cursed, a hiding princess and a deranged fugitive. She is a blank canvas on which your thoughts run wild and if you were a painter and not a banker, you would surely have her portrait by now.
The only time you ever saw anyone talking to her was when a cop came by. Some person had called in a complaint on her, figuring anyone that spent their life like she does is breaking a law of some sort. You were furious at that instant, furious they would take her and lock all her secrets away. But the cop said she was breaking no laws, for she was not begging nor performing without a license nor being a public nuisance. She was just sitting a park bench, doing nothing wrong. In fact, you thought, she was doing nothing at all.
You've never seen anyone that so loves scarves as she. She wears one everyday, long flowing mazes of fabric that sweep around her and wrap her away. You've seen thin pink ones and thick white ones, stripes and solids, bright and dull. It doesn't look so different now when the cold winter weather has brought out the scarves of the city in full force. On her, they look different, as though they are what anchors her to this world, as though without them she might become a ghost and float away. You bet she has summer scarves as well.
…..
Today, you wear your Walkman on your way to work. You've just bought a poetry book on tape, and you time your steps to the beat of the words as you walk. The style is odd, both harsh and smooth, something young in its words yet old in its wisdom.
As you pass her, you find yourself saying the poem aloud. You're so engrossed in the beat that you might have missed it had it not been so out of the ordinary. Her ears perk up and her eyes shine. She looks so happy and alive that you almost stop right in middle of the road to stare. Maybe this is a sign of the apocalypse after all.
The next day, you see that she holds in her lap a brand new copy of Sewer Walking. As you walk by, you notice that she is whispering to herself. You join in, your silent voices in perfect unison.
"You and me, we used to talk…
…..
On Monday, you have a big meeting, so you get up early and take the bus to work. There were days when you relished having a good excuse to take the bus and break your self-imposed regime of exercise. Today, though, you hate it. You hate the sound of the motor, the constant chime of the stop bells. Everyone on the early morning route seems to be half asleep unlike the streets where everything is movement and movement is everything. You sigh and resign to yourself to the fact you've become an exercise nut. You follow a few government suggestions, and now you can't take a bus.
Your meeting ends at five, so you leave work early, high on the feeling of success. The others are going out for self-congratulatory drinks, but you don't feel like joining them, so you simply get your briefcase and your coat and head out the door. It is not until you pass the empty park bench on 35th Street that you realize that you don't really hate the bus at all. The whole rest of the way home you can't shake the feeling that you're being followed by a ghost.
……
You are not good at Christmas shopping. You love buying stuff for yourself, but you absolute hate buying stuff for others. It's not that you're greedy, but rather that you're afraid. When you shop for yourself, there's not much a risk. Even if you buy something you end up hating, you can always justify it with "Well, I thought…" or "In the store…" With other people, it's not that easy. You always run the risk of getting your niece a doll she already has or your sister a dress two sizes to small. You don't want to be The Guy That Ruins Christmas. But you're nieces and nephews are still young enough that they believe in Santa, so you spend hours in the store picking out just the right toy, consulting lists and guidebooks and pestering your fellow shoppers until you're 99 sure you haven't messed up.
You walk home, more than relived to have the shopping over with for the year. You're route doesn't take you past 35th Street.
…..
It snowed during the night, and the ground is blanketed with a thick sheet of freezing white. For a minute, you worry that this will drive her away, make her retreat to wherever she cam from. But no, she is there again, sitting on her bench just like always. She is all bundled up in a thick brown jacket and long stiff blue jeans. Through the opening of the jacket, you can just barely catch a glimpse of her newest scarf, red and green stripes. It is not until you see that scarf that you realize it will be Christmas for her, too.
All the two and half miles to work, you think about what you could get for her. You think of scarves and of poetry, of her leather boots and penchant for torques. But then you remember that fear you felt when you thought she was gone forever, and you realize that this may be the first and last gift you ever give her. If you want to get it right, you're going to have to ask.
….
You walk toward her slowly as though the sound of your steps might scare her away. She sits there, gazing into the distance, watching, waiting, looking, and you think you think if you can help her find what she's looking for she will stay and talk you. And so you ask in a shaking voice what she is looking for.
She pauses for a minute and then answers.
"God."
Oh, you think, she's crazy. That's all.
But even as you tell yourself this, a part of you whispers across the wind.
Liar, liar…
You walk away.
----
She never came back.
The sensible part of you knows she just went to another bench, another street where she can live in her sad, crazy world. And yet a part of you always wonders if maybe, just maybe, she went with God. Maybe it was a Merry Christmas after all.