Chiaroscuro

Why is she getting out of the car in the middle of the street in a storm? Lightning lady! She’s holding up a blue umbrella, a god damn lightning rod! I have to go out there, tell her she’s crazy, in danger..

I’m going.
“Lady! Lady!”
Now she sees me.
“This is a lightning storm. Look it’s all around us. Are you crazy?”
The rain is noisy, the traffic worse, the thunder worse still. Can she hear me?
“What?”
“The umbrella-it’s a lightning rod!”
She looks at the umbrella, then back at me. Waves of traffic swirl around us. Her car zooms off.
“Get out of the street. C’mon!”
She stands there. I’m getting blasted by wind driven rain. But this blonde in a black coat and blue umbrella needs saving, and now she’s coming to me.
Coming to me.
I gather her around the waist and we speed toward the café. Now I kind of like being
out here with her in the crazy chaos of the storm, strafed by the elements, risky, with her, blonde stranger. People behind the glass stare-we are aliens. I was one of them once.

“Whew, I’m dripping.”
“ God, can I buy you something, some coffee?”
“Already working on an espresso. Sit down. Maybe you need one.”
“Yeah. Right. What a storm. What a day! Aren’t you the gallant one.”
She peels off the coat and there’s more black- sweater, skirt, a thin red belt that matches her lips. There’s no other color. Her eyes are smoky.
“I’ll be right back.”
She heads to the restroom.

Did she say gallant? Well, well. Her coat is fragrant with perfume. Tropical. Mangoes. Sweat. Why does that remind me? Seven years. San Francisco. Divorced. Split. What am I doing here? Drove cross country to escape. Boston.
Mainly this-sit in cafes-I‘ve searched out the best-sip espresso, read the NY Times, try to get some clues from Eliot or Bowles or Woolf, but I remain stuck. Wander the city in the wee hours, drive to a lake and stare at the floating leaves.
Oh yes, wasting the hours, the hours.
What have I done here?
Songs, stories, pictures.
Bits, pieces, fragments.
Why am I here?
Inertia.
The East has made me pale and weak.
But I like the mist, the green, the slow rivers, the smooth waves
It is too easy not to interact. I have my DVD’s, I have limitless cyberspace, and I have books, doors that open into a thousand places, a thousand other times, and then I am gone. Most of all I have my sturdy old Mamiya 645 camera. Just touching it keeps me grounded.
Human beings? All these young bald guys, and women who all talk in mall accents.
I meet people. I meet women for a glass of wine. It doesn’t exactly work out., but then maybe I’m ambivalent.
The blonde. Another possibility. Gallant.
It may rain all day and night. I wouldn’t mind staying here all night and writing. French roast and cognac, Cigar. Absinthe.The Opera house across the street will let out at midnight and swarms of dressy people will invade, slumming it, chatting, Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, rows of fancy carriages lining the street, the bowed, blindered heads of the horses, curves backs glistening in the downpour.
I don’t even have a god damned cigarette. Can’t smoke in here. I’m working out anyway. Well, sometimes. Got in a few soccer games in the park with some crazy Brazilians. Did ok.


Now I remember. I looked at her hand while she held the umbrella. There was a ring. There was something on her finger. Silver. She does not strike me as a wife, Definitely not a mother. Something wanton about her. I could order for her. A Caffe Fantasia. That would surprise her. She probably drinks tea. Earl Grey or something.
I thought I felt something electric in the air while we were out there. A charge, What if we were struck by the same bolt? Blasted, killed right there in the street, our limp bodies lying together, total strangers, but intimate in death, sudden death. No time to think, whine, worry, prepare. Boom! Gone. Lights out. No me. No her. A good death some Indian would say. Clean, swift, sharp.
I’ve never done anything like that before. It was the weather. I know weather. I respect it. It was those hikes up into the Sierras. Thunderstorms sneak up on you like some kind of predator. You’re walking toward a sunny ridge, munching trail mix, singing Don’t Fence Me In, then hear something and look behind you to see a black angry face in the sky bearing down, a huge grizzly of a storm with lightning teeth and a growling rumble that shook the earth you stood on.
I had to save her, in those heels, that blue umbrella, the silver ring. She was begging to be blasted.
That car, a chauffer maybe. Not her husband. Wait a minute. The accent. That was New York. NYC. OK. All bets are off. Manhattan. Brooklyn. Who the hell knows
Now I remember-the plate said Empire State. Not god damned Live Free or Die, because no one talks like that in New Hampshire, and they don’t use the word gallant. They just don’t.
This coat is like velvet. Tres cher. Saks. Neimans. What’s that in the pocket. A lighter? Great, I’ll be smoking again soon. Dare I pull it out. She‘ll think me a petty thief.. It’s a mental thing. I just do it like it’s mine. Like she’s my wife. So…
It’s a god damned gun! Push the sonofabitch back in. No one saw me. No one is looking..
Wow.This does not compute. Shiny damn thing, It was supposed to be a lighter. Now what? Is this chick dangerous? No, I can read women. There was no hint of violence in that face. Maybe in the accent, but not the face. She called me gallant for Chrissakes.
Man.

