Grey Suit Black Tie

Branched On 

I only saw one ghost in a raincoat. The rest let drops shop through them. Like moonlight through shaded windows, they snuck past the fabric in the wings. Evangeline waited on concrete steps and washed out the dust along the road with her nervous legs brushing heels against it. She pulled back, stammered to be picked up in the cold back alleyway just behind my shop, the kind that set wondering, where did the light come from?, and with chiseled view leaving a touch of memory; only the most jarring of thoughts. I meant to work through the night, twelve thousand colors split against the glassy shine of magazine print. The glare made all of it white and my eyes squint down the lids, as if that would wield them. I was there when they came for it; always a painted doll with the legs hanging out of pockets. Amazed I couldn’t catch an eye as the only breath of reality amongst the fabrication. Never could they see past tortoise shell rims taking too much of their faces, or the pounds in their pocket books, powdering up their bags. But she softened in the street, the blacks and whites not giving much to grey, with a darkened view of her sullen eyes. Her shoulders turned in as she crossed her arms between her legs.   

I stepped out, tried to draw the island, chipping shapes into a college-ruled frozen sea. I drew a line from London to the coast. She spoke soft, in her Grecian voice. Imagining the words, I heard, you will drown if you go, but I pointed on, insistent it was how we would make it. I drew two arches, one crumbling as I sketched it just outside the shore. I could already bury my head in the waves, knowing we could never break out breaths on our way to the bottom. Staying afloat with tense arms, even shaken ankles, stiff, wading through the water. She must’ve seen all this as she said her words; she took my wrist, beads jangling, no longer resting around her lean neck, and pulled me into an underground.  

Through the stations window lined ceilings, we greeted Saturday eve and watched fires fly. We saw the orange dance on table tops around us and shake off the panes built like boxes. Mirrors were the same; all stretching horizontal to catch the slits of the sky. The fire worked like chalk or meat on a grill, suddenly. Haunts in masks weaved in through the halls pushing her closer in on our huddled cheeks. She rested a head on my shoulder; blown kiss to my cold hands, her nails graced across them. You could take the train to Brightonin less than an hour, a huff and rattle on the rails. So, in flashes, the train came, black and bold, standing confident on staged center of the station. I could almost spot the smoke blown from it, steam pouring out from under its churns, not used to the still it was brought to. November steel beat off its late fall chill, the night winds tunneling towards it. She leaned up, chest out in front of her lap and muttered words under her breath. I agreed with the trembling arms, the button spine peaking in rhythm, buckling at her skin. We boarded without luggage or tip for the bagman and closed up; leaving the window shades daringly open.   

The rhythms of the track, each give, heave and jam was sectioned into our well earned sleep. From sleep before birth when our mother’s womb was the closest place to safety. We’d grab flashlights, even bats in dreary-eyed noise creaks in night blue skies but on the rush of each car cabin, we were wrapped in each sheet, each blanket, like the water of the ocean and our heads stuck just out above it. The train’s hum sounded like sonnets. When she breathed she shook and I saw the fabric, flannels patterned in the shirt, shake, flutter and tremble, but not in fear. Or was it my eyes, which flit back from the train to inhales while passing notes in class? A back turned from me and my palm clinched, each faded blue line folded in delicate motion. The heart beats audible to the room. I’d keep my wrist out as long as I had to.  We branched on, growing steadily throughout the night.

Most nights I worked ‘til I saw the sun sketching out the streets in front of me. At five I’d feel the fisherman’s glow, not yet visible to my eye, but in jolts behind it. By six I could see the light dropping gold lines more and more each time I lifted my glances into the fourth floor windows. I flipped the switch, dismissing the white, trading in for morning shadow. I put on coffee and slept while the rest of the city started. Shadowed furies dragged from bar streets, replaced by pedestrians and deliveries delivered; the scruff of the buildings just starting to shake their sorrows off to be swept up in passing. Brent arrived after three hours interrupted, giving me seconds with keys jangling to make it to the coffee pot and brush hair from my eyes. He tossed his cap on piled stacks and spread the paper. Next was Alice, clearing the streets when walking; each step stopping passers in their tracks. She closed the door with polished teeth blinding the room.  Brent send me out for deliveries that would take a train, then I’d bury myself in the back of bookstores, head down in American history sections and slept ‘til I knew they’d all left.  

We tripped off the steps, shaking the settled dust, with eyes open to the shore. We took her pointed fingers direction, up and out to the beaches. Wooden boards were crossed, darkened skies, shocking us with stars. I remembered my days as the fastest boy alive; wooden barrels set as markers and the thousand step race. Everyone looked like my opponent, but this time they stared down at me. Each stride added a fresh bruise or bandage, attributed to my quick step off the line. We walked in sand until a guard stopped us. One couldn’t stop shouting. If you want out to the West Pier, your gone hove to swim there. He pointed us to Brighton’s. We turned our heads. Twelve hundred people hovering above the water, none of them dressed for the ocean.  She started up, each foot digging in the grains. We were close enough to watch the crowd shimmer and shake at our deep apparitions. As we stepped into the gutter, we sent broken looks into the stairs. The pier looked like the barrel to our gun.

It felt like months we were lost in, twelve hundred yells spit out in front of us, just so we could see some motion. I felt forced to wiggle out each snap excitement with a rush and a push like leaning back against a couch that never lies back as it should. We walked towards the edge. Each carried cloth was dropped first to our knees then to our ankles which we quickly escaped and covered our mouths instead of out bareness. Our pale sides reflected moonlight, blue and waiting, striping our hips and connecting to the shivered waves peaking in between our lost flavored world and the unknown behind it. Even stripped, she turned her eyes and shrugged her shoulders as worried gifts she laid in front of me. I kept moving. Another eleven steps and a fence I’d clear with a skip were all between me and the water. I squinted and exhaled my plea’s and she took them in, breathing tight, and ran to the rails, grabbing the wood and throwing her legs to the side. I followed, passing her, thrown out like tiger bombs, turning in time to see her swept bangs soaked and stick to the side of her face. She choked out. I looked to the pier, crumbled in front of us and started to swim ahead. I shivered. I shook and thought that this was the most water I would ever be surrounded by; five oceans, every river falling into them. The most we ever were connected.