Reserve

I kissed Blake for the last time on the end car of the metro, lingering on his lower lip, then pushing into the crowd on the platform.  I found myself on an escalator, observing the stalled train below, shielding him in metal and glass.  As I reached the top, the doors pinched shut and the train sped off blinking red into the tunnel.  I paused and leaned over the concrete parapet, thinking, remembering how we stood crushed together gripping the overhead railing and swinging to the shudder of the train.

My connection arrived immediately.  I remembered us talking about Daoist insights, him earnest, me skeptical.  The idealist philosopher farmer.  The remains of the Chinese food we shared, boxed up in my purse, warms the side of my body.  Tomorrow I will microwave the noodles and have them for lunch.  My fortune cookie said something about memories.

We met all over the city, at the zoo, at the park, the museums, the market on Thursdays.  Always I felt inadequate at first: his mobile face and hands, his stream of words muffled my inarticulate replies.  But soon I would warm, my shell would drop away, I would feel sexy and tease him about his best friend Shelley would lived in fear of falling and breaking her teeth.  I was jealous of Shelley, never met her, but Blake used to love her.  An obsession with the appearance of your teeth signifies insecurity.  Did I tell him?

Blake.  His mother is dead, his father eats squirrels he traps in backcountry Arkansas.  I never met anyone from Arkansas before; apparently they don't get out much.  But Blake dresses like a city boy, in tight jeans and tight shirts, drinks whisky and talks about morality.  I stutter, I let him decide, I drift towards vague goals and live a life I do not control.

Just now we were sitting high on the steps of a pillared building, empty foam coffee cups in hand, with everything and nothing left to say.  A giant TV screen on the wall of the convention center blared silently to the unseeing crowd.  A Wednesday night, tourists and yuppies walked to the beat of someone playing a drumkit made of traffic cones and a shopping cart.

"Well," he drawls, "I suppose I'd better be getting back and all."

Police sirens squealed louder, then burst into view, flashing lights reflected in the windows of other cars.  Their sirens shrieked and echoed off the empty office buildings, squad cars and motorbikes and vans sweeping on to some emergency in another part of town.  I rested my head on Blake's shoulder, disconnecting myself from the purposeful procession.

When I opened my eyes, he was already checking the time on his phone.  We stood up, wincing from the hardness of the stone steps, and walked into the night where the police cars had come.  He looked down, and reached for my hand, and I rubbed his thumb with mine.  We looked at each other as we walked, shy sad smiles, with his shoulder bag bumping between us.  He'll be able to see the stars again in Arkansas.