Sunset and the Stranger

Dusty wind blew across the high plains as a stranger drove into town. He cruised along the road looking through sunglasses with his arm rested on the open car window. He drove a 1964 Ford Thunderbird with the AM radio blaring out classic Oz Rock. On the seat beside him was a newspaper with the headlines screaming: “Troops Ship out to the Persian Gulf.” It was late 1990 and this airman was soon to be sent to Iraq. He needed a place to stay for the night and a place to drown his sorrows before he was shipped off.

    He got out of the car and walked into a bar so casual just as easy as you please. He was bound to do some damage with those liquid, brown, Valentino eyes. The barmaid who worked there was angelic but she looked so out of place. She wore a miniskirt with towering high heels. He sat down at the bar and rested his arms on the wooden surface. He asked her what her name was and she told him it was “Sunset.” She was unlike any woman he’d ever met with deep-set, hazel eyes and honey blonde hair.

    ‘I’ve never seen you here before. Are you new in town?’ she asked.

    He folded his hands and looked at her straight in those beautiful eyes. ‘I’m gonna cash in my dreams as I’ve got no use for them now. I know I’m selfishly lost so give me something to believe in.’

    She looked at him, studying his face and looking his uniform up and down. ‘When do you ship out?’

    ‘Tomorrow,’ he replied. ‘I wanna get off this one-way street. Don’t wanna be among the faceless. Here I am one of the living dead. I’m murdered by the streets that surround me.’

    ‘Do you want a beer?’ she asked.

    ‘Sure.’

    She served him and he drank it down and talked to her as the sky turned from pale amber rose to red before fading into black.

    ‘This ain’t no time to be lonely,’ he said. ‘Cause there ain’t nothing left here to hold me. I can’t be bought with a handful of dreams and the promises I can’t believe in.’

    He ordered another beer and drank it down. ‘When does your shift end?’ he asked.

    ‘Why? Do you want me to give you something to believe in?’

    ‘Something like that.’

    ‘Do you have a place to stay, cowboy?’

    ‘I was going to book into a hotel. Do you know a place?’

* * *

    In a cheap hotel on an uncomfortable bed he lay sleeping. About midnight, something startled him and he rolled over. There was a woman lying near his feet!

    ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

    ‘It’s Sunset,’ she replied.

    ‘How did you know where to find me?’

    ‘The receptionist owes me a favour.’

    He was stunned and shocked yet pleased. ‘What are you doing here?’

    ‘Taking you up on your offer. Does it still stand?’

    ‘It still stands,’ he said as he lifted the covers and gathered her in his arms.

    They made magic all night and he did everything right bringing out the woman in her so many times and easily. He fell asleep in her arms, a smile on his face and dreaming of her close as the sky turned from blacker to red.

    When he finally woke he found a note on the bed written in scrawl. She told him to forget about her and what had happened and not to contact her again. He folded the note, grabbed his pants and put it in his pocket.

* * *

    A year later after the mission was over and he’d returned home he took his leave in the city on a rainy day. He rushed across the street so impetuously that he narrowly escaped annihilation from a passing truck, and precipitated himself into the arms of an old man who looked mortally offended. Somewhat daunted, he righted himself and hurried on, with increasing dampness about his boots and much clashing of umbrellas overhead. The fact that a somewhat dilapidated pink one remained stationary above his unprotected head attracted his attention, and looking up, he came face-to-face with a young woman whose hazel eyes he knew in an instant.

    On her hip she balanced a baby boy who looked straight at him with what he could see were his own deep-set, brown, Valentino eyes.

    He pointed to the child. ‘Is he…?’

    She nodded. ‘Yes. But you must understand I love my husband and could never leave him even though he couldn’t give me what you could.’

    ‘So, you only wanted me for one thing? You were the huntress and I was the fox?’

    ‘If I can recall you came onto me. You came in, found me and came onto me.’

    He scratched his head and nodded. ‘That’s right. I did.’

    ‘Are you on leave?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Where are you staying?’

    He told her and they departed neither one ever envisaging that they would see each other again. As the young man walked along the city streets he thought about what he had just learned. He was a father and he would never come to know the child. He belonged to somebody else and carried his name. Yet he knew that no one could knock him down in this fight. Because he didn’t know how to lose. The city walls that tried to confine him would not bring him down to his knees. They may have come back with Saddam Hussein in power but they had caused much damage and it was declared a victory for the allies.

     All he had now were sweet memories of her and a second generation of himself to carry on should he not come back on his next mission. He sighed. He meandered his way towards the hotel and stepped inside thankful to be out of the rain. He looked behind him as if expecting to see someone. No, he thought to himself. I must not hope for it now. No, for when day fades to black he would not look back. Of that he was certain.