Upper East Side

She wakes up in the morning at 45 past nine,
To meet her friends for brunch in New York’s Upper East Side,
The waiter floats between them and knows them all by name,
They flirt with him as he fills their glass, half longing and half game.

His eyes are green like emeralds, she’s noted more than once.
And hair that curls up slightly which makes her stay for lunch.
The looks that go between them are clear and most concrete,
The eye that shops for diamonds and the eye that roams the streets.

When the check comes to the table, she straightens up her hair.
He gives a nod to thank her, and she sees the longing there.
The girls get up for shopping, their purses swell with notes,
To spend on shoes and dresses, and that new Armani coat.

The girl looks back behind her to see what he will do,
As customers rush past her and she sees he has no clue.
It’s not about her money and it’s not about her pride,
She just wants to be happy on New York’s Upper East Side.

Poem II

Two pairs of feet walk synchronized, push prints into the sand,
And two hands join together as I watch from where I stand.
Their plans are all too simple, to never die alone,
When he’s away on business her hand will never leave the phone.

Beachgoers pan to see them, the cutest little pair,
His tall and rigid structure and her solemn windswept hair.
The show won’t last forever but they savor every look,
Both the young and the old, they have the public hooked.

But I can never walk like this, to be happy is a sin,
No one wants to see such things, two women and two men,
And so we watch from atop our perch among the dunes and grass,
And look at all the people gape when as couple after couple pass.

Two pairs of feet walk synchronized, push prints into the sand,
And two hands join together as I watch from where I stand,
One set of prints behind them leaning closer, just to see,
I watch them walk the beach front and ask: why can’t that be me?

Sanatorium Lovestory

Chapter One 

At home I have begun to read the Ten Commandments everyday. I was never so obsessive about them before, it is just that after months of being in a room all by myself, I have grown to find comfort in the repetition which soon developed into this behavior. Like every morning that I read them, I stop on the fourth one about respecting your parents. In a world that is so black and white as a sanatorium, how was I supposed to interpret something that didn’t fit like all of the other pieces in the puzzle of my life. I contemplated it everyday in the sanatorium and I think about it everyday still rolling it over and over in my mind. I am taken back to years ago and I remember the face of my parents as they waved to me from the platform of the train station. 
As the train bumped and bustled in the beginning I looked back at them. My father with a stoic look of heroism for doing the, “right thing” for me and society and my mother’s tearful glance at me before she eventually collapsed; burying her head in her hands and looking up at my father. She had always been that way. My father was like her master and she did whatever it was that he told her. From hanging the laundry a certain way, to sending me off to the sanatorium against her will, nothing had ever changed between them, and I assumed that nothing was ever going to. 
I looked at my bags on the train with me and thought, “This is it. Theses are all of my possessions from now on. I have nothing in my name but this.” I wanted to cry but wiped away the single tear that I let out by accident and stared out the window to the countryside giving way to rolling hills and plains. Each hill taking me farther and farther away from everything I had come to love and recognize. 
As the first and second hour rolled past on the train I went over the scene that brought me there in my mind. I knew it had to be my birthday party because at no other time in my life had I seen my father so angry and at no other point had I been so aware of the huge gap that separated us and led me to where I was. 

     In early June, around my birthday, I had fallen in love with a boy at school who was also in love with me, or so I thought. Every day after class I would follow him around until he gave me a glance over his shoulder and nodded, making me scatter to wherever it was I should have been. All it took was that and I was satisfied for a day. Just a reminder that there was something in me that craved another human being the way all the students at school seemed to. The part of me that wanted to be able to feel the warmth of someone’s breath on the back of my neck or to shiver at the touch of someone’s hand on my back.
He was invited to my birthday party because I thought that was the perfect way for him to find out that I loved him. It was going to be perfect. After cake and presents, timed perfectly to end when the sun was just about to go down, I would take him out to my favorite spot in the woods behind my house. Then, once we were sitting on that log that I had come to love so much as a place of escape and contemplation during my adolescence, I would tell him how I felt and he would kiss me and it would be like one of those scenes in all the books I had ever read. When I look back on it, I can’t believe how naïve I really was in thinking that.
The guests all showed up extra early just to show their loyalty to me I was sure and they were all dressed sharp in the latest fashions in suits and dresses that their parents had most likely bought out of a catalog. My suit was from the Sears Roebuck catalog and had cost my mother a fortune, but I had begged for it and finally after weeks of putting up with me, she finally ordered it so that it came just a week before the party. It was summer in Georgia but we all still dressed like we were getting ready for a Christmas party in New York City. We were never taught that there was any other way to dress for occasions like this. 
The girls spun around and let their dresses swing in the wind that trailed behind them and all the boys stood in a line along the fence waiting for one of the skirts to inevitably fly up in the wind. In fact, it happened quite often and when it did, you could see the guys sitting cross legged and turning red, trying to keep their eyes on the girls for just enough time to get enjoyment, but not enough to look suspicious. It was exactly this thing that had caused such uproar in New York lately. It was that new Flatiron Building that was going up. Apparently (this is according to the conservatives in the area) the building cut through the city like a ship and it channeled the wind down the street so that the women’s dresses would inevitably fly up. “What a horrid building,” they had said. “So immoral for such an arrogant purpose as cutting into the sky where man does not belong.”
Every time the girls turned, I became self conscious of the fact that I was the only boy not on the fence row and I was also the only boy who was seemingly not interested. Even, the boy who I liked, Harry, I think, was interested in them. I could see the dresses flipping up and down in the wind but they caught my attention for only a short time until they were down again. It was mainly just the thought of it; the fact that I could capture just a brief glance of naked flesh, a sense of sexuality that was never shown at any other time.
The party progressed just as I had planned. The guests all sat at the long white linen covered table to a dinner that was prepared lovingly by my mother. Their faces glowed in pure ecstasy as they enjoyed the pleasures of lamb roasted with potatoes and carrots. I couldn’t help giving off the same pleasured face as well when I bit into the gorgeous piece of meat that was set before me.
“Hey, Art!”  Ruth called to me across the lawn as she came to sit down in the empty seat next to me. “I am so sorry that I was late to your party. It was dreadful trying to get here with all of the chores that Mama had for me. You know how those go.”
“Yes. I understand. My Mama is the same way and I could never be angry with you, even if you left me on a deserted island to fend for myself.”
She giggled and then turned straight toward me, her face right up next to mine almost and her breath coming down softly onto my neck. “You know,” she said. “I  don’t think that I have ever found a boy that was so kind as you.” Her finger traced the vein on the side of my neck. 
“Well, maybe you just need to get out more,” I said, turning away from her and spearing another piece of lamb. “Do eat. I would be so sad if I had any reason to think that you were unwell.”
She looked back at me in horror and disgust and lunged a huge slab of lamb into her mouth looking back at me in mock defiance. “Oh, Art, I wouldn’t want you to think of me as a weakling. Your parents are so fond of me and I would hate to think that you would want them thinking your potential wife was incompetent. I mean not only do I have to have arms fit for the grace and power of cooking but also I need my strength for bearing two maybe three children, what do you think?”
A too-big piece of potato wedged in between my cheeks was immediately forced down into my windpipe. I threw the chair out from under me and then stood up, grabbing at my throat, unable to breathe. No one noticed at first but I slammed the chair against the table, knocking someone’s plate to the ground and my father rushed over to pat me on the back. He pounded and pounded until the potato went flying across the table with a stream of saliva.
Embarassed, I sat down gasping and took hold of Ruth’s hand. 
“I hope that you’re okay now,” she said with a little grin that suggested she had hoped for this effect all along. She was always someone who desired attention above all things.  
“Yes. I think that I am fine now.”
“Good. Good.” She stroked my hand and then let go, giving me a look of reproach for having done such a thing.
The evening went on despite my choking and it was good to know that people were still talking and enjoying themselves and had possibly completely forgotten about the fact that I had just had a potato dislodged from my trachea.
The boys acted much the same as they had before with the girls, only this time with the support and protection of the table over top of them. Every once in a while you would hear a shriek or gasp as a boy “accidentally” nudged a girl’s knee with his shoe. My father knew that it would be controversial to have a boy/ girl party like this, but he had informed everyone that I always behaved with great discretion toward women and that my friends would most likely do likewise. Perfect etiquette was expected from everyone.
The rest of the party was a blur to me really. The presents were opened and gratitude was given where it was due. The cake was eaten with the same faces of pleasure that had taken in the lamb just an hour or two before.
Afterwards, when the sun was starting to go down, my father set a fire and everyone sat around it. Some of the girls holding hands with each other and dancing around, others sitting with boys catching a kiss in between the songs flowing from the band father had hired to play at the party.
I walked over to Harry and sat down, putting my hand against the small of his back. He gave me a disgusted look at first and then remembering the money in my family and all of the gifts he got when he came over, softened it into a smile.
“Hello, Art. One year older, eh? How does it feel?”
“How is it supposed to feel? I woke up today one year older than I was the day before. That’s it.”
“You really do make this party a little dull talking that way, don’t you think?” he said, turning away from me and looking into the fire and especially the girl that was sitting across the way.
I turned him around and drew him even closer to myself, trying to get the faint smell of his breath as it wafted out of his mouth.
He looked into my eyes and then down at the ground again, giving me a look of embarrassment that almost made me want to let it go and just turn from him. Yet there was some invisible force that was drawing me closer and wouldn’t let me turn away and I turned to him, breathing heavily and whispered, “I love you Harry.” The phrase hung there for a minute until I began to not even care about the implications of it. I became drunk on it and followed it as far as it would take me. 
The world started to spin as I leaned in to kiss him and his face turned into a horrible mix of hatred and humility. “Art!” he yelled into my face and it was then that I finally got a smell of his breath. “What are you doing?” He smacked me on the face but I leaned in closer to kiss him again as the crowd began to stare at me. Their faces turned about in front of the fire and they seemed to have no bodies; just faces that were shocked, terrified, and looking toward my father who stomped past them all to grab me by the shoulder.
“Art,” he grunted in a whisper to me. “What are you doing with Harry here, boy?”
“I don’t know. I just…” I looked at him and then I started to cry, mainly out of humiliation. As everyone stared at me and I saw the veins popping out on my father’s forehead and neck I began to remember the sermons I had heard and all the rumors of what happened to people who gave into such desires.
He shook me violently so that I could here a small pop somewhere in my head. “Tell me! TELL ME! Why do you have to do something like this at every party? You are a threat to these young boys. A threat! Don’t cry, what have I told you? Tears are not for the men of this household. We have always been strong. ALWAYS!” He pushed me out of the way and I wiped my face off a little and walked back into the house amongst stares and whispers. The party was definitely over but that didn’t stop anyone from going back to the orgy that was beginning to take place around the fire as the night wore on. 
That was the first of many scenes that led him to believe that I was insane. It was the first of many that had led me to the train and the sanatorium.   

