Traffic

Time. Temp. Time. Temp.

           12:07 p.m. 98 degrees.

           12:08 p.m. 99 degrees.

           Withering mid-August heat billowed from the Capitol Drive pavement and obscured Park State Bank’s Irish-emerald sign, blurring the tiny, jaundiced Lite-Brite bulbs on the marquee that served as a courtesy to the drivers passing below.

           A silver late-model Chevy sedan cut off a cobalt-blue RAV4 as the latter prepared to turn from Capitol onto the geometrically clean intersecting line of Appleton Avenue, which resulted in an angry double beep and an audible curse. A lane over, a maize Hummer blared that foul rap noise as it passed, boom-da-da-boom-da-da-boom, and the driver pointed and laughed at the folly.

           A tired Milwaukee County Transit System bus with green-and-blue trim and a sizeable dent under the driver’s window slowed to a stop in front of the bank. A ruby ad on its side blared in white script:

           Are you ready for what’s coming?

           There was a Bible verse below it in a much smaller point size, John something-something. I couldn’t catch it before the bus sauntered west down Capitol, black particulate matter pouring out of its rear stovepipe as it passed Mickey D’s, Pete’s Pizza, Capitol Library and a dozen other places familiar but long lurking in my memories of home.

           There was a break in the traffic when the Capitol stoplights went red, and there she was.

           Mandy.

           My high school celebrity crush, the brooding, magnetic-blonde cheerleader with high, blushed cheekbones and pronounced dimples, who shimmered at 5-foot-6 as she had on the silver screen all those years ago in that movie, the one about the boy who rented a girl in order to get popular. Back then, in my mind’s eye, I saw myself strolling hand in hand with her somewhere chilly, maybe the Rocky Mountains, both bundled in Columbia and Gore-Tex. But in real life?

           No way.

           She was neon chrome.

           I was, in relative terms, a zero.

           With the heat pouring down onto Milwaukee that day from a naked and angry sun, along with traffic buildup on both Capitol and Appleton, I wasn’t all that sure it was her at first.

           I couldn’t even tell her lips were moving from my vantage point but then her sultry, lyric-baritone voice echoed within my mind.

           “Cross over,” she said, and then beckoned, forefinger curling.

           As she spoke, a white MPD squad car with its blueberries and cherries spinning blew past me, forcing me from the curb back to the sidewalk, next to the light pole with the pedestrian WALK button. I contemplated pushing the button, but she spoke again:

           “Come…you have nothing to fear.”

           She paused and added with a sensual lilt:

           “Have faith.”

           Clear as Jamaican surf, like I was standing next to her. But I wasn’t. The traffic was a din, wheels gripping the pavement in a dull buzz, with the occasional beep and a screech to a sudden stop. Another cop passed, this time on her side of Capitol, and she continued beckoning.

           12:09 p.m. 100 degrees.

           But it didn’t feel that warm, or humid, even though this was probably the hottest day of the year statistically.

           I turned back to the WALK button and attempted to press it.

           My finger and fist went right through the pole like they didn’t exist. Dematerialized.

           Huh? That can only mean…

           I tried a half dozen more times, and interlaced with these attempts were her words:

           “Cross over.”

           While I contemplated galloping panic, a Kenworth 18-wheeler towing your typical 53-foot trailer jutted with squeaky air brakes to a complete stop in front of me. I couldn’t see her now but the words continued.

           “Come. You have nothing to fear.”

           “Get out of the way! Move!” I shouted, though no words escaped my mouth. The driver, a sweaty Hispanic man with a bushy ‘stache and a gold cross around his neck and leather gloves, looked in my direction and frowned. We didn’t make eye contact, so it’s anybody’s guess whether he saw me. I’m thinking no.

           On the other side of Capitol, another westbound MCTS bus rolled up, this one with a rubber accordion midsection that allowed it to carry more passengers and still make tight turns. Red and black gang graffiti was scribbled above the rear double wheels.

           “She’s gonna get on the bus,” I thought. “She’s gone, unless I…”

           I could still see her in the cleft between the fronts of the truck and bus, almost wedged into a moment.    

           “Come.”

           It was then I realized that despite the heat of the day and the exhaust kicked up by the passing vehicles, I wasn’t sweating. In fact, I perceived the sensation of a Sinatra summer wind blowing across Capitol Drive, the kind that soothed me on those high school evenings after arguments with my folks when I stormed out of my house a few blocks away.

           I knew that gentle breeze was her…essence.

           “Have faith.”

           So I did. A wine-red BMW barreled past the semi as I took a large Simon Says step into Capitol Drive. The bus began moving simultaneously with the semi, making her disappear. For good?

           She’s gone.

           No. She can’t be.

           Please no.

           “Have faith.”

           Have faith, I repeated.

