As the small crowd got more anxious to return to their apartments, and the firemen found themselves more and more surrounded by questioning groups of restless humans, I ducked around the side alley of the building and made my way to the back side door that led out to the garbage bin shed. The stench from that small shed smacked my nose harder than the odor of the fading electrical-smoke and firetruck exhaust. It smelled moldy, mildewy and pissy in that shed, no matter how often it got hosed down and scrubbed.
The back side door was wide open, so I just walked right inside and headed up towards Maggie's apartment to get my things. Within minutes I'd collected everything I needed, and came back down the stairs, expecting the whole time to see Fireman Hawkeye, but somehow my sneaky retreat had gone undetected. I held my dufflebag close to my side and wanted to say goodbye to Maggie, but the dufflebag seemed like it offered proof of my misbehaving and inability to follow simple demands not to enter buildings until given permission.
I stuffed the dufflebag under a car parked near the curb in front of the apartment building.
Walking in long, determined strides, I headed towards Maggie, and as I came around the corner and saw her face, time slowed down to that feeling you get when a moment in time has decided to record itself for you, to play back to you over and over again when the mind is ready to reflect.
A breeze blew my hair back slightly, gently, slowly. Her eyes stared at me as she reached up to touch her own swath of blond colored hair. Some nearby residents walked in front of her, momentarily making the image of her disappear behind a blur of blue jeans and black concert tshirts, and then there she was again, like a singer that pauses to catch her breath and then resumes on a perfect note. My hands came up to catch her face in them as I took my lips to hers and felt the soft dimple below her nose, as her chin rose to take the kiss in as far as it could go. I let my hands fall, felt the kiss end in my veins with intense longing, turned, and headed back to the front to get the dufflebag from under the car.
Somewhere along the way I'd ended up in a cab. Shortly after that I ended up at a mall. And I'm not sure how I ended up with all my things in my buddy Kevin's car trunk with a pillow and blanket in the back seat to sleep upon, but somehow that is where I ended up living for about a week. A daze of sorts had overtaken me, leaving Maggie more brutal to my heart and mind than I ever thought it would be. I think, in hindsight, it wasn't because I'd left her, but because I'd felt forced to leave for all the wrong reasons. For the wrong man.
Posted by nft at August 9, 2004 09:06 AM