Chapter 2

Everyday was really the same. At about 7 in the morning the bell would ring for us to wake up and head down to the cafeteria for whatever disgusting mixture the ladies had made up for us to eat for breakfast. Each corner had is group of people being made into sections 1-4 from close to sane to insane. I was in the sanest of the groups fortunately so most of the people were able to talk. I met Paul my first morning and he introduced me to life in the sanatorium.
“Okay, that lady over there in the corner,” he pointed to a woman who was standing against the wall watching over the people with a critical eye like she was watching prisoners and there was no chance of escape under her watch. “She is really tough and works the third ward at night. You don’t want to get her. Apparently she pulled a man who was snoring too loudly out of bed and immediately dragged him down to that room at the end of the hall and put him in a straight jacket.”
“Room at the end of the hallway?”
“Yeah the place where they send the super-crazies, the ones who have finally completely lost it.”
“Wait, hasn’t everyone here already lost it already?”
“When did you lose it?”
I thought about it for a while. As much as I felt I was thrown into this place against my will and I had never really thought about the reason for my being in the sanatorium. Did I truly believe that I was crazy? I was still curious about this so-called “room from hell” that had suddenly popped into the conversation and so I decided to inquire a little further.
“So what do they do there?”
He looked at me like I was giving him the fodder to tell the legend he had always loved to tell, that he had been born to tell. “Well, I can’t say for sure what happens there, but I hear that they take you in and then they strap you to a table and put this huge piece of rubber or something in your mouth so that you don’t bite your whole damn tongue off! Then they hook up these little wires all over your body and the doc pulls this crank and BAM! they shock you like you’ve never been shocked before and when you wake up, you don’t remember why you even went crazy in the first place.”
I had heard of electricity and it’s power before but I had never even thought that it could be used on human beings for treatment or any such purposes.
I looked up at him in horror as he slurped away at his soup and broke another packet of crackers over it. His face was long but still he looked old, like he had been rotting in this place for decades. When I asked him his age, he told me he was only thirty-three but I think he was lying.
“Oh, and don’t refuse the medicine. It’s just sugar anyway I think.”
“What medicine?” I asked.
“In the afternoon everyone lines up to take their medicine, some people have more than others but the stuff doesn’t do any good anyway. Some people will refuse, so be ready to wait.” 
I imagined some person being chained to the wall while the nurses shot pills into their throat with a gun. I shuddered a little and then looked back at him. “Why are you here?” I asked.
He shook his head and gulped the soup down really hard before turning to look back at me. “That’s not important.”
I sat back quietly and leaned my head against the wall.
“If you aren’t going to eat that soup can I have it?” he asked.
“Sure.”

I sat in my room reading for a couple of hours that afternoon. First it was a book about cooking different dishes from around the world, and then it was this novel about a man who couldn’t make up his mind and was always having trouble because of it. I wasn’t really big into books when I first came into the Sanatorium. I would pick one up and begin to read but my mind would immediately drift to another subject and before I knew it I was looking down at the book fifty pages later and nothing had really registered in my mind. I think when you are forced to sit down for long periods of time and read just to pass the time, your brain gets hooked on the words and once you find a certain amount of comfort in them, you just can’t stop. That was how it was for me I guess and it seemed to be that way all up and down my ward where I would look up periodically and see people reading not only magazines, but books and newspapers of every kind.
At three in the afternoon a bell rang and everyone lined up at the door to be let out of their rooms. My room was empty except for me, although there was another bed against the opposite wall and space for another person. It was nice at first but after the first month or so, I kind of wanted someone to fill the space.
“Okay, everyone take your pills in an orderly fashion, alright?”
The line was about thirty men from my ward and it was going along pretty smoothly until a man with a long beard and dark brown eyes that were constantly darting all over the room came up to the table. They dropped the pills into his hand and after looking at them with a sharp gaze he yelled, “Don’t take them, they are poison. They are trying to kill us.” The first time he said it there seemed to be no emotion in his voice, but when he repeated it in various phrases three of four more times over the next couple of minutes, he began to sound terrified and alone, like all of us were getting the good medicine and he was getting arsenic or something.
He sank down to the floor and put his hand across his mouth. “NO! NO! That’s bad! I will give you anything you want, just don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.” He trailed off into tears and the nurses put up with it for about five minutes and the line kept moving past him. I grabbed my pills and looked to the nurse at the table who smiled at me as I tipped my head back and swallowed. I walked back in the line of men leading to my room and as I looked back I saw the man writhing on the floor as a nurse shoved the pill into his mouth. He screamed for seconds afterwards and went into what I imagined were fake convulsions. “You don’t understand. They don’t give me what they give you. They want me to die, these wretches.”
His voice echoed down the hall for about a half hour until he was dragged back to his room, which was across from mine. I gave him a smile and quick nod to acknowledge that he was back, but he pretended not to see me.
The rest of the afternoon I spent by myself looking through magazines and newspapers trying desperately to try to stay in touch with the outside world. It was my only hope of sanity and I knew that if I could just hold onto my sanity, there was a chance that I could get out of this horrible place. 

Chapter 3    

     “Will, get in.” I heard the words echo loudly and firmly into my cell as a dark figure was being pushed in, handcuffed. He slumped onto the bed and gave me a blank stare as the orderlies took the cuffs off and left the room with them clanking behind.  
     At first I pretended to be asleep so as to ward off any confrontation with my new roommate but soon it was inevitable that we would meet so I got it over with after several minutes of peeling paint off the already almost bare walls.
     “What are you in here for?” I asked trying to sound generic like somehow that is what I asked everyone when I met them, and wasn’t it the truth?
     “Why does everyone here want to think that I am some kind of criminal? What did I do to you, what? Do I look like a criminal? Look me in the eyes.” He pulled me out of bed by my collar and pulled me close so that I could smell his foul breath against the side of my cheek. “Do I look like a criminal…” he said, tears starting to run down his face as his voice cracked with emotion.
     I started into his eyes. Deep green with a circle of brown toward the center that immediately drew me in and caused me to want to get closer to him, but I couldn’t take the chance, I had seen where that had gotten me and I wasn’t going there again. I stared at his lips: full, red, exactly what I had dreamt of, but as I looked at them, they suddenly became foul under the breath that poured over them; the statements even more foul.
     “No,” I said, trying to sound like I had calculated this all in my head before. “You are no more of a criminal than me. We are sharing the same room are we not?”
     “That’s true,” he said, sitting back down on the bed and putting his face in his hands, wiping away the sweat and tears. “How long you been in here anyway?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “When are you getting out?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “We are going to rot in this place, you know that?”
     “Don’t talk like that. I’m sure that it will be fine. I have been here a while and yes, maybe it is a little hard at first but you will get used to it and then it won’t be any different than the life you had before. When I was in my biology class my teacher told us that animals of all kinds adapt to every situation. You know those polar bears? They are white because they blend in with the snow and they are thick-skinned, thick-furred so that they can resist the cold. Your skin with grow thick too. Just wait. I promise.”
     “Why is a mentally unstable person calming me down more than a doctor who is supposed to be helping me out?”
     “Because we are the sane ones. They don’t know what to do with us. They know it in the back of their heads. Somehow they must know, but they can’t admit it. People can’t make mistakes because mistakes cause trouble for them, it means they are wrong.”
     “I just want out of here. I am not going to be able to take it. I will go insane. I swear I will go insane.”
     “Well, then you are in the right place,” I said and winked at him as I turned back over in my bed.