           The Beemer passed right through me and kept on going, easily 45 miles per hour in a 30 zone. I felt nothing, only the breath of the summer wind emanating from across the street. But I had the presence of mind to think, That dude’s going to get a ticket. I even cracked a tiny smile as I crossed in front of the semi, which had begun inching forward.

           I peered up at the driver, instinctively raising my arms to get the driver’s attention, but it appeared he was now looking over me, past me, and the grille met the apparent mist my body had become. Then I was inside the engine compartment, beneath the cab, observing pistons doing their dance in the engine block, the counterbalanced crankshaft barely starting its spin, the pink coolant in a yellow-plastic container on the wall next to me, swirling due to the movement. But there was no scent of oil or diesel, when there should have been.

           As I emerged from the semi cab, through the axle and tires and cowling, there came an Ah-wooo-wooo.

           A siren. An orange-striped ambulance with the blue Star of Life eased in and out of the traffic and ran right through me as I made for the bus where I hoped Mandy was still present. As the ambo passed through me, I could see the EMTs working on someone on a gurney, an old lady whose veined, pockmarked left hand was shaking like Parkinson’s.

           “Hang in there, ma’am,” the EMT implored, a fat guy with sweat stains in his underarms, a five o’clock shadow and fingers that looked like little pork sausages I used to have for breakfast at my grams’ house.

           I knew this lady wasn’t going to make it. Her own essence, the outline of her body, sat up and gave me a little wave as I passed through. I returned the gesture.

           There I was, finally, next to the rubber accordion of the city bus, which began pulling away, up the street toward its next stop. It appeared I could have walked right through the bus to get to Mandy, but instinctively, I waited.

           The bus passed.

           She was gone.

           All that was left was a doddering, wrinkled codger in orthopedic shoes with a red baseball cap and a wooden cane who was having trouble opening the bank’s glass doors.

           Where had she gone?

           On the bus?

           Her voice:

           “Come. Do not despair.”

           Can I run? I thought, and the knee pain that had sidelined me from softball years ago had disappeared as I took five quick steps to the sidewalk. Felt pretty doggone good to stretch my legs in that way.

           She still wasn’t there, but her voice remained.

           “Have faith.”

           12:10 p.m. 101 degrees.

           I sank to one knee. The concrete should have stung like a griddle, but it didn’t, and I half-wondered if I would sink through it completely and experience whatever’s on the other side. A vision of China—the Great Wall—popped into my head.

           She was just here, I thought. Right here. I felt as if I was worshipping the ground on which she stood and walked and captured this moment.

           Mandy. My sweet, beautiful Mandy.

           But she wasn’t mine. Never was.

           A whisper from my left:

           “Here.”

           And there she was, with a golden aura one might see on a glassy Russian Orthodox icon. The gunmetal gray pools of her eyes bore into me with the ethos of pure love. Not the infatuation I felt as a high schooler, nor the greatest romantic love that can be had by these bodies of dust we call humanity. Romeo and Juliet, as it were.

           The love was simple. It made sense.

           There were no doubts, no conditions. No shadows.

           I questioned my reality, then hers.

           You’re not real…are you?

           She cracked a smile and a hand—it’s the only metaphor worthy of description—gently caressed my heart.

           “We are one,” she whispered, and both words resonated like fireworks in a dark sky.

           But now the sky was a brilliant white, made up of colors that have never been conceived by mankind. The traffic, the street, the sidewalk, the bank, all gone.

           “You’re not real…are you?” was all I could think to say.

           That smile couldn’t have faded even if she had tried.

           “We are all one.”

           I couldn’t furrow my brow.

           “With God?” said I.

           “With the Creator.”

           “There’s a difference?”

           “One day you will realize what you can’t perceive.”

           I was still kneeling when the grains of the concrete returned, tiny blue and black specks on a backdrop of gray canvas.

           I stood, and looked through my hand at her.

           “I have to go back, don’t I?”

           The smile persisted, this time deepening, if that be possible.

           “Will I see you again?”

           Mandy turned her neck slightly toward Capitol Drive, behind me, but we maintained eye contact.

           “We are, and will always be, one.”

           A gesture from her long, elegant fingers, nails astutely shaped.

           The traffic behind me was at a dead stop. Dead…that’s kind of funny isn’t it? There was a path of separation across Capitol and intersecting Appleton Avenue.

           Beyond, on the other side of the streets, there was that restaurant where I worked as a busboy back in those days, Diane’s Inn. That’s where my buddy first told me about this movie I had to see, one with a fetching cheerleader. Her name was Mandy something.

           “Go,” she whispered in my ear. “Live a bold life of realization.”

           Above me, the bank marquee spoke as darkness swallowed the landscape and the traffic dwindled to a single MPD squad patrolling westbound on Capitol Drive, its headlights like the two eyes of a snake as it slithered down the rathole.

           I was still home.

           We were one—are one—even now.

           Time. Temp.

           12:11 a.m. 74 degrees.