Shhh. Here she comes. Whoo. She smells like…the tropics.
I plunge. “What’s your line anyway?”
“Pardon?”
“What do you do-for a living?”
“Why?”
“Look, I just probably, possibly saved your life, potentially…so you owe me a little.”
She leaned closed and whispered, espresso laced breath. “I’m a call girl.”
“Really?”
She pulled out a cigarette and began to light it.
“You can’t light that in here!”
She slammed the lighter on the table, pissed off at me as if I made the godamn rule. The cigarette dangled helplessly between her lips. “Look, I either need a smoke or a drink, right now.”
“Fine, let’s go outside. The rain has stopped.”
We stood under the awning, This time she pulled out a fresh Export A from the slim green box. Maybe it was too dark inside but I noticed just how impeccable everything was-nails, eyes, hair, down to the sparkling accessories. Actually, maybe a little overly made up. She seemed to relax.
“See, that guy I was arguing with in the rain-that was a Jaguar he was driving by the way-was a customer, a pretty steady customer actually. But he wanted too much.”
“Too much?”
“Never mind.”
A perfect rainbow arced across a dark expanse of sky, a double, then a faint triple. People in the street stopped and pointed. Reminded me of the 9/11 photos, but there was wonder not horror in their eyes.
“Hey!”
She broke my little reverie. She ignored that heavenly sight above us. I think she was studying me while I wasn’t looking, off guard.
“You’re a weird dude,” she said, blowing smoke in my face
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t be too sure sweetheart.”
My heart fluttered at the word. For some reason the Pretenders Stop Your Sobbing came into my head because she sort of resembled a more fragile Chrissie Hynde, younger but less hard, but with the sneer.
“Do you play guitar?” I queried.
“ Look at these nails honey.”
Her cigarette was nearly done. My time was running out.
“Look, I’ve never paid for sex.”
“Aren’t you special.”
“If I paid, I’d expect something really special, right?”
She leaned in again, her big black eyes threatening to suck me into a void. “ I get it. You want a date with me. I owe you. You saved me from the fucking lightning bolt. And now I am in your debt.”
She took a last drag and flicked the cigarette into a puddle that contained a perfect image of the fading rainbow.. It made a quick hiss. “OK my handsome Jesus-anyone ever tell you you like him? That kinda turns me on, ya know.” She produced a card. ”You come to this room, around midnight, and we’ll see what happens And bring your Japanese friend.”

The light faded fast. I hadn’t noticed the sun had disappeared. The twilight was her cue. She just vanished into the crowd, but the tropical scent lingered.  Cold poured down from the sky and I began to shiver. Colored lights flashed in my eyes. That’s right, it’s Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve. Call home, buy gifts, get a tree, sing carols. Not enough time. But she was going to give me her gift of time up in that hotel room. I have no details on this belief, only a theory really, but somehow I trust her beyond any reasonable expectation.  It’s a gut thing. Don’t ask me why, just don’t. It’s cold. I need to walk. I have to think about this. This would be a perfect time foe a smoke.  At least a shot of scotch. God those mannequins look real. Remember that Twilight Zone episode-they came alive at night after everyone was gone. You girls are so pretty. But don’t ask me why. I gotta go. Merry Christmas, sweetheart.
There it is. The hotel. Vast, secure, impersonal. It must be all of seventy stories. I can’t even see the top-it’s lost in the clouds. Stairway to heaven. Now I just have to past the doorman, down and out bohemian that I am.
Ah.Yes. Dante would recognize this. Glassy eyed revelers, tinkle of glasses, smarmy Christmas songs, all in cozy lobby about the size of the Vatican. RED, GREEN, RED, GREEN, RED, GREEN.
Smells of pine and fir and balsam, warm wine, cinnamon, candle wax, burning wood. Where are the chestnuts? Where’s Nat?
Oh, I feel queasy, dizzy, sweating. Too much after all the night air. Andiamo! Into the glass cube. Floor 59 it says on the card. The music follows me. Elvis, don’t tell me about your Blue Christmas. I have other plans. Someone’s gonna save my life tonight. We are here, in a flash. What do I behold? Complete carpeted silence, with miles of endless corridors. Jesus. The maze. One of Hercules’ seven labors. Well I am up to it. Look, the walls are mirrored. What of that? A trick! Well it won’t work. The numbers ascend. The numbers descend. They start over. I have to stop. Mirror mirror. Is that me?  You look pretty grubby bro. You could have shaved. Christmas Eve. O holy night. The stars are-

