Friday Night

It was a Friday night all those years ago that he didn’t hear no. It was summer, and the cicadas were making a racket beyond the open windows. It was hot, muggy. They lived in the basement, he and his wife and their three kids. Trying to build a new home—and the money ran out. That Friday night, like so many others, the dehumidifier brayed in the corner, over by the sliding glass doors. Nothing but darkness and the reflection of the living room beyond that smudged glass. Until… those headlights ricocheted up the drive. He was home early—his wife still lipsticked and perfumed at the party, lifting a long stemmed glass, catching a glimpse of herself in her new black dress in the mirror behind the bar. She was a pretty woman.

And it is a Friday night more than thirty years later when I see him again. I have no idea tonight that I will look down and find him there, like a UPS package on the front step that I didn’t sign for and don’t recall ordering. I’m up in that snowy town in a red dress, high heels; it’s winter and I am happy. There are specials written in white chalk on a board, the pungent smell of garlic, of olives cured in virgin oil. I sit in the corner with a man, and we have been revealing our own diluted histories, driving several hours in the car to get here tonight. We sip wine and watch while we wait. The Gypsy Kings play from hidden speakers, and in this room tonight, we are all beautiful, feted people haloed in candlelight. And then she says to me, You’ll never guess who’s here…

The headlights snap off and I hear the thud of a single car door over the din of the dehumidifier. The TV is on, the volume turned low. Blueish-white images bounce along the moist concrete wall and there is the lonely sound of muted canned laughter. He steps inside, scraping the sliding glass door along the rusty track until it shuts with a click behind him. When he sees me he grins, and I stand up—the couch cushions hot and itchy against my bare legs. I tug at my shorts and wonder how I will get home when he is the only one here. He puts his hand against a chair to steady himself and then comes over and leans in close. The hair on his arms prickles my own new skin and I hope he doesn’t notice when I pull back. He's not much taller than me, but his muscles strain against the thin cotton t-shirts he wears when he picks me up on his blood-red Harley. My parents wave and go back to their lawn work as I mount the back of his bike, lifting a newly-shapen leg up over the seat and settle behind him, my hands at his waist, just above his belt. That night, he breathes heavily, stinking of too many drinks, as he struggles to unleash a plastic baggie from his front jeans pocket, his thick, short fingers working to wedge themselves into such a tight crevice… Finally he holds up the baggie, and smiles as if he has unveiled some rare precious stones. Do I want to smoke? Down a short, damp hallway, his three kids dream their muddy dreams…

And so tonight I follow her over to the banquette where six strangers are gathered. They manipulate silverware, lift stemware to their quiet mouths, chew, laugh. Cathy, she says to the gray-haired stranger, you remember my daughter Rachel. And the worn-out woman and I search each other’s faces to find what might be coaxed into memory. I remember the pretty woman in the black dress, the woman who sniffed at the moist air that night when she finally came home—but I do not recognize this old woman in the gray hair, the glasses. She smiles at me. Rachel, she says warmly, extending a thin, corrugated hand that settles in mine for a moment, and then retreats. Two of her three kids are there beside her, but I do not see memory in either face, or the faces of their spouses. It’s good to see you, I say. They tell their stories, and I smile at the strangers collected here—and then I ask the woman if they ever finished building their house. And she says, Oh God yes. Many years ago. And when we have exhausted all that, I ask if her husband is here—and she seems surprised and points to the man opposite her, his back to me, his head at my breasts as I stand there. Slowly, a withered man with white hair and the blue eyes that I remember turns around and looks up at me... He lifts an unsteady hand, which I grasp, and then I move on.

We both cough that night while we smoke—and there is danger everywhere on this summer night. It suspends itself from the ceiling, drips along each wall, wafts through the thick, moist air. Beyond the sliding glass doors our image is reflected back at me in a murky, dreamlike way. He turns the joint around and blows smoke into my open mouth, this nearly middle-aged man, and me with my new breasts, my freshly bloomed hips pressing with a certain urgency against the pockets of my shorts. He smiles a wanton smile, a demanding smile, his blue eyes trained on me… And then there’s the rough pattern of the couch cushions against my legs, my back, and the weight of him—and the sound of no, no, no like a siren that he doesn't hear…

And tonight I return to the corner where he is waiting, and sit down beside him. Lift my wine to parched lips with a steady hand. See that man over there? I ask. And he nods. From across the room, I can see the man’s back. Can see the weight of that night settled along his slumped shoulders, roosted in the folds of his neck. That pitiful old man and his memories. Hungry, biting memories…

***