     Light filtered through the small window in the room between the beds and began to make its way slowly across as everyone was called to breakfast.
     “What’s going on?” Paul asked, looking groggy and not wanting to be disturbed. 
     “That’s the stuff you are going to have to try to hold down the rest of the afternoon.”
     “What?”
     “Breakfast.”
     “Where do we go and what are we supposed to do?” he asked.
     “Okay, formally, no rules but really there are some and it’s important for you to know them for your own safety and sanity.”
     “Isn’t that the doctors’ jobs?”
      “Technically yes, but I will tell you anyway since they will not. There are four sections in the cafeteria and they are divided from the most sane to the most insane of people. You are going to want to sit with me in the sanest of the four groups.”
     “That’s terrible and kind of disturbing.”
      “That’s true; but this is a terrible and disturbing place,” I said, bending my head down, trying to look like I knew everything and that I was giving him this great wealth of knowledge out of my kindness and wisdom. “Let’s start walking. If we are late, they will suspect something and we really don’t want that now do we?”
     “No. I guess not.”
     “There you go! And the food won’t be as bad as you think.”
     We walked down the long corridor with the tile sparkling from the morning cleaning which had taken place while most of us had been sleeping. The light glinted off the white washed floors and made my brow wrinkle up as it shined in my eyes. I always found it odd that something so bright could make me feel so depressed and so alone.
     We turned the corner that led to the cafeteria and as we did, I noticed the face on Will turn from stoic bravery to horror as he saw the wealth of mentally ill people surrounding him. There was a man in the corner who was talking to himself while someone next to him was beating against the wall and crying, all the while trying to rip his clothing off at every chance he had when a nurse wasn’t looking directly at him. All of this turned into a large deep moaning sound that seemed to fill the room. It was as if misery had personified itself and showed up all at once for breakfast on this poor boy’s first day.
     I took him by the hand and looked into the green eyes once again, this time more deeply than before. “It really won’t be as bad as you think. I promise.” I noticed that he gave me a slight tug on my hand and the warmth seemed to spread up my arm, something that didn’t quite seem normal but felt oddly natural.
     The line was starting to move forward quickly. The patients were hungry today and it showed in the way they grabbed their plates and food and hurried to the tables to dig in as soon as possible. We were never starved but it wasn’t as if we were fed well either.
     “Hey Donna,” I said to the stout woman across the counter who slopped soup into my bowl. “How are you doing today.”
Her face lit up every time she saw me because I was the only patient who thanked her for giving me the food. Sometimes I even gave her compliments if it was good.
“I am doing great, Mr. and you?”
“A little tired, but other than that I guess you can say that I’m okay. Have you met Will?”
She looked him over and scrutinized every part of his body as if by looking at him she could see right into his soul an discard him as good or evil on the spot in doing so. “He seems decent enough. How long has he been here?”
     “Just yesterday.”
     “It shows,” she said, looking down at the new clothes and the eyes that had not yet been worn by lack of sleep and pills. 
    We took our trays and walked to the table where I sat everyday with the old man who had always sat next to me. Today he was not there but stayed in his room. He had refused to eat, saying that the food was making him tired and surely they were putting something in it to hurt him and he wasn’t going to be a part of it. He sat with his arms crossed on the bed as we begged and pleaded with him to come. He was already way too thin and there was no more of his body left to lose, which made me think that it was possibly a tactic on his part to leave the sanatorium early. 
     Will looked back and forth across the room suspiciously as he ate and never once did he say a word. I knew that he must have had questions because even I who had been in this cafeteria several times had questions about the absurdity that had been this morning, but he sat in silence with an emotion on his face that was close to impossible to make out.
    
     Back in the room, I looked at Paul over the top of my book and gave him a stare every once in a while just to show him that I was expecting him to talk and he was not complying. After a while I set the book down on the bed and looked at him for a few minutes before I said, “Is this it? Are you just going to spend all of your time here staring at the walls, not doing anything, saying anything, being anything? If that’s what you are going to do then you just wait. It will start out slowly. First you will lose your track of time and once time stops mattering, then nothing matters.”
     “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, drawing his legs up to his chest and looking around the room apprehensively as if it were about to all cave in on top of him.
     “It means that you have a choice. You can either try to act as normal as possible and hold onto your sanity in hopes of getting out of this wretched place, or you can sulk and let yourself rot in here like that old man across the hall.” 
I pointed my head in that direction and Will’s eyes followed to an older man of about 60 who was rocking back and forth every once in a while pounding his fist into the wall and yelling something that no one, even the doctors could ever make out.
     “Why are people like you and me even in here?” he asked me, starting to tear up a little. 
     It was exactly what I had been waiting for. He was opening up to me and now was my chance to finally find something out about him, to make friends with him. I got up off my bed and wandered across the room to where he was sitting, knees pressed against his chest quietly weeping at this point. “We are here because no one wants to believe what we really are.”
     He looked up at me horrified and then turned to look back at the wall again. His breathing became a little more rapid and I could tell that he was getting nervous. Like some secret about his past life had been brought to light and now everyone was going to know. 
     “How did you know?” he said in a whisper, looking across both sides of the room making sure that no one was watching us and that no one else could hear. 
     “How could I not know? I’ve been in here for a long time, Will. I’ve seen all sorts of people like you and me. And remember, I had a life before I was in here. I know how people treat other people like us. The name-calling, the things they say behind our backs. We are just the unlucky ones. Our parents decided to take action instead of shrugging it off like most other parents do.” 
     “You know so much about this. Why?” 
     “I’ve had a long time to think. There really isn’t much else to do in a room that is basically a cell now is there?” 
     He nodded and looked at the ceiling which was starting to chip a little bit from the mold that was starting to grow in the middle. 

Chapter 4

     Each morning after breakfast Will would immediately go to the desk and start writing. At first I thought maybe it was a novel or some kind of story, or maybe a letter to his relatives begging them to let him out; any of which would have been a vain pursuit. Still I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. However enthralling my newest issue of Time was or how interesting the novels we were allowed once a week were I would look up to watch the muscles in his arm bulge and move back and forth as his hands slid across the page trailing the meaning of who knew what.
     Once I asked him about what he was writing.
     “Why are you interested? Do you want to get your hands on my letters so that you can scrutinize them or devour them just like those damn magazines or books or whatever the hell they are?”
     Knowing that it was stupid to ask, I eventually ignored it and spent my mornings the same, reading from the magazines and books about people who weren’t in sanatoriums or hospitals; people who could leave if they wanted to and didn’t have to listen to the cries of others being tortured by their own imagination. I wanted to be them and I lived through them each time the hospital fell silent enough for me to escape and not be reminded of the mental hell that surrounded me on every side and in every way imaginable.
     In the afternoons, Will’s character took on a whole new light. After lunch as the shadows began to shift in our room and evening was about to set in. He sat up in bed and would stare into space for hours or at least that’s what I thought at first. He was actually looking at me and after about a week of the staring I would engage him after about an hour.
     “Will, why do you stare so much? That’s not good for your health. You will turn out like Willy across the hall.”
     He looked over to the red-headed man who was licking the wall and screaming for the nurses to give him a comb for his hair even though it was constantly wild, like that of a raging maniac.
     He giggled a little before answering. “I know why you’re here, that’s why.”
     “Yeah, I think we already discussed that earlier did we not?”
     “That’s not why I am referring to it. Come here.”
     In a confused state and slightly annoyed I pulled myself up off the bed and walked across the room where I took a seat in the place on the bed next to him where he patted the blanket. I stared at him for a while, looking into the green eyes again and then without even thinking about it, the night of the bonfire and my birthday flashed before me again and I was caught up in the moment once again because even after all this time I couldn’t let it go. He leaned into me and put his lips to mine and we were in a full embrace by the time I could even think of what I was doing. At first I kept my eyes closed, not daring to open them but when I did I saw that he was looking back at me, the same hunger in his eyes that I was feeling but not letting out of mine.
     A nurse who was apparently peeking through the small window at the top of our door unlocked the door and stepped in hurriedly with a bucket of water that she had been using to clean the floors just moments before. She doused us both with the filmy mess and slapped us across the face twice. 
     “What are you doing?” she asked. Her face pulled up in an angry grimace that showed both hate and delight at being able to inflict pain on someone. “You know that you will never get out of here acting like that, don’t you.”
     Will and I stared at each other and then back at the woman.
     “DON’T YOU?!” she yelled almost insane at this point. I always wondered who it was who was in need of more treatment, the people in the hospital or the “sane” nurses who were supposed to be taking care of us. She slapped us both again and then walked out the door locking it and looking through the window again, especially at Paul who gave a terrified look back which seemed to delight her all the more.
     “I’m… I’m sorry Paul,” I said, hesitantly turning my back to him in embarrassment.
     “No. It was worth it,” he said, winking at me as he pulled himself under the covers and laid his head down on the pillow. Soon I found myself in the same position only it felt as if instead of being right across the room, I was miles away.

Chapter 5

     Months went by and it seemed like the whole time the relationship between Will and I was awkward to the point where we hardly spoke anymore. I wanted so badly to talk to him, to apologize, to make him realize that I took some blame too so that maybe he wouldn’t be so cold toward me. Secretly I wanted the scene to happen all over again but in the back of my mind the nurse was always stepping in again with her pail of grimy water to throw at us.
    
     At noon when the bell rang for us to all go to lunch I thought that it was going to be like every ordinary lunch, but what I didn’t know was that this day and the moment that was about to take place was going to change my life forever, and that I was going to loose something that was very dear to me.
     We lined up against the wall in the cafeteria, waiting for the food that, while not good, we were so hungry that we longed for it each day. I took my ration and sat down at the table where I always sat next to Will. We gave each other a cold smile and made small talk when suddenly at the table next to us a fight started. A man pulled another man down to the ground and all of us swarmed to the center of the room to try to help him get up without being injured by someone who didn’t know the bounds of sanity. The lights flicked off as the nurses came running to the scene and since there were no good windows in the place, it was almost impossible to see what was going on. In the dark there were shouts and arms and legs flailing in all directions until the most horrifying sound came from the throat of a man who was being cut badly. The lights flicked on and everyone dispersed. In the center of the room sat a man whose arms and legs had been cut badly and there was blood covering the floor all around him. He looked up at the nurses, horrified, as they carried him off to another room to be cleaned up.
     “All of you, back to your rooms!” shouted one of the nurses as the others herded us in that general direction.
     I looked back at the man being dragged away and he was screaming, eyes rolling back in his head with pain.
     In the room I stared across at Paul and he did the same. It was the same afternoon ritual only this time I had gone through my books earlier in the week so I had nothing to look at him over and there was nothing between he and I. We just stared at each other’s faces, trying to find something to say to fill the silence between us and the boring hours until sleep finally made it possible to get some rest and an escape from the hospital if only for a few hours.
     “How do you think it happened?” Will asked me.
     “I have no idea. I mean the man was cut so badly but they don’t allow us anything sharp to eat with obviously so I have no clue what anyone could have used to make such big lacerations.”
     “Either way, someone here is going to be in big trouble.”
     “What do you mean by that?”
     “You know exactly what I mean. Remember, we are in a place that is only a little bit above a prison. Someone is going to take the fall and I don’t know who it’s going to be but I would sure hate to be him.”
     “Do you have any idea as to who might have done it? I mean, you were closer than I was.”
     “I don’t know. It was just as dark for me in that room as it was for you, remember?”
    