“Hey Jesus, who the fuck are you talking to? Your dad?”
Oh god, she’s leaning against the wall like Jean Harlow in that clingy, slinky silver gown, in Grand Hotel was it? What did she do to her eyes? They’re flashing like stars. A bit scary.
I take one last look at myself and walk toward her.
She takes my arm and ushers me into the room, more like an apartment, lived in with bookshelves and photographs. A small group of people look up and regard me as we go through another door and into a kitchen full of wonderful, yummy smells and a woman who looks like Aunt Bea pulling something out of the oven.
“You look hungry and tired. This food will revive you. Relax. I’ll see you in a little while.”
She vanished once again, and I sat down to a scrumptious meal of roast beef, yams, cous-cous, assorted greens and some heady wine.
Aunt Bea wiped her hands on a towel and stood there smirking at me. “Now just why are you here my dear. You don’t fit the usual pattern. She’s not your average woman you know. But if all the others are gone when you walk out there, I suppose you are a lucky man. Well, I must be going.”
I thanked her profusely and kept on eating. I didn’t realize how ravenous I was. I had a third glass of wine and then settled back, very satisfied. The kitchen was homey one, again not something you’d expect in a swank hotel.
What’s the story here?
It’s very quiet. I should get up and see what my fate is. May the gods be with me. I rise and push open the doors of perception…
“Ah, at last, he emerges.”
“They’re all gone.”
“Yes, they never stay too long.” She held up a porcelain cup. “Like some espresso laced with warm aguardiente?”
“With what?”
“A liquor they sip down in Ecuador-those Andean nights are pretty chilly, ya know? I toss in a habanero pepper for a little edge. Life needs an edge, ya know? It’s all been so pasteurized and diluted. And safe. We’ll be safe enough when we’re dead.”
I took a sip. It was a little like liquid fire, but went down nicely. I think it had an arousing effect.
She came up to me, close, in my face.
“Why did you feel the need to rescue me today. If I was in danger, maybe I wanted to be.”
“I, uh, have a great respect for lightning. I was nearly killed by it up in the Rockies.”
“Were you now? Think about it. It would have been a great way to go-blasted into eternity by a bolt from heaven.”
“Anyway, I acted on impulse.”  She is so close. I can only see her eyes. They are all that matter. They are sparkling. To look in them is like looking at something secret. I don’t know why.. “You said I was chivalrous.”
She touched my face as if I were a child..
“Maybe I should leave.”
She turned and walked away and waved her hand as if to dismiss what I had said.. She picked up a book and began to read to herself, moving, always moving. Behind her the panorama of storm clouds was changing by the second. She was an attractor of storms.. Sometimes the clouds would thin, and the perfect white symmetrical peak would loom, shimmering in the distance, a land bound complement to the capriciousness of the raging atmosphere. Seeing it appear out of that chaos calmed me.
Moving, sipping, smoking. She speaks.

“Beyond all this the wish to be alone;
However the sky grows dark with invitation cards
However we follow the pointed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flagstaff-
Beyond all this the wish to be alone.”


She put the book down and sat on the couch. “Well, now you know where I stand.” She looked up at me, with her heavily made up face and she made me feel like I was in some sort of trouble for even being here, for showing up. “You brought your Japanese friend?”
I stared. “Your camera sweetheart. That thing you were fondling the whole time in the café.”
“Yeah. It’s in my pack.”
“Fine. Grab it and let’s go.”