Strangers in the night.

The sun dies its days death leaving a humid evening in its wake. The air is thick and oppressive heavy on the nose and damp in the mouth. A man sits at a hotel bar, he’s waiting for somebody to arrive. Somebody important. He takes a draw on his cigarette and knocks back the dregs of his bourbon. He signals the bartender for another. His eye catch on a dame in a red dress. All golden hair, curves and legs as far as the eye could see. Damn, she’s a pretty one. Strangely familiar, yet unknown, mysterious and alluring. Her high heels clack on the marble floor, she pauses for a split second and her head turns - red lips curve in a devilish smile as her eyes meet his. And then she’s gone. The man at the bar remembers another red dress. Twenty years past and no name to the memory, although her lips were still fresh as yesterday. She’d had that look, a Hollywood starlet, a diamond amongst river pebbles. He’d been taken with her from the moment he’d had eyes on her. A doll dizzy kid, he’d never stood a chance. His life changed forever. A dance, a kiss, she’d introduced him to a man in a fine grey suit. A man who drank Champaign with a cigarette ever-present in his mouth. A man with a flashing smile and the brightest baby blues you’d ever seen. A man with a smooth voice who held the whole room in the palm of his hand. 

The man at the hotel bar wonders for a second if by some miracle or trick of fate it could be her. But no, the woman in the red dress would be his age now, not the fresh young thing here tonight.

He stands and checks his watch. He has an hour by his reckoning, he makes his way to the restroom, splashes cold water over his face then raises his head to meet his reflection. His suit is immaculate, made by the best tailor in town. Shoes shiny. Cufflinks polished. He dons his hat and winks at the mirror. Not long now. He can feel the excitement running through his veins like a hit of the Docs’ cocaine. He returns to his stool and drums his fingers on the bar, knocks back another bourbon and lights another cigarette. He feels uneasy, something deep inside him. Like cockroaches crawling over his toes. He’s sweating but doesn’t take off his jacket, he needs the protection it provides, hard metal pressed reassuringly into his side like a soothing hand to a fevered brow. The city stirs from its slumber. Between the bedsheets of darkness, the slime and bugs of the city emerged from their dens or crawled from beneath their rocks. Ornamental women with diamonds on their necks and coldness in their eyes on the arms of men in fancy suits. Weighted handshakes as laughter rang in the bars and saloons of the city; not from mirth but for another purpose altogether, to hide the fear that yaps at the heals of its master. The man at the hotel bar loses himself in memory once again. He was six, maybe seven holding onto the skirt of his mother as they watched a parade pass through the streets. Folks had been yelling, a brass band played. Giants crowded the streets, for every man was a giant to him. He fell and lost his mother. He screamed and called out her name. The fear of a child filled his heart and he began to sob as the crowd carried him away. It seemed a hundred years and a hundred faces passed him by. A hummingbird trapped in his chest as he imagined monsters in the eyes of men. That was when she found him. He couldn’t remember her face - his only coming to her waist. A girl in a red polka-dot dress. She scooped him up in her arms, laughter in her eyes and brushed away his tears. Carried him safely back into his mother’s embrace. To him, she seemed a beautiful angel with honey hair and red lips, the most beautiful thing his young eyes had ever seen.

The man at the hotel bar thought again of the woman in the red dress from a time passed. She’d raised him up from the graveyard of normality into the world of the lavish and extraordinary. He’d kissed the hand of the king that night in that smokey lounge.  Over-there in the grey suit, she’d pointed. Come she’d said, and he’d followed the woman in the red dress as she introduced him to his future. Champagne poured and there were girls, dozen to the dime. He was seduced as much by the lifestyle he saw as by her red dress and slow smiles. It was power. Those men, they weren’t afraid of nothin', they owned the city and they lived in style but more than that they had freedom. Class and abundance flowed from their fingers. Danger shone in their eyes. They were quick to smile and quicker to laugh. They seemed untouchable. That night when he followed her to bed he was as much following the man in the grey suit. Again he mused at fate. Wondered what his life would be if he hadn’t met her. Would he still be sitting here waiting to play God? The man in the hotel bar rouses himself from the past, it was time. The elevator doors opened and a short portly man steps out. He is slightly balding, a fuddy-duddy if ever there was- he walks quickly, eager to reach his destination. The man at the bar slips off his stool as quiet and sly as a jungle cat in pursuit of its prey. Not a soul notices his departure. 