A nurse came into the room and called our names. We got up obediently and walked down to the end of the hall to a room where the doctors and staff were sitting with the man who had been badly cut.
     I took a seat in a chair next to Will and looked the doctor straight in the eye as he began to question us both about what we knew. Our story was told over and over again but for some reason I had the feeling that the doctor didn’t believe us and so he asked the patient to say what he had told them earlier once more.
     “It was one of them!” he shouted, pointing at both of us with the look of insanity that we both saw everyday.
     A tension immediately rose in the room and then the doctor scanned our faces and said, “So, which one of you was it? Huh?” 
     My heart started beating faster and I could tell that the same thing was happening to Will as well. He looked over at me and then he shouted out of the middle of nowhere, “It was me. I cut him.”
     The doctor, looking satisfied, asked, “With what did you cut him.”
     Will took on the full character of a crazed man and stared the doctor and the lacerated patient both directly in the eyes while showing his off wildly and hardly blinking once. “A few days ago I was sitting in my room and he was just babbling, babbling, babbling and I couldn’t sleep and it happened for nights and nights in a row. I knew that I was never going to be able to sleep. He sounded just like my brother. The one who used to do the same at night before he would come in and beat me. HE BEAT ME AND HE BEAT ME! And I was the insane one right? I was shipped off here. So I took my fork and I stabbed this man mercilessly until he felt the same pain that I had felt listening to him. Listening to that constantly babbling and babbling to the point where your ears can’t hear anything else.”
     I looked at Will, shocked and didn’t even have time to think before the doctor said, “Nurses, take him to the room.”
     We all knew what the room was. It was where electroshock therapy was done. A patient was electrocuted to the point where they had a seizure and then they would apparently be cured of their mental distress. It had only happened once or twice and the people it happened to always came out like zombies. They were never the same.
     As he was being pulled out of the room by forces I couldn’t begin to control he looked back to me and said, “I didn’t do it. I think we both know that.”

Chapter 6

     Paul died shortly after that. The seizure killed him. I wept for days but I knew that no amount of weeping was going to help me and that in fact it would work against me. The doctors would think that my depression was incurable and so would keep me in the sanatorium even longer to keep an eye on me just to make sure I didn’t do anything that made me a threat to society or myself.
     I thought about Paul every day and I read twice as much as usual, pulling the book closer to my face so that I wouldn’t be able to see the spot where he had once laid down, where he had looked me in the eye so many afternoons; where we had kissed and for the first time it had been consensual. I remembered the green eyes the most and it was them that I was thinking of when the door to my room was swung open late one evening. A nurse pulled me out and grabbed my hands dragging me down the hallway. I was terrified. I wondered if maybe they thought I had something to do with the crime and so I was going to be tortured in much the same way Will had been. We reached the end of the hall but instead of turning right into the doctor’s office she turned me toward the exit. My mother was waiting there with open arms and I ran into them and we embraced for several minutes before I could even begin to ask questions to understand the great breadth of what was going on.
     The nurses looked at me with a smile and said, “You are free to go.” The same nurses who for months had given me a cruel, sinister smile and had made me feel as though I would be locked away forever. 
     I couldn’t believe it. After all these months of being in this terrible place that I thought I would never escape sane and here I was about to be released into the outside world. The thought of it filled me with ecstasy, but at the same time I thought of Will and immediately my mood changed. He wasn’t there with me and he was never going to be able to feel the freedom that I felt at that moment when I first saw the outside world.
     My mother pulled an envelope out of her purse. “Why did you never write to me? I was worried about you and that was one of the promises you made. I thought that you would never speak to me again.”
     I had thought about never speaking to her again and for a few weeks I didn’t but after a while as I began to realize that it was not so much my mother but my father who had put me in the Sanatorium I began to forgive her for complying and I wrote to her. It was never much. Just a page or two a day telling her what was going on, what I was thinking, and who I had met. Sometimes I would even include some facts from what I had read that day. 
     “I would never do that. I wrote to you every day and you never wrote me back anything.”
     “Because it wasn’t you who wrote me.”
     “I don’t think I quite understand.”
     “Every other week I got a letter from the Sanatorium from this boy named Will. He wrote letters and must have put them in your name to send to me. I don’t know why. I don’t know him and I wasn’t sure that even you knew him.”
     “Why would he do that? Is he crazy? He doesn’t even know you. The nerve…”
      “Wait,” my mother said, putting her fingers to my lips. “At first I threw his letters out because I knew they were not from you, but then I began to feel that he was my only connection to you and so I read them; every single one. He knew a lot about you so I’m guessing you told him a lot. He knew about your father and me and how I always gave into him and how weak I was. I knew he was right but what was I supposed to do. I sulked in my selfishness for a while, feeling sorry for myself but then he encouraged me. He told me about you and how you were doing and his love for you. And then I realized that my love for you was stronger than my love for your father.”
     “Mama, don’t say things like that. You know you don’t mean it.”
     “Yes. I do. I walked out. The way he used to beat me and abuse me, I couldn’t handle it anymore so I left and now I am living with my sister. Those letters Will sent to me gave me the strength and now I know your father was wrong and you are coming home with me.”
     The nurses smiled and handed me a Bible and on the inside was a note from Paul written out with the black pen he used to use that sat on the table under the window in our room.
     I hope that my mind is still functioning and I can remember you and the amazing person you are after they do to me whatever it is they are going to do. I know that one of us is going to be blamed for cutting that man in the cafeteria and so I have decided that it should be me who takes the fall. You have family waiting for you and you deserve a life outside these walls more than I do. I hope you enjoy Exodus. It is my favorite book of the Bible. You can find comfort in every page though. Enjoy your life and I will always love you wherever I am.
-Will
     I held the book against my chest as hard as I could and walked out of the sanatorium into the outside world. The flowers were beginning to bloom and I leaned over to smell one of them and as the smell permeated everything a tear rolled down my cheek and I couldn’t hold it anymore. I stood at the edge of the garden and wept for the outside world. I wept for the people in the sanatorium who would never see these flowers again and I wept for the man whose lacerations may never heal, and I wept for Will who was part of everything I did now. He was in the air, in the flowers, and I knew that no matter what happened in life, I would never be without him.

Wall

The stamp met the paper and the forms had been filled out,
Her leaving was official, no turning back, without a doubt.
The children went with her, they would stay with her close friend,
While their father stayed behind and lived his life in East Berlin.

The wall was put up shortly and the barrier was complete, 
Few tears were shed and soon it blended in with the concrete.
Every day she left a note for him next to the wall,
Torn out pages from her notebook, and a pen with which to scrawl.

She wrote about their future, how one day he could walk free,
To meet his children in the street, how pleasant that would be.
He wrote his notes right on the wall, with paint that stained it black,
How he would be home for Christmas, they would have their lives back.

Thirty years passed and the wall came tumbling down,
He went searching for his children tracing every part of town,
He found them grown and mournful standing right next to the grave,
Of the woman he had loved who wasn’t able to be saved.

Gone

I may have driven you to the airport; that doesn’t mean I’ve left you there,
You may have taken off but it doesn’t mean I didn’t care,
I let go of your hand and let you slowly shuffle past,
But you can’t be gone if my hands are still pressed up against the glass.
You aren’t allowed to leave me, to fly off into the dawn,
Because I haven’t let you leave me so you’ve never really gone.

An Addict Story

     For someone who spends most of their time looking at the ground, not able to meet people’s faces, I feel angry and confrontational all the time. I’m angry that in college my best friend cut ties with me and then made my life hell for the next four years, I’m angry that people expect life to go on even when things go horribly wrong, and I’m even angry that the sun still comes up every morning even though I feel so awful. It was the heroin that started it all.

     During my freshman year of college I went to a party at my friend Matt’s house. He had the perfect place for it too, a 20’s bungalow with one story but high ceilings. He even had a Jacuzzi on his back deck, which then was only a wooden barrel-like thing with huge hoses connected to it all over. I spent most of that night sitting on top of it kicking my legs and cigarette against the side every once in awhile when it started crumbling at the end. As I puffed and stared out into the crowd, willing someone to come closer, a girl with red hair and a white peasant blouse jumped up on the Jacuzzi next to me and shoved her cigarette right in my face.

     “Can I get a light babe?”

     I fumbled through my pocket for the chrome lighter my father had given me for my birthday and held it up so that she could get a light. She sat for a minute and then blew a stream of smoke out toward the partiers.

     “So, how long have you been sitting here?” she asked.

     “About two hours, give or take.”

     “Shit, doesn’t that get a little old? I mean, why are you doing that?”

     “There’s no one to talk to and I’m not going to go up to someone I don’t know just because I’m bored.”

     “Well, I’m insulted,” she said with a giggle that turned into a cough in the cold air. “By the way, I’m Kelly. Anyway, I’ve been here all night, I’m interesting, and you haven’t said a word to me until now.”

     “Then consider yourself lucky.”

      She rolled her eyes turned to look at me and then said, “You know Matt was born with six fingers right?”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “I knew that would get your attention. Yeah, his mom told me one time when I came over to work on my history project with him. The doctors were afraid that if they cut it off, he would bleed to death because he’s a hemophiliac or whatever but they did it anyway. People will do all sorts of risky things to be normal. I’m glad they did though because I’m not sure we could have still been friends.” She winked at me and then took another puff before jumping down off the top of the Jacuzzi and turning around to address me by cocking her head and smiling. “You know, you look like you could use something to cheer you up, lemme take you to the laundry room where I have some friends.”

     She grabbed my hand and I followed her through the sliding door into the living room where the music was blaring and a couple on the couch against the far wall were spilling Premium Vodka all over each other in their attempt to make out. She made a turn down the hall and then took a right into a room that was dimly lit by a red light.

