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A WORK OF FICTION " It bothered me that he sat there looking outward, looking at me, and I felt he could read my mind." |
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She could FEEL him there...watching of TheColumnists.com |
What seemed like a quiet enough neighborhood held suspicious intrigue at night, and only the Mexican and I knew it all, recorded it all in our mind’s eye. We kept what we witnessed like small secrets that were too trivial to reveal, until the night when the moon was sinking.
It was on a weekend when my husband was away, and I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed gazing out the window at the teal-dark-blue sky that looked as deep and as vast as the world’s largest ocean, with the silhouettes of dead, black trees clawing into the sea. It was the second coldest winter on record, and it felt right in-sync with the seasons of my emotions.
Late one of these nights, well, on several of these nights, I went out to the upstairs porch to look at the sky. I put on some extra fleecy clothes, but not nearly enough to block the stabbing cold. The moon’s orangey aura sank into the ocean above as I felt my heart sink in me.
The Mexican was looking out his window from across the street, as he always did--a silhouette that loomed like a ghost, too small to see clearly but too present to ignore. The house he lived in pointed upward with a small attic window on the top corner. There he sat day in and day out, observing the neighborhood goings-on, much like I did from my perch on the porch. It bothered me that he sat there looking outward, looking at me, and I felt he could read my mind. I was always careful not to look directly at him, but could always see him there from the corner of my eye. Not even see him. Feel him.
I don’t think anyone walking by would have noticed him, or taken notice of him, but I always knew he was there.
He was more bothersome to me than Ramon, who sat on the edge of a weather-beaten fence in another yard, his butt crack visible to all. Sometimes his T-shirt was pulled half way up to his chest, and he would pick lint from his bellybutton or just play with it. Somehow this made him seem more innocent than the Mexican.
Whenever my husband went away, which was often, I felt as if my life was on hold. I would busy my days, busy my mind, but really I was just waiting for his return--then I could click my mental buttons from pause to play and everything would start again. It seemed unfair because I knew that his life was in continuous play.
There was a feeling in the air that day, creeping through my boredom, when I saw the strange Greek lady teetering on her bicycle with her plump young 10-year-oldish daughter wobbling along on a bike several feet ahead of her. Puffs of blue breaths escaped their frozen lips in synchronicity. They were both wrapped in various arrays of purple and pink jackets and scarves as they chugged along the alley. The lady yelled at her daughter. “Dakota! Wait up!” and they both stopped in front of my porch.
“Yes, mother,” Dakota mumbled as she rolled her eyes and hit the brakes.
There was nothing trim about Dakota, a girl who was described by her mother as “Half Greek, half Irish, and half Native American,” and then further explaining, “That’s how she got her name.” It was no wonder Dakota had too many halves in her, and you could read it in her eyes. It looked as if there was always three of her in there.
Around the neighborhood, the Greek lady was regarded as mildly troublemaking. She was small but had a venomous mouth, one you could hear a block away, which is where I happen to live.
I always tried to shy away from Dakota’s mother, because any conversation that she was involved in became a scene. Her life seemed all but a series of outrageous dramas, one unfolding after another, around every street corner, and aimed at anyone who was caught in her firing line. I would pray that if I averted my eyes she would not see me.
Each morning she would walk her children–-Dakota, and her younger son, Johnny–to the bus stop. Her children looked clean and decent enough. But mother was still dressed in pajamas.
Her pajamas looked dingy and comfortable, and may have been as old as five or ten years. But Greek mother’s hair was efforted into a teased, raised nest above her head held together with a medium-width, red bow. As if that would make the difference. No wonder Dakota always walked ahead or behind. Her mother was a freak.
In spite of her mother, plump Dakota had grace and charm when given the opportunity to speak. Her hair, black and straight and shining, cut in a bowl shape around her largish head, was never out of place. It was almost a mystery how she belonged to her mother.
Today, the recorder in my mind was going haywire, from rewind to fast forward and back again, plagued with the pesky details of my consciousness. My husband was due back the next day, but time was not cooperating with me and I couldn’t seem to grasp the exact time on this day, only having an indication from where the sun pierced the frozen clouds. I was moving around a lot but not going anywhere, and the only noises I heard were internal.
When night finally arrived, I stepped out to my porch once more and noticed immediately a feeling of freedom and peace. I couldn’t pinpoint what had happened, but just took in my surroundings with a deep and frozen breath. I noticed a squirrel running along a very high tree branch, and thought it was odd since I only usually noticed the squirrels in the morning.
Running along, he was, and then there was a snap–so sharp and crisp it was almost like lightning. The squirrel didn’t have time to know what happened, but was suddenly falling. It was a most graceful fall. He didn’t tumble or flail, just put his little paws out as if he had been flying all his life. The falling seemed to take forever, and I kept wondering why I had been chosen to witness this, a poor little defenseless creature falling to his inevitable death, right before my eyes.
When he landed on the concrete three stories below, I heard a pop. Squirrel’s arms were still out by his sides, and I silently mouthed “Goodbye, squirrel.”
But then he jumped up to his feet, took a look around (as if to check whether anyone had seen him), and ran along into the bushes. I immediately realized that I was the only witness, because the Mexican was gone.
My husband returned home the next day to the sight of police cruisers, law enforcement officials scouring the bushes down the street, and various reporters snapping pictures and asking questions about the Greek lady.
The questions were: When did we last see her? Who was she with? Did she have any enemies?
Later, on the porch, I was thinking of the squirrel falling, and gazing in that direction when I noticed the Greek lady’s red bow lying on the ground exactly where the squirrel had fallen. I looked up to the Mexican’s window, but he was still not there.
©2004 by Raphaëlla Cruz. The drawing is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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