the darkness inside the bar belied the reality of the outside world. it was like being stuck inside a gross, dank dungeon but whenever the door would swing open the sunlight would appear with violence, an assault on retinas that caused me to rush to lift my forearm to shield my brow, so bright for a second that it was painful.
i didn’t know the man in front of me. he was old enough to be my father, despite his shaggy grey hair and sagging skin, he exuded an air of boyishness, maybe due to his spindly limbs and lankiness; he was so thin his chest was practically concave. i know he was from oklahoma, and he spoke with the gentle nasal elocution of a lifelong southerner.
i abandoned the north and its four distinct seasons, it did not take me long to adjust to always having bare arms. i still struggled to sit up straight on the bench, smoothing the pink fabric of my skirt over my legs, never able to sit still- the nervous habits of uptight yankees, vestiges of my midwestern upbringing. i could never sink effortlessly into a chair and sip beer so relaxedly.
maybe i will develop an ease with myself once i am his age, i think, pretending to contemplate a sad pile of wilted lettuce languishing on a wrapper in front of me, the detritus from half a sandwich that i hadn’t wanted but consented to eat. he told a story about a friend who, after the dissolution of his marriage, decided the thing to aid his vitiated heart was skydiving- the account made my axons freeze up for a moment, because i too have always known the healing power of viewing the world from an airplane, being able to hold acres between your thumb and forefinger. it is the one thing that has always quelled my quivering anxiety. if you fall out of an airplane, if you can submit yourself to gravity and make your way back to solid earth alive, perhaps grief will burn off on the way down like exhaust.
i just went along with it the whole time, too brainwashed by the smell whenever he got into my car to oppose- toothpaste, soap, aftershave? this aroma of cleanliness pricked my nostrils and it made him seem more delicate to me than he ultimately was. it wasn’t safe; it was kindling. he is nothing but the most recent domino to fall- they have always made me run to the threshold of a runway, uprooting myself for days in a vain search to find another way to say what i am feeling.
i understood. i often can not stand knowing that those who have hurt me can share the same air, the same zip code, that they could know the joy of living in my hotheaded city and the smell of cedar, the sparks of sunlight that glare off of lady bird lake and the sky so constantly blue it feels like a cavernous prison sometimes. i need a different current to course through me, something to drive out these muddy iniquities. there has to be a limit. they can not all descend upon my heart ready for battle, or maybe i have to learn to manage it as a muscle.
