David Wright

Quincy and Wells Under the criss-cross of tracks, the riveted, rusted steel arch, mid-spring sun stripes the street, threads bars through this intersection where he wheels a chair against traffic and pirouettes at the curb, just misses and blocks traders in blue or yellow jackets, women's eyes set past him, dodging messengers riding reckless to deliver cardboard tubes for men in shirt sleeves and ties. They step past the spinning aluminum chair that stops me half stride. "You got money, right?" "No." "Come on, you gotta have something you ain't using" cuts off my passing lane with a cabby's skill. "Just a transfer for the train; that's it." "Look, I need money for a goddamned place to shower, to sleep. $12.50 at one place I know. I stink. I need it." "Listen, this transfer. That's it." The limp paper pinched between fingers as proof. "What the fuck you think I'm going to do with a transfer?" "Nothing. Didn't say you could have it. Now move." He tails me through a red light, a Fed Ex van snagging his chair handle, tilting him like a fair ride. "Fuck," he yells but lands flat, clipping my heel with a hard rubber wheel, pushing me into the stairs. A conductor above calls, "Northbound. Evanston Express. Northbound." Riding away now, yelling "Cheap bastard" he draws a stare from the slight, white woman beside me. Flexed foot on the step, I pivot but he merges into bodies that swallow him whole. Hearing wheels grate and leave overhead, I stand still and firm. My skinned Achilles burns. The card slides into the machine, a silver paring knife slipped between layers of skin, first apple, then through to the palm. Five fives stick out green tongues. With twice what's needed, I follow tracks back to the corner. He may have found a winning trader whose ungrown wheat, unborn pork bellies will wheel him away from this crossroad of futures and risk. But blocks away I find him. At the Sears Tower, gliding past a line for the Skydeck. He tells a solid man from Iowa or Peoria, "I stink, but I can get a room and a shower for five bucks." The thick man pulls his thick son into him and moves to the lobby with the crowd, eager to be sucked by an elevator up and into the clouds, to say they've seen the city. "Thought you said $12.50? Here." Throw three brittle fives onto his lap. "What the fuck?" "I didn't have any. Now I do. Take it. Take it and get a goddamned shower. Get three for that much." He wheels back, makes space between us, eyes lost in the tunnel of a black ballcap. "God bless you," I spit. ********************************************** Dining Alone I wish, or wished, to desire solitude more, to feel the spices of words on my tongue when I wander woods or streets alone-- to savor their zest and tang just for the sharp, ripe, dried, or fresh power they must have even in the bottle, on the vine. But I cannot cook (or speak) for one. Alone, I pop the cardboard meal into a microwave, pull through fast food lanes or forget lunch altogether. Even wolfing burgers fills me more when I hear my daughter fuss about pickles, hear some colleague bitch and fret about his early retirement. God, to retire and have hours just to ponder what? Thoreau walked home for dinner, I suspect, when nail counting and introspection nauseated him like curdled cream. Even berries became bland, night after night. Spread me out a whole damned banquet, complete with joy and tempers. Tarragon or curry shaken with care, spilled with abandon. Even simple bread and cheese, hell, locusts dipped in the honeyed sound of someone elseÕs voice, heaped on dishes, messing up the whole kitchen without regret. Cook me up a chaotic, fragrant poem of a meal, before I starve myself on nothing more than flavor-- the garlic and the chive must stick to something, reek and sweeten breath, mingling in the air between our words. ********************************************** David Wright Aboard the last express, my intractable words gather speed, friction sparking on my lips, edges piercing my palms, then grating the skin from my heel. My own blessings hold fast to the rail and race away from his benediction, his silent, fingered "fuck you" as he pushed away to the shower he needs, pushed away to his five dollar, twelve dollar, no account room.

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