     “Hey everybody, this is Kip from Sophomore Biology, introduce yourselves.”

      After three other people gave me the dirty eye and then shook my hand Kelly looked at them all and said, “Kip here is having a bad night and so I thought that maybe we could help him out a little bit. Introduce him to one of our friends.”

     One of the friends jumped down off the washing machine and handed her a belt. “You mean shoot him up with some Heroin. We’ve only got the higher dosed stuff here, are you trying to kill the kid?”

     My heart started beating faster and in a panic I looked at Kelly and said in an almost whimpering voice, “Aren’t you supposed to start inhaling that stuff first or something?”

     “Well, I just thought I would save you the trouble of a couple of months of a bloody nose by skipping to this instead. Now give me your left arm.”

     “Is this gonna hurt?”

     “Only until the pure ecstasy kicks in,” she breathed into my ear so that the words hit me with a warm mist that made my head spin. Already Kelly was starting to look a little more attractive.

     “Now, I’m going to put this belt around your bicep to cut off the circulation to your lower arm.”

     As she slid the belt up my arm her breathing got heavier and she pulled herself up onto the top of the dryer where I was sitting and up into my lap. “You must work out or something. I used to admire those arms from across the room when we were in Biology together.”

     “Oh, well you were pretty good-looking yourself,” I said, my voice cracking and the embarrassment becoming apparent on my face.

     She laughed a little bit and then grabbed onto my shoulder as she stuck the needle, full of a sticky black liquid, into my arm. “Okay, in it goes,” she said in a whisper as she pushed it in and pulled on my shoulder to steady herself.

     I didn’t feel anything as she pulled it out and injected the rest into herself. Her eyes got darker and clouded over as she scanned them back and forth over me. After about 30 seconds I felt a rush in my lower stomach that made it’s way up my chest and neck then into my head. My heart beat faster like it was about to fly out of my chest and then my breathing got so slow that I thought I was going to forget to take a breath in and it would all be over. I started panicking and grabbed for Kelly’s hand which I caught before puking over the side of the dryer. Her friends all started chuckling and she smacked at them and told them to cut it out.

     “Babe, you need to relax,” she laughed and pulled me up as my eyes rolled back in my head. “You and I are going to go to lie down in Matt’s bedroom for a little while, okay?”

    Again she pulled at my arm and we reentered the hallway and made a left this time until she threw me down on Matt’s bed. I looked up at the ceiling at his posters but I couldn’t read them or make out the faces of the people because my head was swimming and every few seconds I fell asleep and then woke up again. I saw Kelly sitting on top of me and then she bent down low, at which point I felt another rush of euphoria coming from my lower back and then I don’t remember anything at all.

     The next day I woke up in Matt’s house with a really bad headache and the chills but he kicked me out into the street and told me to get lost and never talk to him again. Actually all he said was, “Get out you girlfriend stealing asshole,” but the rest was implied. I didn’t even know that he was planning on going out with Kelly anyway. Maybe it was for the best that he didn’t.

     I spent the rest of college and my early twenties shooting up and trying to get Heroin without anyone knowing that I was doing it. Every time I got a handful of vials I would tie them to the bottom of my car and then take off for home where I would untie them and hide them in the cabinet in my bathroom.

     I woke up one morning at about 4:00 with the glare of the city shining off of the snow and into my bedroom window. I’d been living in Boston for 4 years but still I was unable to get used to the weird light and snow of the north. My apartment looked out over a main streets, the lights shining in through the window and the sound of traffic almost constant.

     I walked over to the phone which I had just installed in my kitchen, something that as of late had been really popular. I dialed my best friend’s number because she was almost always awake because of her terrible insomnia and because she spent most of the night up reading a romance novel in her bed and smoking cheap cigarettes.

     Of course it rang four times before she answered in a husky voice, “Yeah?”

     “Hey, it’s Kip. I’m can’t sleep.”

     “Well join the club, hon. What do you want me to do about it?”

     “I dunno. Do you want to go out to a bar or something. That’s the only place that’ll be open this time of night. I was thinking maybe the Sour Apple or something like that.”

     “haha… Don’t you think that’s kind of cheap for some high class people like ourselves?”

     “Well, it’s not like we haven’t been there a million times already at this time of night. I’ll be over in about a half hour okay?”

     “Alright, I may have to bail out early, seeing as I actually have a job and all.”

     “Fine.”

     I hung up the phone and immediately went to put on some jeans and a black shirt that I had bought just a few weeks ago.  The wind was picking up outside and snow was swirling into funnels and then whipping against my wind with a loud hissing sound that made me jump every once in a while when it got really loud.

     I was out the door in about ten minutes and on my way to find a cab to one of Boston’s cheapest and seediest bars. It didn’t really bother me that it was that way. In fact it would have bother me more if it wasn’t. Then I might find someone who know me there. I was always worried about that because where I worked at the publishing company I always gave off this air of being from some rich Connecticut family or something. Not that it was very far from the truth, but it was really embarrassing for people to find out that this semi-rich, upscale dressed guy was going out to the park to slam at 2 am because he couldn’t sleep through the shaking and sweating any longer.

     I arrived at the Sour Apple just in time for all the drunks to come out leaning on friends or trying not to trip on themselves as they pushed themselves forward into the night. A man was standing next to the potted tree at the entrance throwing up into the soil. Oddly enough, that probably wasn’t the only foreign substance making it’s way into that spot tonight. Also at the entrance was my best friend, Rita, smoking like a chimney and waving ecstatically to me like she hadn’t just pulled herself out of bed and I was her long lost brother she hadn’t seen in twenty years.

     “Hey, Kip! I just got us a table inside. Not that I had to fight for one, there’s hardly anyone here.”

     “Good,” panning the inside with my eyes to avoid awkwardness even though I couldn’t see anything. “We shouldn’t have any trouble getting some attention then should we?”

     “I guess not. Come on, what are you waiting for… a waiter to come out and serve you some champagne? This isn’t that kind of place baby.”

     She ushered me in and we took a seat close to the door looking out over the almost empty dance floor toward the bar.

     “Two of those red things with lots of Vodka please,” Rita said as the waiter walked away knowing exactly what she wanted. “Well, Rod and I have found a new place in the suburbs that looks really nice. You know, one of those places with all the trees out front where the lawn looks so green you could shove a fucking candy cane in the ground and call it Christmas? Well I told him that I wasn’t interested in that kind of place. There were all these women walking with their babies in cute white strollers and the men were throwing footballs back and forth with their sons. I don’t need that kind of fake shit, you know what I mean…”

     Her voice was starting to fade into the distance as I looked across the dance floor to this one woman who was wearing a fur coat and sat with her head kind of down on the table with empty martini glasses all around her. Every once in a while the bar tender would come over with a pouty face and would shake her a little before offering her a tissue. It looked like she had just broken up with her boyfriend, or even worse judging by the amount of time it seemed she had already spent there.

     “Hey, Rita? You see that chick over there sort of mid-way down the bar?”

     “Yeah, what about her?” she asked like the woman was just another prop designed to make the bar look nice.

     “She just seems interesting that’s all. And she has been there for quite a while crying into her martinis or whatever.”

     “Yeah? I do that all the time. No one seems to take an interest in me when I try to drown my worries in a little Russian joy snow. haha,” she laughed sounding like all the upstate New York rich girls I had gone to school with.

     “I think I’m going to go over there and see what the problem is.”

     “Fine. Go on over there and sweep her off her feet prince charming. See if she ever comes back to this bar again.”

     I walked over to the bar through the maybe 5 people on the dance floor and tried not to fall as the weakness of withdrawal hit me like a wall. I straightened myself up through the achiness as I made my way onto the stool next to this woman. I could smell her perfume wafting over to me and as I tapped her and she leaned back I could also smell the alcohol.

     “I couldn’t help but notice you looked a little sad over here. Do you mind if I buy you a drink?” I asked calling the bartender over and scanning her with eyes that conveyed both lust and pity.

     She took a tissue and wiped away a tear and some sweat while the made sure that her make-up wasn’t smeared. “You know, that would be really nice,” she said in an eastern European accent that shocked me and brought on a barrage of mental questions that I was afraid to ask but asked anyway.

     “huh, you have an interesting accent. Where are you from originally?”

     “Well, I just moved here about three weeks ago from Argentina and before that I spent most of my childhood in Poland. My father died, that’s why I came to the States and that’s why I’m here at this bar this morning too.” Her eyes scanned the room after she said that and she tried to collect herself so that she didn’t cry in front of me anymore.

     “Oh, well I’m sorry to here that,” I said pumping my legs under the bar and taking her drink and mine from the bartender.

     “Yes, it was kind of… eh, sad at first but you know my father was a real… um…”

     “Ass?” I asked hoping that was the answer and mentally smacking myself for saying it.

     She laughed and started to pat my knee. “Exactly.” She winked at me and then leaned back over to the bar to down her drink in one go.

     “You’re awfully level headed for a woman who has just had eight drinks.”

     “Well, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve had a lot of practice at trying to hold my liquor the best I can.” She looked over at my arms showing bare from where I had rolled up my sleeves to look at little more casual. “What is that on your arm, have you hurt yourself?” She laughed, rolling her eyes as I quickly rolled up my sleeves in embarrassment. “ I know what track marks are. You think that you are the only one I have seen who does that? In Poland, way more people do that and they have to be way more secretive about it. It’s a huge problem really.”

     I was shocked at her understanding and complacency at having discovered my addiction. “You’re really fascinating, you know that? I haven’t met a woman like you in years. Would you like to come back to my apartment for some more drinks and maybe a smoke?”

     “You’re not going to give me some of that tar or whatever it is you are shooting up into your arm are you?” she laughed at herself and was only now starting to show the beginnings of intoxication. “No matter, I’ve had a lot of men ask to sleep with me and you are a lot nicer than them so what do I have to lose, eh?”

     “No. No. You don’t have to sleep with me… I mean, um, it’s not like that.”

