unnamed town

Outside the bar, he looked up at the sign above the open door and tried to remember how neon worked. He remembered that neon light didn’t leave an imprint on most kinds of glass, and that different colors are formed by adding other noble gasses. The man was in fact an acclaimed scientist but he did not need further knowledge to know, looking at the sign, that it had been yellow. 

“I don’t have a strong opinion about Arkansas,” said the barback.

She leaned against one side of a low, wrought iron fence lining the bar’s patio and ashed her cigarette towards the street.  

“But we’re thinking about moving now that the settlement’s been passed.” she added. 

“I’ve never been to Arkansas,” the man said. 

“It’s a lot of open space.”

“That yellow used to be really nice,” he said, looking back at the sign.

“So what brings you into town, mister sir?”

The man’s eyes drifted past the barback, responding first to the vibration as the fence rattled against the force of the boy’s skateboard, its wheels clanging rhythmically against each rail. The boy’s friends followed suit behind him with expressionless faces and the man wondered if percussion-based jazz had been a thing in this town, or any town, and how his broad-shouldered dad would have looked at these newcomers. Their audience had left a long time ago and except for the daytrippers that the town’s tragedy regularly attracted, in part because of its proximity to the Salton Sea, the boys performed for empty streets. 

“Where can a guy get a drink around here?” asked the boy.

“Behind me, maybe. If the barback can finish her cigarette first.” she said.

“What do you smoke?”

“Y’all can sit anywhere you like. I’ll be right with you.”

The boy, who later introduced himself to the man as Miguel, led his troupe into the bar as the man said goodbye to the barback and followed a cluster of cigarette butts, picked up by a sudden wind, down the street. The sun disappeared slowly behind heavy clouds and the man drew his hood. The town looked the same as he had remembered it. Some small changes to the landscape would occasionally catch his eye—green rust on the bell above the library, trees where there used to only be grass, graffiti on these trees and railways, and houses—but for the most part, it was as he had remembered it.

•••

Beside the cemetery, a lady with blonde hair sat listening to music. She reached into her purse and found some loose bills to place into the empty jar beside her typewriter. The concrete was still warm from the day’s sun and the lady took off her boots to feel the heat against the back of her heels. For the first time since Detroit, she did not want to be in a Greyhound.

She grabbed a polaroid from her backpack and pointed it towards the heavy clouds. The lens glided toward a cluster of trees behind an old craftsman, then to her heels, then a mailbox, a man, a library, a bell, a steeple and then back towards the approaching man. There was no time to make a new sign.

The man saw the lady, alone with her typewriter, and steadied his pace. She stood up with a smile and held out a crumpled copy of the Arizona Business Gazette. The front page image of wind turbines had been scrawled over with pink highlighter to read: free Poetry, donations welcome.

The lady quickly sat down and began to type. Her fingers raced across the worn keys as the man stepped back and removed his hood. 

“Sorry, I don’t carry cash,'' he said.

The lady cracked her knuckles and removed a thin piece of paper from the top of the typewriter. She slid the typewriter off her lap and onto the warm concrete before standing up, offering the man a short courtesy, and presenting him with the poem. 

sorry I need it,

smashed windows, new glass at Home-

Depot costs too much 

She watched the man read her work, studying his mouth and eyes. There was something cold and stiff about him, like the models she remembered from life drawing who could hold poses well; and not for the angle or light, remained impossible to draw. 

“Is this a haiku?” the man asked. 

The lady nodded.

“It’s not very good,” he said. “You shouldn’t split up the syllables.”

The lady gently removed the paper from the man’s hands and flipped it over. She uncapped her highlighter and wrote: i’m sorry you didn’t like my poem.

“You don’t speak?” he asked. 

The lady shook her head, again studying the man’s face and waiting for his eyes to soften. It didn’t take long and suddenly her arms were around him, her head nestled into the crook of his shoulder. The man’s arms remained stiff at this side, and despite his heightened awareness, he failed to notice the lady’s hand slip quietly into his back pocket. 

The man stepped back and continued towards the cemetery, and the lady, concerned about the darkening sky, quickly found herself under the overhang of a nearby bus stop. She took a moment to take account of her things before pausing to unfold and admire her latest work.

Part of the front gate had obscured the town’s name etched into the archway that opened towards the cemetery. She also didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t see the man’s face or the texture of the clouds. Still, the subject was in frame, standing in front of a polished headstone. He seemed kinder here than he had been earlier, and she wondered if she’d felt his chin for a moment, brushing against the top of her head before he had pulled away. Either way, the photo will look nice next to the girl from Tucson with the polka dot sweatshirt, and the man’s wallet had enough inside for the next Greyhound. The lady put her boots back on and finally, it began to rain. 

•••

Miguel’s eyes wandered to the end of an epitaph, written in thick sharpie above the bathroom’s only urinal—The media only cares about water. Fuck Flint. Long live the Hornets! 

He washed his hands thoroughly, and tried to fix his mohawk despite the collection of stickers and writing obscuring his reflection. Outside the bathroom, the bar’s other patron sat against the back wall. The man held a can of local cider and was chatting again with the barback.

“More like platforms, you know what platforms are?” she asked.

“They’re half my wife’s closet.” the man said.

“Like platforms then, but for men. Big boots. But only for birthdays and special occasions when he knew there’d be a camera. He couldn’t stand being shorter than me,” she said, “He couldn’t stand it.”

The man smiled and asked for another can, and the barmaid left to go check their fridge in the back. It was about two hours till closing. There were never many people in the bar, but the space was best observed in silence and the man found himself staring at a particular table in the corner of the room. 

“Bang! Bang!” said Miguel, kicking open the bathroom door. 

The man finished his cider and picked up his phone. 

“Where did she go?” the boy asked.

“Hiding, most likely.” 

Miguel returned to the drink that he had left on a stool beside the man. He drank, and took a seat. 

“You know, I found your wallet,” said Miguel.

“That’s great.”

“I heard you talking about it. About losing it, while I was in the bathroom. This was before the woman brought up the dead guy. Good bar talk, right? Dead guys.”

The man retrieved a thin piece of paper from his back pocket and laid it on the table. 

“It was stolen by a poet,” he said, as the boy read the haiku. 

“This was written by a poet?”

“She was mute.”

“At least she said sorry,” said Miguel. “And she was mute?”

The barback returned with the can of cider. She approached the counter slowly, something off-kilter but the man couldn’t guess what. He thanked her and the barback returned to wiping the counters.

“Finish your story.” 

“I did already. The flight was delayed, and I missed the funeral,” the man said.

“But you came back.”

“For the cider.” 

“So what was it like back then?”

“Quieter.”

“It can’t be quieter than it is now.”

“I meant less noisy. There was less noise.”

The barmaid stopped wiping for a moment. Miguel turned to her. 

“Was that funny to you?” said the boy, “Is he a funny guy?”

“Relax, it’s been a long day.”

“Well it’s been a long fucking eight years.”

“Enough,” said the barback.

The boy finished his drink and left the bar. First the music went, then the house lights as the barback made her rounds and the man finished his drink. He put on his hood and walked towards the door.

“You look taller,” he called back. “That was it.”

“Yes, I found them!” shouted the barmaid from the back. “In the pantry of all places!”

The man found his Uber waiting outside. He looked back again towards the bar and the sign above the door before getting into the car. After a short ride to the airport, a six hour flight and one short layover, the man would be home.