One Night In 2003

Sipping an Extra Pale Ale, hand pumped and served room temperature, Brian waited for Alexa.  The last time he saw her she was an eighteen year old senior and he was a sixteen year old sophomore doing his best to conceal what he assumed to be an unrequited crush.  When she strode through The Abbaye’s doorway and their eyes met for the first time in seven years, his jaw unwittingly dropped.

“Hi there!  Welcome to the neighborhood, stranger!”

“Thank you.  And hello!”  Be cool, he thought.  “It’s been ages.”

“Really, it has.”

They flashed their individual headlines: a brief summary of college life from each of them, her job working with troubled teenagers, his much-less-interesting job in accounting, and, finally, how she managed to buy a home in Northern Liberties.

“So, you been to any other bars yet?”

“No.”

“Well, this place just opened and I love it, then there’s North Third and Standard Tap and Azure who also have great food and beer lists.”  She spoke of local homeowners in the collective.  “If any of us need a contractor, we can always just go down to happy hour at Seven Hundred.  Electricians, plumbers, general handymen, they’re always there when they get off work.”

“What’s the deal with Finnegan’s Wake?”  Brian asked.

“Oh,” she frowned.  “Bad news.  Crazy-frat-party-land.  The neighborhood association fights them all the time, but apparently its owned by a group of city politicians, so they get away with whatever they want.  These kids park on all the nearby streets and then break bottles when they leave the place, scream and shout, it really sucks.  I catch them pissing on the side wall of my house all the time, in the alleyway.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the vibe here.”

She nodded.  “You said it.”

They agreed to meet for drinks again later that evening, and though Brian didn’t sense that she was any more attracted to him now than she was in high school, the slightest glimmer of hope was enough.

That night, they went to her favorite bars and he paid for the drinks.  Their conversation had that effortlessness so often felt among young, increasingly buzzed people with many friends and experiences in common.

She asked him to walk her home and though he couldn’t be sure whether it was strictly for safety or, optimistically, for a night cap at her place, the glimmer of hope was alive and well.

As they approached her house, she began, “Would you like,” but was interrupted by the sound of a bottle breaking against brick, and then loud, drunken laughter.  She turned toward the alleyway and then back at him and for the first time all night he was indecisive.  Testosterone told him to walk into the alley and confront the perpetrators, but what he really wanted was for them both to pretend they hadn’t heard the loud noise and for her to finish her sentence.  When she fell silent and just stood there, looking down at her red ballet flats, he felt compelled to act.

“Why don’t you go inside?”  He said.  “I’m just gonna see what that’s all about.”

“It’s okay,” she said.  For a moment he thought she’d suggest that they go inside together and forget the newly broken bottle, but then she continued.  “I’ll come with you.”

She stood back as he confronted two visibly drunk guys, one of whom was relieving himself on the side wall of her house.  As the first punch landed on Brian’s left cheekbone and he fired back, nose cartilage crushing beneath his fist, he knew that his chance with Alexa had come and gone.

Patty's Green Prelude

Leaves fell from the car’s roof when Patty opened the passenger door.  The lever releasing the shotgun seat had been, for a few years now, nearly impossible for his friends to budge, but he knew the trick.  He slid his chest onto the back seat and glided his hands over cigarette burns to where the cushions met, reached between them, looking for the miniature orange and blue woven wool satchel his favorite girl had given him for his birthday.

Patty proceeded to check every crevice of his ’89 Prelude’s interior, lifting the splotchily stained floor mats, removing some books and debris from beneath the front seats.  An old Doors cassette nestled within a tear in the center console, 'Waiting for the Sun,' saw its first daylight in years, but no satchel.

All hope lost, he retreated from the car and stood staring at it: bungee cords holding its back bumper in place, rear wheel missing a hubcap, scratched metallic green paint.

Resigned to visit the girl without the small pouch and its contents, he climbed into the driver’s seat through the passenger side door, just because it was already open.  He popped in the old Doors tape and listened to 'Love Street' as he drove to her apartment.

When he arrived and parked the Prelude, something unexpectedly fell to the pavement.  He looked down and there it was.  Must’ve been lodged between the door and the driver’s seat all along, he thought, smiling.  As he walked the front steps of the apartment building, he turned back toward his worn old ride.  It seemed like the car was winking at him: one headlight open and the other one shut.  For all of the vehicle’s frequent malfunctions, Patty couldn’t recall any headlight issues, but his memory may have been foggy.

(Listen to The Doors' 'Love Street' here)

Untimely

He drove up 5^th Street every day.  Often times on Saturdays, on the blocks approaching Lehigh Avenue, young girls jumped rope on the sidewalk and sang songs.  He always enjoyed seeing them play together, hearing their innocent voices.

Today he saw people dressed in black gathered outside one of the neighborhood’s many connected row homes.  Attached to and all around a telephone pole were large and small, pink and white and brown teddy bears, dolls, drawings and paintings that only could’ve been made by children.

“No.”  He said it out loud, alone in his small pickup truck.  “Please, no.”

He pulled over to the side of the road, shut the engine.  He’d seen these around the city from time to time, teddy bear vigils, as he referred to them internally, and they always made him feel sick, upset, disgusted.  Violent crimes around the city were bad enough when they involved adults.  But kids, a little girl, he didn’t even know her and yet his heart sank.  Maybe it wasn’t murder, he thought.  Could’ve been a car accident or something else but either way, she’s gone. 

I should go inside, he told himself, pay my respects.  Everyone should stop by and pay their respects, the entire city.  Everyone should do it even though nobody can bring her back.  All the love and regrets in the world won’t bring her back.

He reached for the door handle and nearly opened it, but something stopped him, a sudden realization that he’d only be trying to make himself feel better, that nobody who’d actually known the girl would want him there.  What could he say?  “Hi, I don’t know you, but I drive past your house every day, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry for your loss.”  Too weird, he decided.  Too presumptuous. 

He wiped away the beginnings of a tear and turned the ignition.  The radio came back on and a caller argued vehemently with Jon Marks and Sean Brace for the Eagles to sign Plaxico Burress.  He drove the rest of the way to work without listening.  He just imagined the young girls he’d seen last week jumping rope on the sidewalk, singing songs.