     “Yeah it is,” she winked at me and then stepped down off the bar stool. “Come on big boy. let’s go see your place, or whatever it is you want me to think we’re doing this morning.” 

     She took two steps and then hit the floor, tripping on the bottom of her fur coat and tumbling down to the ground with the most elegance I had seen in a while.

     “Are you okay?” I asked, pulling her up until her hip hit mine. She giggled a little a first and then we walked out the door and into the street. I turned back and yelled inside the door, “Hey Rita? I’m going to take her home. I will see you on Friday for dinner with everyone else, okay?”

     “Alright, alright,” she said putting her hands up in the air and curling her bottom lip before she gave me a wink that said, “Good luck with this chick.”

     We walked down the street a little way before I turned to her and said, “You know, you never really told me your name. Who are you anyway?”

     “I’m Anka. I know I know. It’s a weird name for her but I think my father was trying to make me as Aryan as he could, you know?”

     “No. What do you mean by that?” I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear her story first. 

     “Well, he was an SS officer working one of those camps in Poland at night I think. This was when I was about 7 or 8. He used to spend most of his time there, doing things for work but when he came home he couldn’t keep his work from us,” she wiped a tear from her face and then gave a mock laugh, “He would come home and beat my mother with whatever he could get his hands on because he just couldn’t get enough violence. He was blood hungry and never let us forget it. Every morning after we had made our beds he would act all nice and lay out a piece of candy for each of us. My older sister had seen this trick before and begged us not to pick up the candy but we never listened and the minute we got our hands on it he would grab it out of our hands, smack on each on the head once of twice until the world spun, and would then eat the candy as he laughed and walked into the other room as if nothing had happened and we were all part of his sick game.”

     I gave her another look of pity and we stopped walking for a minute. There were tears streaming down her face again but she didn’t wipe them this time. I turned around and grabbed her shoulders, shoved her back against the wall and then took a long look at her shocked face before our lips met quickly and without an ounce of hesitance. We began walking again and as my apartment came into view, we sped up, trying to avoid the cold wind that was now blowing harshly down the street.

     That afternoon I woke up and turned over in my bed to stare straight into the face of Anka who was sitting in the chair in the corner putting on her shoes. I looked her up and down and then asked with a fake frown, “Are you going so soon?”

     “Yes,” she said, snapping the last strap on her shoe and then grabbing the fur coat behind her before walking toward the door. “I wrote my address and phone number on a piece of paper and left them by the phone. I guess I will talk to you again when you get a hold of me again.” She winked again and then shut the door behind her and strutted her way down the street, almost knocking into a man rushing back to work after his lunch break.

     I sat back down on the bed and ran my hands through my hair and over my face a couple of times before feeling awake enough to go do something. The weather was much warmer and the sun had finally come out after weeks of being hidden behind heavy winter snow clouds. It was the perfect day to go to the park and that is exactly what I was going to do. Just me and my heroin and no one else. It was then the shakes began again. I grabbed a quick shower, injected myself with my daily salvation and then walked out the door with my light jacket, waving my arms frantically in my doped up state for a cab.

     The grass in the park was warm, sun soaked. The snow had finally melted and the air had a crisp, damp smell to it. I leaned back into the grass and let the wind blow over me as I listened to the sound of the traffic in nearby downtown Boston and the children playing just behind a hill on the playground. It was the perfect day and seemed only to be getting better until I started shaking again. It had only been a few hours since I had shot up and it was never this quick that the withdrawals set in, usually it was much later, once I could get to sleep and ignore them until I woke up to get my next fix. I started to contemplate the progression of my addiction and my current level, but I shook it off when I heard a woman walking over toward me and the sound of her skirt ruffling as she brushed it down and laid down on the grass next to me. I turned my head over to the right to have a look and there was Anka’s face starting right back at me.

     “Boo!” she exclaimed, wrinkling up her nose in a mock laugh.

     “What are you doing here?”

     “I dunno, watching the birds, maybe trying to find a new mate. I came from your house and the sun was so warm that I just couldn’t resist coming here to the park, though there aren’t a lot of people here today considering. What do you think?”

     “I think you’re following me,” I said laughing a little and turning back on my back to look back up at the kite that was hovering above me in the sky, darting back and forth and diving with the wind in every gust. 

     “I see you’ve had your fix,” she said, giggling.

     “How did you know?”

     “Your pupils are tiny and you have that look on your face that tells me that you are relaxed but not really because somewhere in your mind you are still miserable and trying to make sure that no one knows quite how bad your situation really is.”

     “You know someone with a heroin addiction?”

     “Well at least you admit it. Of course I do. Like I said, it is a real problem in Poland. My sister got mixed up in that crap. They found her in her car a few years ago, dead of an overdose.”

     “Why don’t you seem more shocked or saddened by that?” I asked, genuinely surprised by her nonchalance.

     “There are worse things than death, …”

     “Kip.”

     She smiled at me and then said, “Yes Kip, there are things much worse, and I have witnessed them all.”

     The wind picked up in intensity again and I was glad to have an excuse not to respond, to formulate a way to change the subject without sounding rude or awkward. Anka was making it hard to be polite.

     “Tell me more about you and your father and everything like you told me last night. I want to know,” I said, trying to make her bring to light whatever it was that was bothering her.

     “No you don’t,” she said, shaking her head and smiling while biting her lip nervously.

     “Yeah, I do. You bring up all this creepy stuff about your family life and then you basically follow me here and now you don’t want to talk about it.” 

     “I was hoping that you were too drunk to remember anything I said last night, let alone that.”

     “Me? I had two or three martinis. I’m surprised that you remember anything at all.”

     “Well, if you’re going to be this insistent about it then I might as well tell you, since I am following you around and trying to be apart of your life in any way that I can.” She chuckled and then batted her eyes at me.

     “You said he was an SS officer…”

     “Yes. He was very much into his job. He worked the night shift so whenever he was home, while he wasn’t torturing us, he was sleeping. I guess that’s why I like the night so much. It was the only time of day when there was peace in my house growing up. My mother would sit in her chair and knit while she listened to the radio coming out of Germany and my sisters and I would sit all around her, helping her untangle the yarn.”

     “How many sisters did you have?” I asked.

     “Oh, it was just the three of us,” she said, her eyes moving upward as she became lost to memory. The oldest was Sara, then there was me, and then Mina. We always made fun of her because she had a huge nose. My father called her, ‘the little Jew.’ He hated her because of the way she looked. I think it reminded him of his job too much. Whenever he would come home and hit us, he saved her for last and beat her the hardest. A few times I tried to stop him, but he would just kick me with his boots. I always admired them and used to try them on and pretend I was him when he was sleeping, but I was also deeply afraid of them and their power too, especially when they were on his feet.”

     “What else did he used to do to her?”

     “Hum… Well, once he came home after a particularly bad day at the camp. We all sat at the table eating breakfast, no one speaking because we could sense his melancholy and mounting anger that would surely be released on the first person who laughed or opened their mouth to say anything. The meal was taking forever and it seemed like it was lasting forever as I watched the pendulum of the grandfather clock in the foyer swinging back and forth keeping time. Mina looked up from her plate and asked, ‘<ay I be excused?’ My father nodded and she got up and walked to the end of the hallway to her room, which was the biggest of the four in the house. My sister and I sat with our heads down for a few more minutes, waiting for our father to be done with his meal so that he could go to sleep and leave my mother and us alone.”

     “Finally he left the table and went t go sit in his mammoth chair so that he could read the morning paper and listen to the radio before he went to bed. We all gathered around the radio to listen to the announcer describe a horse race to us. It was one of my father’s favorite sports and he yelled at the radio when a horse would get ahead of another one or when someone would crash or a horse was injured.”

     “The game was almost finished when he leaned over to the side table to put his watch back on but found that it was missing. ‘Jane!’ he yelled at my mother who was sitting on the floor mending one of our dresses. ‘Where is my watch? You know, the one that my grandfather from Italy gave to me?’ My mom looked at the table and then searched through her dresser. She looked more and more frantic and panicked as she threw her own clothes out and pulled each drawer out one by one. ‘I have no clue where it’s at. Girls, have you seen your father’s watch?’ We looked at each other and then shook our heads. Then we looked up at our father who now had a determined look on his face as he stormed down the hall, we followed him as he threw up the door to Mina’s room and then as he watched her flip the watch back and forth around her wrist, he exploded. ‘Mina, I told you not to touch that!’ He took off one of his shoes and smacked her across the forehead as he cursed her for being the ugly one in the family, the sneaking little one who was always plotting and stealing and trying to make his life worse. Eventually she rolled over and stopped fighting and he left the room and mother came running with a wet cloth to wipe some of the blood of her head that was now coming out her ears and to give her some relief from the pain. ‘You’re like the fucking Red Cross, Jane,” he called after her as she recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. “Always flying in to the rescue when someone’s hurt. That’s not how you build character and one of these days the girls are going to resent you for it.’”

     “The next day while our father was at work, Mother took Mina and my sisters and I and we went to stay with our aunt for a week. I will never forget the day she came back. All three of us joined hands and started walking toward the car but Mina was yanked from us and dragged by my aunt back into the house. My father grabbed me because I was always his favorite and my mother grabbed Sara. We bother kicked and screamed and cried. I’ve never wanted to break free of someone’s embrace so much in my life. Mina looked back at us with tears in her eyes but didn’t scream. She just had this look in her eyes that told me she knew she wasn’t coming back. ‘Mina!’ I screamed, the horror bumbling up from diaphragm and grabbing a hold of my throat like it wouldn’t let go. I screamed her name until my voice was hoarse and my father was stroking my hair before he hit the clutch and we sped toward home.”

     “Wow. I can’t believe something that horrible happened to you,” I said.

     “Me either,” she took a tissue out of her purse and started stroking at her face, wiping the tears away. “I’m almost forty and I still haven’t seen her. Sometimes I wonder if she’s even still alive.”

