A boy is waiting in a station wagon for his mother who ran into a nearby shop.
The boy feels the street is somehow off key relative to the music of the rest of the city. Within the stirrings of newspapers and plastic bags, a cough of exhaust from a passing bus unveils a vague shape of a woman among the pandemonium of torn magazines, Styrofoam cups, McDonald burger wrappers, and various other urban droppings. She is shaped by the debris of her city. She organizes and reorganizing various discarded plastic bottles and aluminum soda cans with genteel precision of a collector of fine crystal. She abruptly stops and takes out a shinny gold tube of blood-red lipstick and frantically circle and re-circle her worn lips; rebelliously crossing their chafed boundaries.
She
huddles closer to the wall of The First National Bank building as all
the people hurry past her. Wrapping her cast-off, button-less
coat tighter around her body, she scoots across the flattened
cardboard box serving as her bed; closer to the warm air flowing from
a grate venting the tunnels that meander beneath the city.
A
passing priest offers her a
steaming cup of coco. She feels it's warmth and grasps it with hands
gloved by fuzzy red socks.
“Thank
you,” she croaks with her little-used voice.
The
priest gives her a sad smile, “Bless you my poor child.” and
hurries on his way.
Taking
a careful sip of the steaming sweetness, She reaches up and pulls her
tattered wool cap farther down over her freezing ear lobes, hearing
the musical teenagers, arguing elderly, and lost lunatics scurry
through the city.
The boy's mind observes her as music apart from the bustling boulevard. Then, the crescendo...With the grace of a ballerina, she stands fully erect and tilts her chin upward. She lifts her crochet hat from her head; her long white hair cascading downward around her shoulders; all except for a few maverick strands that fly up with the city's breath. She smiles contentedly and inhales deeply.
The boy could no longer tell where She ended and he began. She was a Goddess, as lovely as any fair maiden …unassuming.
Meanwhile, people obliviously walk by this grand lady as they talk on cell phones, puff on cigarettes, push babies in strollers, and pull dogs on leashes.
The boy gets out of the car without any decision to do so. Cars peripherally crossed his path as he jaywalks across the street. Then, as if in some small bubble of time, the boy approaches her. All sounds are distant; all the city's movement suspended. He takes a five-dollar bill from his rear pocket and seats himself beside her on the flattened cardboard box. The boy somehow knows that words have no place. In tandem with his curiosity is fear. He wants to look into her eyes to see what he would feel.
In pantomime, he takes her hand and places the bill very deliberately into it. She faces him. With the hand that received his offering she replaces it into the hand that offered it as if she had done it five times a day; everyday. The boy looks at her face to show her his insistence. Her eyes are cool, not cold but cool, like watery mirrored circles reflecting all his motivations back at him. She smiles as if to signify that She is in no need.
She is regal. She is also blind. Yet, her eyes are brilliant and revealing. She is not burdened with visions of the city; of its reality. She is forever the young maiden running gleefully from castle to castle over the countryside carefully holding up the hem of her gown to make way for her ambitious bare feet.
