Grandmother woke me at 1 a.m. “Eliot, the house is on fire,” she said, looking all around wild-eyed, one hand clutching at the frayed lace collar of her nightgown as if flames might engulf us at any moment. She braced herself against her walker, steadying all but her withered cheeks and sagging arms, which wobbled as she bobbed her head about the room looking for a way out.
“Everything’s fine,” I reassured her as I sat up on a cot near her bedside and took her by an arm, hoping to calm her – but mostly hoping to go back to sleep.
She reared back and pulled her arm away. “You think I lived this long and don’t know a house fire when I see one?”…
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“Pretty face,” the guard says.
I wipe away some sweat-lined dirt, smile.
“Occupation?”
“Nurse.”
He squints, doubts.
“Drugs?”
I shake my head. He doesn’t want what I have – the sleeping pills, marijuana. He wants antibiotics. He has the disease. His hat and collar hide it. What do I care? We are all going to get sick, had all gotten sick, will always be sick.
“Papers?”
I hand him the water damaged passbook.
If he opens it, he’ll mostly see blossoms and blotches. On one page, there may be enough stamp to reveal a cross. The picture will show just shoulders and a neck. The face is white space.
The train sounds its whistle, bell. Then the wheels clickety, clickety, clack.…
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I open my eyes very slowly, as if emerging from a storm cellar after the tornado. A cluster of people peers down at me. A young woman carefully tucks her purse beneath my head. I see her lips are moving and am reminded of the adult voices in a Peanuts cartoon. I try to laugh but this alarms the crowd gathered around me. The young woman shakes her head and gently pushes my chest to keep me supine. With closed eyes, the deprivation of sight enhances my hearing. Children laughing, rhythmic chanting from the Hari Krishnas, the chug of a small train. Central Park.
I remember now, standing in line to buy a lemonade. A handsome young man talking. Flattered. It’s been so long since a man talked to me.…
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Asian massage spas: Four reasons to check them out
Anonymity. You will leave who you were on the pavement once inside the spa. You will be greeted by someone you never knew and will never know. “Hello Lady,” a woman will say. She will point to the menu. “What you want?” she will ask. An implicit agreement exists, namelessness and disregard. Some masseuses are taller than others, some are fatter, some are shorter, some are thinner, but they are all the same to clients, just like we are to them. My generic, pasty white body is indistinct from every other body that walks through the door.
Amy > Yelp review > Asian Massage Spa
Ugh! It was a new girl, and I tried to ask for the old girl, and they
just pushed me into the room.…
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“I just need to be by the water,” Sadie says as we sit out on the patio, after dinner and our evening walk, watching the burnt orange sun descend beyond the wavering elm trees that separate our property from our neighbor’s. “That’s all I need—just the water.”
Sadie’s been feeling gravity’s pull, again, I can tell—I can always tell—how she gets, sort of retreats within herself, with a faraway gaze like she’s somewhere else.
“The water,” I say. “What water?” I ask, and I take a sip of my beer, a summer shandy though I’m not a summer shandy person—give me an IPA—but Sadie bought these this afternoon, her “accomplishment for the day,” her words, and so I thought I’d give one a try but it’s not for me.…
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She was almost out of my jurisdiction. When you set the distance parameters, it’s best to be realistic considering the weather and person. Una Manzini had the kind of smile that made dandelions blush; a free spirit exceptional in matters both chemical and unnerving. A Harvard alum who studied abroad at Cambridge, except when she told the story on our first date, it was mostly just raves and beans that semester. Una only mentioned Reginald once. He was just some footballer she’d shacked up with in the country that summer when they lived and loved off the land.
I still couldn’t figure why she’d chosen me out of the rest within a forty-mile radius. I was a stagnant fool in a cushy coaching gig with nothing but spare time.…
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My last ride of the night stumbled out of the pub, and I slid my passenger seat forward to accommodate his massive frame. Thick black hair spilled out of a paint-stained Boston Red Sox cap. Crammed in the backseat, he rested his elbows on jean-torn knees and planted his face in oven-mitt hands. His knuckles were scarred and the veins bulged. Those weren’t scars from framing houses or laying brick, I thought. I knew a fighter’s hands when I saw them.
My Lyft emblem glowed purple in the dark night, and after riding in silence on the desolate Brockton, Massachusetts streets I asked him what he does for a living. A plastic tarp blew in the wind on a boarded-up house.
“I’m a carpenter,” he said without turning away from the window.…
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