     “Didn’t you say you moved to Argentina? What happened to her then?”

     “I guess she just stayed with my aunt. She probably doesn’t even know that we left Poland. My father was charged with war crimes back in the late fifties and so we had to make a run for it. One night we just packed everything up, got fake passports just like a lot of the other similarly accused SS officers’ families in town. Then we got on a plane to Argentina and that’s where we lived.”

     “Are you glad that you went?”

     “No. I wish that we would have stayed in Poland and that they would have hung the bastard. I can’t believe it took the Russians that long to get to him.”

     “You don’t really mean that,” I said sympathetically, trying to get her to soften up on the man.

     “Oh yes I do,” she said with a hard face that showed little emotion at all. “He was a horrible, horrible man.”

     We lay in the grasses a little bit longer, letting the sun shine on us until it finally dipped below the horizon and the wind became bitterly cold.  

     That evening we walked home in the cold and watched as all the lights began to come on in the city. It was for that reason alone that I had always loved evenings and I was happy to be sharing it with Anka. She kept looking over at me and then smiling before she bent her head down to look at the ground as we walked briskly from the park, up a hill past several bars and restaurants.

     “You know what,” she said. “We need to stop somewhere first, just you and me. How about the beach? That would be so amazing.”

     “It’s the middle of winter,” I said, skeptical of her enthusiasm. “No one goes to the beach at that time of year. Can’t that make you sick or something horrible like that?”

     “Why would it?”

     “I don’t know, it’s just really cold and damp down there. Definitely not pleasant like it is in the summer.”

     “Well, we won’t know until we have tried it out now will we.” 

     She turned in the opposite direction and started heading downhill straight for the ocean. At first I thought about just going home and totally ignoring her but the farther I got down the hill and the more I thought about, the more I knew that I was willing to do almost anything to spend more time with Anka.

     The breeze started to pick up as we got closer and a chill went through my body as I could see it going through hers. In the distance I could hear violent winter storm waves rolling in and the sound of traffic in downtown Boston.

     As we reached the beach, we took off our shoes and trotted through the sand on the tips of our toes to avoid contact with the freezing grains which stung. Anka immediately took a deep breath to bring her more courage and then went charging into the waves as the rolled up over her feet. She screamed in half delight and pain as the swells swirled around her.

     “What are you doing?” I half asked and half warned. “Are you crazy? You’re going to freeze to death in there!”

     “Oh, don’t worry so much,” she said like I was her principal in Catholic school. “It’s fine. the water is cold, yes, but not enough that it is going to kill me. Come on, get it. It’s really refreshing and you don’t know what you are missing.”

     “Hypothermia and purple toes?”

     “Just shut up and get in, Kip.”

     I started out by just barely dipping my feet into the water and then letting it lap up against me shins. Then I walked out farther to where Anka was up to her waist in freezing water. I thought for sure that we were going to be killed but for some reason I trusted Anka’s judgment at the time and waded out ever deeper. I was one of the best feelings in the world, the cold and know that I wasn’t supposed to be in the ocean this time of year but doing it anyway. Anka giggled and started splashing me until I shivered and got mad enough to splash her back; though she didn’t react nearly as negatively as I had. Soon we were both kicking and falling back into the water, with huge gasps of air coming escaping from our mouths every time our bodies hit the water.

     I came up and looked around at the skyline. By being in such close proximity to the city like we were, I knew that the water had to be terribly polluted, or at least not even close to clean. It wasn’t like all those times that I had taken a swim on our vacations to Long Island or Martha’s vineyard. I began to look back on all those vacations. My parents had basically ignored me and so I went off and did whatever I wanted, no lifeguards or anyone to watch me to make sure that nothing bad happened to me and I didn’t get hurt. I would sit for ours on the beach, building a sand castle with one hand and stretching out my legs so that the sun could hit them before the waves washed over then, the strength of them almost pulling me out to sea.

     I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed that Anka had not come up from her last dunk yet. I turned around to find her at my feet, trying as hard as she could to fore her way up to the surface.

     “Anka! Anka!” I cried, tears filling my eyes thinking of all the people and things that I had lost in my life. After a time of struggling with Anka and feeling sorry for myself, I finally told myself that it was not possible that Anka was going to die that day and worst of all, in my presence. I grabbed her arm again and in a last attempt pulled her to the surface where she gasped for air and cried out to me that she couldn’t breathe, it hurt too much. At that point her eyes rolled back in her head and I watched her pale body slump over and hit the surface of the water again. 

     My arms were so numb from the cold of the water that I couldn’t feel anything and I had no strength to pull her up out of the water to safety again. Before I started drowing myself, I ran from the water up onto the beach and started for a man who was standing by his car, getting ready to leave a nearby parking lot. He seemed strong like someone who would be helpful, so I came up to him and explained the situation.

     “What are you doing in the water in the middle of winter?” he asked as he grabbed a thick blanket out of the trunk of his car and started running toward the place where Anka had gone under. 

     “I don’t know,” I said bowing my head in shame in a little bit of self-loathing and dread for what was about to happen. I really didn’t think that he was going to be able to save Anka.

     He got up to about his chest and trust his right hand down into the water and pulled Anka up like she was a salmon and a bear’s paw. She coughed a little bit and then slid back into unconsciousness again as the man wrapped her up in a blanket and took her to a townhouse on the street facing the ocean. I followed behind, trying to keep track of the man’s directions for when we got to the house.

     “Now, I want you to go into the bathroom and get the pail under the sink,” he said, shouting to be heard over the wind which at that point was howling. Fill it with warm water, not hot, it’s too much of a shock. I’m going to set her down on the chair next to the fire and hope that she warms up without any complications.”

     “I can’t thank you enough for saving her life and helping me so much. I was afraid that she wasn’t going to make it.”

     We mounted the steps of the townhouse and once we made it in, the man closed the door and walked Anka over to the fire immediately. I came with the bucket of water and started dipping her hands and feet into it alternately to warm them up so that she didn’t get frost bite. The fire crackled and rolled with an intensity that made me want to stay in front of it forever. Anka was starting to wake up a little bit and she reached her hand over next to mine. I took it and squeezed hard, trying to make her as comfortable and brave as possible.

     “Maybe the ocean this time of year wasn’t such a good idea.” she said, shivering and pulling the blankets tighter around her as she moved closer to the fire. “I didn’t think that I could lose my strength and go under that quick.”

     “If it makes you feel any better,” the man said. “You are not the first person I have helped in a situation like this.”

    “Oh, so you have rescued people from the water in the winter before then?” Anka asked.

     He turned to her and laughed, “no, they were in the water drowning during the summer, but I thought that maybe you would feel better if you didn’t ask. I guess I was wrong.” He winked at Anka who looked at him and the world in general in a confused way, like she was just now trying to figure everything out for the first time.

     We both sat on the floor and I pulled myself into the blanket with her, trying to keep in as much heat as possible.

     “What is your name?” I asked the man.

     “Oh, I’m Greg.”

     “Kip and Anka,” I said with a smile, extending my hand so that he could greet me.

     “Anka is a great storyteller. Maybe she can tell us a story once she starts to get a little bit more aware, I told Greg.

     “That would be great,” he said. “I am sure that you have stories of your own though don’t you?”

     I looked up at the ceiling like I always did when I didn’t know what to say or was trying to avoid someone. I thought it made me look like I was thinking and no one wants to bother someone who is deep in thought.

     “Well, I can tell you a story about one summer I had on long island.”

     “Oh, that’s great. I love that place so much and I used to go there almost every summer myself when I was still at home.”

     “It really is a great place. So, I guess I will just start at the beginning then.”

     “Go right ahead Greg said, looking over at Anka who was moaning and just starting to open her eyes every once in a while to look up at us.

     When I was about 16 years old and my parents were going to Long Island for vacation all the time, I began to get a little bored of the place. We had been staying in the same beach house from the 1930’s since I could remember, and I wished that we could stay somewhere else and travel somewhere else. 

     We were one of the richest families in Boston at the time and could afford to take an entire summer off just to sit at the beach and do absolutely nothing while the rest of the country dealt with the fallout from the Great Depression. It had affected us in that we didn’t have as much money as before, but we still had way too much, I thought. My father was almost always working and because of that I hardly ever got to spend time with him. My mother had more time for me but there were still occasions where she needed to go to a fund raiser or luncheon and I had to stay with a babysitter or for the most part, a nanny.

     That summer though, I was finally old enough to stay at the beach house by myself if my parents wanted to go out somewhere else on the island or even if they wanted to leave and have me stay there until the end of the summer. During that summer, they left to go home to Boston to finish up some more work while they left me at the house on Long Island with my Aunt Lisa who at the time was in her 40’s.

     Every day I sat out on the hot sand, soaking up the sun and every once in a while turning over so that I could dig for shells in the sand right in front of me. There weren’t a lot but it didn’t matter. It was something to do to pass the time and I took full advantage of it. I found pink shells, white shells, and my favorite: the blue shells that had a tint of purple and gray too them. They seemed so deep and rich. I understood why royalty used to use the color so much in their clothes and the things around them to show off their status.

     My aunt would come out every once in a while to check on me.

     “Kip, what are you doing digging in the sand like that? she asked one hot afternoon as she sat down on the sand next to me. “Isn’t the sand hot and burning you?”

     “Well, once I get digging to a certain depth, then it really isn’t all that hot anymore. In fact it is actually soothingly cool.”

     “Can I help you?” she asked giving me a look like she wanted to help but had nothing else to say.

     “Sure,” I said, turning back to my pile of sand and digging even deeper.

     We talked for hours about the shells and how to find them and about the beauty of the ocean, how it went on and on forever into the horizon so that sunsets looked so beautiful as they arced through the sky above the sea.

     As much as we talked and Aunt Lisa was helpful to me in surviving, I still felt lonely and wanted someone my own age that I could talk with and have long walks on the beach with too.