Music and voices blended into the constant thunder of traffic. Sirens and car horns combine in the fantasia of the city - climaxing in a crescendo as the adolescent night reaches adulthood. The pavement radiates the heat of the day rising with the smell of fast food and garbage, the bouquet completed with the faintest trace of ladies perfume. A heavy and suffocating stink that catches in the back of the throat. The man from the hotel bar walks at a leisurely pace concealing himself between the residents of the sidewalk. He stops and tips his hat to a pretty girl, with a fleeting Good evening Mam, his hat obscuring his face just as the portly man glances over his shoulder checking for anyone in pursuit. The pair continued in this fashion for some three or four blocks until the portly man turns onto the corner of 52nd Street. Bars and clubs line the sidewalk, sultry voices singing of lost love fight against jaunty big band tunes in a battle to dominate the night. A showgirl lights a cigarette under a harsh yellow streetlamp, taking a break from an already long night. The man from the hotel bar pauses, he looked up and notices the pale half moon dangling haphazardly in the dirty sky. He knows the portly man’s intended destination now, he recognises the lounge and street corner. He’s been here before. That night, the night with the woman in the red dress two decades earlier. It looks the same. Here where it began so shall it end, fate makes for an odd mistress he muses. He walks down a dimly lit corridor pushing past a scantily dressed cigar girl and slipping into a smokey room which swells with a crooning voice telling of longing and tragedy. The man from the hotel bar knows that voice, it awakens a half-forgotten dust-covered memory. Running through the lanes of boyhood in the baking summer heat. Cracked mud-pies abandoned to a parched and desiccated fate. His fathers’ voice ringing after him ignored in the pursuit of a golden pigtail tied with a red ribbon. Laughter on the breeze and mischief afoot. Who had she been? He couldn’t remember. Or perhaps he’d never known. 

On a small stage in the centre of the room, the same room the man had danced long ago, she stands. In her red dress with her golden hair. The Dame from the lobby. Her voice is something special straight out of heaven and matched with a body wrapped in sin. Every man in the room has eyes for only her. He turns his attention to each table searching until he finds what he’s looking for. The portly man. No longer alone but sat at a table in the far left corner and accompanied by a handsome man in a grey suit. A bright smile flashes, hair turned to salt n' pepper with the years but eyes as true blue as they’d always been. The man from the hotel bar settles at a watchful distance, he orders another drink as he waits. He won’t move again until the night begins to fade. The hours slither past as tough guys, wise guys, cool cats and wannabes come and go in front of the man in the grey suit. The show finishes, the court closes and the man in the grey suit takes his leave off his subjects exiting out a side door to a dingy alleyway. The man from the hotel bar rises, one last lingering look at the dame in the red dress and then he too exits out of the side door. Two men stand in the night under the light of a pathetic waxy grey moon, too far away and too smog poisoned to cast even the faintest shadow on the grimy pavement. Two gunshots swallowed by the stale night. The side door opens again throwing a rectangle of golden haze onto a bloody tableau. One man splayed on the pavement a red hallo forming around his motionless head. The other man stands over him, smoking gun, limp in his hand. The woman in the red dress steps into the alleyway. You don’t look so hot. She says, her manner indicating she is simply picking up an old interrupted conversation. A chuckle which ends in a wince of pain as the man from the hotel bar leans against the opposing wall of the alleyway. Gun_free hand pressed to his side, fingers match her dress in sticky colour. Gettin shot ain't so fun doll. The woman in the red dress smiles. I wasn’t sure you’d remember me, been a while. Her voice is soft and gentle and that smile, the same one that drifted through his memories and heated his dreams. Impossible to forget even under the fog of time. Couldn’t forget you if I wanted, a man never forgets his first love, nor his childhood friend. Name or no name. The man from the hotel bar slumps against the wall, body sliding to the ground. How about I give you a name now then?  I’ve had many but I guess you can call me Fate if you’d like. The man from the hotel bar considers her for a moment and then nods. Well doll, I seem to have played my part here tonight. I reckon the rest is in your hands now. The man from the hotel bar turns his gaze away from the woman in the red dress and glances up towards the sky. The waxy moon doesn’t look so far away now, he closes his eyes and the last thing he feels is her lips against his cheek.