February 14, 2011

Greetings from where they really do come true,

The door had a knot of tin bells tied to the frame so as he pushed through into the diner they clattered loudly.  He reached up to touch them, to quiet them.

He stepped into the diner, giving a quick glance around to see if she had arrived before him somehow.  Midmorning, too early for the lunch crowd, there were only a couple people eating.  He clumped onto the tile floor wishing he were quieter, not wanting people to stare.  He chose a booth where he could see the front door and slid into the vinyl bench, his joints rasping as he crouched, folding his long legs under the table.

The waitress brought coffee, a spoon balanced on the rim, a tiny metal cream pitcher.  His fingers absently traced its shape as he stirred his coffee.

He watched the door.  He waited, knowing that he might be waiting forever.  He would wait forever.   He glossed over for a moment, went in his mind to the somewhere from which he had just returned, watching the moments reel by behind his eyes.  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard the door bells jangle again.

And his eyes focused on her.  He felt things go crazy inside him.

She swept into the diner, all colors and textures and warmth and light and sounds, and he realized why everything he saw reminded him of her.  He watched her move, already knowing exactly how every part of her would behave, having held her in his mind since the first day.  And then she was at the table and settled perfectly on the seat across from him.

“You gonna want a menu Hon?” asked the waitress

“Just coffee.” she said, peeling off her coat, unspooling her scarf, and he could not imagine it being done more beautifully.

They stirred their coffee and fussed with napkins.  He arranged and rearranged the ketchup bottle and the salt and pepper shakers, helpless to prevent his hands from performing.

“I heard you were back from your little adventure.  Wasn’t sure you’d call me.” she said, a little coyly.  “The story is you met someone on the road.”

“It’s not like that.” he said, “She was just a friend, someone I was helping.”  He smiled a little behind his cup, sipped some of the coffee and almost spit it back in the cup. It tasted like oil.

They looked at each other until he could not stand it and lowered his eyes to his coffee.  “You’ve changed your hair a little.” He said

“Ok, …my hair. You didn’t ask me to come down here for a review of my hair.” she said softly, but urging him now to get to it.

He brought out a paper lunch sack, wrinkled and creased from use, stained from a long since eaten Pastrami sandwich.  He laid it on the table between them.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”  he said, smiling, his face folding painfully with effort.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Open it.”  He pushed it closer.

She unrolled the end of the sack and looked inside.  She squinted then looked up at him, then back in the bag.  “What is this?” she asked again, tentatively.

“It’s my heart.” 

She looked at him again, and then back at the bag.  She reached in and gently brought it out.  It was a velvet pouch, sewn and shaped as she expected, deep red, filled with something, maybe sawdust.  It felt strangely warm in her hands.  There was a gold safety pin attached to it.

“It was a gift, but I earned it, believe me.” he said.  “I got it while I was… out of town.”

He tried smiling again, his face awkward and stiff.  “It was quite a trip.  I would love to tell you about it sometime.”

She laughed a little.  “Some guys come home with tattoos…”

He didn’t know what to say next, and he could feel panic welling up in him.  Before she left him the last thing she had told him that he didn’t understand real intimacy, didn’t open up enough.  He was distant, not cold, but not engaged.  She didn’t say he was heartless, but they both knew what she meant.   He had a chance to defend himself, but he didn’t.  He had just looked down at hands, and willed his love to be felt.   And then she said goodbye and he was lost. 

“I can’t take this.” She said, rolling the paper bag closed.  She flipped her hair back from her face. “This isn’t what you think.  This doesn’t make us ‘in love’; it’s just a metaphor, a symbol.  You need to feel it,” she touched her own chest, leaning toward him, “here.  And so do I.”

Her words cut through him like carbon tipped blade.  He blinked quickly, startled by his own tears.

“I know, I understand, but listen to me now.” he said, trying to bend the words to his will.  “I sense that you do feel it, and I feel it too, but it is in every part of me, every molecule burns with the feeling, I just haven’t had a way of telling you.”

“When you said goodbye to me I left here to find what I needed, and I would have done anything, gone anywhere, to bring it to you.  I know how I feel about you, about us, I have it in me, in spite of how I appear.” He waved his hands up and down his torso, the hinges and pulleys ratcheting his point.

“I know it is more than just having a heart,” his voice cracking now, “but now that I have one I know it means nothing unless I can give it to you.”

Her hands slid between the cups and touched his fingertips lightly and he looked up to see what her eyes would tell him but she was already moving up, away from the table.  He watched her go through the diner’s door, stop for a fraction of a second that was nearly a lifetime, look back at him, and then the bells clanged goodbye behind her.

He waited. His hands sought each other on the table top and held on, treasuring the memory of her touch.  He watched the door and waited.  He would wait forever.

The waitress hovered for a moment, swirling coffee in a glass pot in one hand. “Is she coming back?” she asked.  And she looked at him, finally, and saw the tears running down his face.

“Oh, Hon, you need to take care of that,” she said, pulling some napkins from her pocket, “or you’re going to be a mess in the morning.”

He turned his head to look at her, his neck creaking, and offered a small laugh.  “Oh, I won’t rust.”

Just then, the tin bells came to life as the door opened, and they both looked up.  He held his breath, and felt his heart pounding in every part of him.

Hope this finds you a friend to the sparrows, and the boys who shoots the arrows,       

David

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Copyright © 2011 David Smith