     On a cloudy and drizzly Saturday, I came out to the beach to see if any creatures had washed up on shore ahead of the thunderstorm that the night before had apparently churned up the sea really bad. When I scanned the shore up and down, looking for anything unusual or interesting, I stepped on something sharp and spiky. As I held my foot and turned it over to look at the bottom side for damage, I looked down and noticed that what I had stepped on was a blow fish. It was obviously in the blow up phase in the sand because its body was all bloated and it wasn’t the kind of bloating that I usually saw in dead animals that were decomposing. It looked like it was mostly hollow.

     I picked up the fish and threw it back toward the sea, but a gust caught it and blew it back behind me where moments later I heard a scream and, “watch where you throw that thing!”

     A girl in a white dress was walking behind me, one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen; dark curly hair and brown eyes that were dull but had an awesome tranquilizing affect.

     “Oh, I’m sorry about the fish,” I said, reaching over to pull the fish off of her. The spikes had attached to her hair in the same way that Velcro attaches to itself. She shook her hair out and then gave me a disgusted look.

     “You know,” she started, looking out over the ocean and then turning her attention back to me. “I have spent this whole summer trying to look for someone my age that I could talk to so that I wouldn’t be lonely anymore and then when I am finally about to introduce myself to this boy who looks interesting and nice, he throws a fish at me. I guess long island is just not my place is it?”

     “If it makes you feel any better, I have been just as lonely and wanting someone my age to talk to also.”

     “Well, that’s good because I was going to talk to you anyway, whether you told me it was okay or not.” She laughed and then patted my shoulder. “So, where are you from?”

     “Boston. My family comes here during the summers though because we have a beach house.”

     “Oh, that’s interesting. My family is from Boston too. We just moved here about 2 or 3 years ago. I really like it and I’m glad that we are here to stay.”

     “Well, I love the city and I’m glad that you enjoy it too.”

     “So, what are you doing to keep yourself occupied while you wait out the summer?” she asked.

     “Well, lately I have been digging in the sand looking for what is buried there like rocks and shells.”

     “Oh, I forgot. Apparently you also like to fish a lot, right? Or at least just throwing them around,” she scrunched up her nose and laughed at her own joke. After catching her breath she asked, “So, do you think that you can help me to dig up some of these shells. Show me your technique?”

     “Sure I can, but it’s not really all that hard. I mean, how difficult is it to pull some shells out of the ground?”

     “So, what have you gotten so far?”

     “Well, I found a shell that had a little crab living inside of it, but I am pretty sure that at this point it is definitely dead. I also found a shell that was green! Can you imagine?”

     “No,” she said. “It must have been really interesting to look at though.

     She dug her hand into the ground and pulled out a handful of shells. Some of them were white, some blue, and right in the middle was a huge shell almost the size of her hand that was green.

     “Wow. First time,” I said, impressed with her lucky find.

     She grinned at me and then went back to digging, ignoring me for the rest of the afternoon until she left to go back home with her shells filling a pail full of soapy water so that she could clean them when she got there.   

     That night I lay in bed trying to go to sleep but all I could think about was the day that this girl and I had spent together. I had never enjoyed someone else’s company so much and it was comforting to know that I was not alone on this wide stretch of beach. I heard the waves crashing on the shore. The tide coming in and pulling out as the night went on. Soon, when the sound of the waves and seagulls was too much and I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep at all that night. I pulled on some slippers and made my way out onto the sand where the wind was picking up, making the whole area hazy. I looked up and down the beach, taking note of all the rich houses and shacks in between where people spent their summers. The girl I had met the day before was standing in the kitchen window with the light on and I snuck over beneath the house to get a look at her.  

     She sang as she washed wine glasses in the sink. She was swaying back in forth with the music on the radio, her skirt swaying back and forth and her curls bouncing up and down when a wine glass came flying across the room and shattered against the window above the sink.

     She immediately sank down to the floor crying with her head in her hands, not to hide her tears but to protect herself. A stout man in his pajamas came into the kitchen and pulled her up by her hair, screaming into her face, “I can’t fucking sleep! Turn it down like I said or you are going to be hurting really bad by tomorrow morning.”

     I turned away focusing on a crab scuttling across the sand to distract myself from what I had just witnessed. When I thought it was over as she stood up and went back to washing the glasses, he came up behind her and grabbed her jaw. She gritted her teeth but when he started to kiss her neck she closed her eyes and shut her mouth.

     I couldn’t watch anymore so as the scene unfolded before I decided to stop it. I picked up a piece of wood that had drifted ashore and heaved it as hard as I could against the glass. The window shattered into a million pieces that glittered and rain down out of the night sky into the house and down onto the sand. I made my escape up under the supports of the house as the man came running out onto the back porch. 

     “Who’s there?” he yelled out into the foreboding darkness. “Come on, show me who you are before I have to come out there with my gun!”

     I creeped along the pilings and around to the side of the house and into the dunes as he came running down the porch steps and onto the beach clumsily in his slippers. The wind was to my advantage that night for it blew the grasses back and forth, making enough noise and a solid enough wall to shield me from this violent man.

     He pointed his handgun toward the place where I had been just moments before under the house and after a few seconds he shot into one of the wooden supports. 

     “You hear that?” he asked. “That could be you, so you had better come out before that happens.”

     I finally had enough time to make my way through the brush over to my house where I quietly tiptoed up the stairs and came in through the front door. After about ten minutes as I stood in the dim light of the living room looking out the window to the house next door, I saw him turn around cursing to himself to go back out into the house.

     I didn’t know if what I did that night was any help to the girl or if I had just paused this man for a short amount of time before he went back into to start the fight anew. What I did was stupid and impulsive but if anyone would have asked me that night, I would have told them that I had no other option. 

     I made my way back up the stairs and then turned out the light in the hallway before tiptoeing back into bed. I hadn’t cried in a long time but as I lay there in the dark imagining the glass hitting the window and the girl sinking to the floor in anguish and fear, hot tears started rolling down my cheeks.

     The next morning as my aunt and I sat down to breakfast, I picked at my eggs and took only a couple of sips of my milk before staring blankly out the window into the ocean. 

     “What’s with you, kid?” she asked as she put the big jug of milk back in to our new sparkling white refrigerator. “Did that girl tell you that you look like a rat or something?”

     I wiped a swath of fresh milk off my upper lip and looked back at her shoving my hands into my pockets meekly and shook my head.  

     “No, it was just a long night. I didn’t get much sleep,” I replied, trying to avoid having to divulge information about the terrible night before.

     “Oh,” she said, closing the refrigerator door and walking into the living room to grab the keys to the car. “Well, I’m going to the store and then to a friend’s house just a few miles up the beach from here. If you need anything you know her number and how to get her through the operator and all that stuff right?”

     “Of course,” I said, getting up from the table and moving toward the back door to the porch.

     I closed the door behind me and walked down the steps onto the beach as I was assaulted by a fresh salt water breeze. Again the beach was hazy with the particles of airborne sand floating around in the air. I noticed that as I descended the stairs out onto the beach, the girl next door was closing the back door to her house quietly as she inconspicuously escaped her nightmare of a family.

     I began walked up the beach toward her house and without even acknowledging each other with a glance we linked arms and slowed our pace.

     After about twenty minutes of walking without either one of us saying a word, she finally looked at me with the most pained look I had ever seen in my life and told me, “my uncle says that we have to leave tomorrow. I just wanted you to know so that we could say goodbye I guess.”

     I nodded my head without looking over at her and then started gently kicking at the sand to avoid the awkward silence and stillness that stood between us.

     “You know,” I said, finally looking her in the eye, “I think I’ve really come to love you so if you need anything here is my address.” I took out a small notebook that I had carried ever since I got it for Christmas when I was ten. I wrote down the address for our home in Boston and then handed her the slip of paper which made a loud fluttering noise as it flapped in the wind.

     I took her hands in mine and looked up into her still brown eyes. She was crying so that her eyes were wet, but not enough that tears were running down her cheeks. I shook her hands and then hesitantly released my grip to let her go. She nodded appreciatively at me for taking the first step and then walked back up to her house, her skirt flapping in the wind. Before we parted she had given me a piece of paper with her name and address. We said that we would meet again, but we never did.

     Anka looked up at me from where she was now sitting next to the fireplace. The sun was starting to go down and the sky outside the window stretched from a dark gray-blue to bright oranges and pinks. Then I had a thought as I sat up. I grabbed Anka, who was still drowsy and shivering and pulled her along with me as I hailed a cab. We waited for a long time before one came and Anka was getting irritated. 

     As we sat in the back seat of the cab she looked at me and said frankly, “what are you doing and where are we going?”

     I pulled a slip of paper with the girls address whom I had met so many summers ago on long island out of my wallet and pointed at it. “We’re going there I said.”

     She looked at me with a skeptical glance and then fell into my lap as the taxi driver made a sharp turn to the left. The cab bounced along the roadway and every once in a while slid almost out of control on the ice and packed down snow that had been gradually melting over the past week. The driver was going too fast and I was afraid that at some point he was going to lose control and then we would be done for.

     We passed row after row of townhouses before stopping at a red one with two large and gnarled elm trees on either side of it. I pulled the door open and escorted Anka out, who was still having trouble catching her breath at that point. As the cab pulled away we climbed the steps together and I knocked on the door.

     “What are you doing? Are you insane?” Anka asked as a woman’s shadow was seen just inside while the locks to the front door were clicked open.

     The door swung open and Anka stood staring into this woman’s eyes. The still brown eyes and tight brown curls had not changed at all since I had seen her that last time on the beach, walking solemnly away from me.

     Anka walked right up and she and the woman embraced. Anka started shaking and crying and buried her head into the woman’s shoulder. Anka them looked up and wiping the tears out her eyes said, “Mina, you never made a sound when they took you away from us.”

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