My Distant Gaze

When you’re running this fast, it’s hard to make it out, but, Cheryl’s hair is amazing. It’s a special blend of coconut and cotton and I can almost smell it. I’m faster than you thought, I’m sure. Under the right circumstances I can be persuaded to haul ass and now happens to be the right circumstances. If I didn’t have to jump this fire hydrant and run through the intersection I’d have a strong urge to turn back to talk to Cheryl. She looks cinematic. Framed by the wide-open street-facing window. Shear Joy, the hair salon her sister owns, corners Sixth and Dober and if I was worth a nickel to my name I’d be a fool to say the world didn’t revolve around Cheryl.

The street lamp glare and the sign obstruct my view as I try to check out her ass. It’s the best ass you’ve ever seen like a quarter poking off the edge of a table and she always smells clean like baby-powder. Not perfume. When she walks by you, the stream of freshness attached to her passing aura will change the color of whatever you’re looking at. Make it brighter and a hell of a lot sexier, too. All I can smell right now is the cold sting from the air and fried fish poring out of filthy vents over at Dusty’s Place. Her hands are small and firm and she’s got black “snips” as she calls ‘em, and she’s whacking away at a housewife with age-denial syndrome. Cheryl is trendsetter. I’d let her take those snips and slice my throat if it would make her happy. At the rate I’m moving, the way my heart is racing, I’d be a bled dry mess on her floor in a half an hour. All covered in loose hair and globs of dark red blood. Her sister all panicked and hysterical and shit screaming from the back room about her linoleum. I’d suffer those odds, though. Cheryl could chop me into a million pieces and spread me out over her father’s green Graft County acreage if she wanted.

Only six steps to the curb and I honestly couldn’t tell you which was moving faster my feet or the ground. Sidewalk lines mark my pace two, three at a time. Left. Right. Left. Right. At this speed, a steady rhythm wins it. The alternative is to trip, fly head first into Dober. The cars rushing on Dober have no reason to stop. If I were driving down Dober, listening to Otis, and someone wearing all black at night ran out into the street, fuck it all if I couldn’t say I might just have to smash the shit out of ‘em, as terrible as that sounds. Especially on this corner dark as tonight. Otherwise, I’d be liable for a chain reaction of unforeseen proportions. The data on swervers isn’t promising. I’ve seen it. My dad runs the emergency department at Memorial six blocks from here. An ambulance on his shift just hurried past not more than twenty seconds ago. Red lights flashing.

My lungs are hot, burning. The feeling of being squeezed is only a side effect. My arms, up, down, up, down amuse me. Each pump propels me farther faster. The whoosh of cars flying through the intersection is constant. Oddly, my eyes turn to the blue newsstand on the corner. It’s crippled and flaked. The faded cracked plastic window obscures the full headlines of the daily local paper behind it. Through a broken hole in the plastic shield I can read December. I can’t get the day or year. It must be Tuesday. Cheryl’s long days at work are on Tuesday. At other times she does what she damn well pleases. On the wide open faced window “ShearJoy” is painted in white lettering with black drop shadow. A pair of gray and black scissors underlines the salon’s name; it’s obvious the artist goofed. Behind that the natural cherry front desk and behind that Cheryl talks as she works. The modest mirror-lined walls reflect her every movement. She never looks up as she routinely cuts, then runs a comb through a long strand of dark brown, and cuts again. This time as I pass by because of the glare from the streetlight refracting off the face of the window I won’t get to see her amazing lips. Full, tipped permanently in a grin, the right level of moisture. Cheryl never seems to wear the same thing twice. Her closet must be a who’s who of celebrity fashion names. Not because she’s snobby, but because it was made for her.

My knee is holding up better than I had anticipated. In fact, as I look out across the blurring car lights, through the intersection, up Sixth, to the top of the hill I picture my legs turning like the iron coupling rods that connect to the driving wheels of a locomotive. Churning more furious by the second. My muscles, bred lean and strong, are pulsing. Cheryl’s muscles are supple, taut, and perfectly proportioned. Underneath an air-thin blouse her skin, elastic and smooth, rubs gently against her clothes. The asphalt on Dober is crushed rock and tar. The long row of cars parked at the curb runs down Dober all the way to the water. A good thirty blocks.

The sweat covering me, clinging to me has no chance to cool and dry at this pace. The moon slowly dodges patches of low-lying clouds to catch a glimpse of the streets below. The full broad disk stares unrelenting, glowing white, until a tiring fog lid shuts it out, momentarily. The slamming sound of my rushing footsteps is only loud enough for me to hear. The rest of the world is awash in it’s own soundtrack.

I make my fists tight. The streetlamp is taller than the building rented by ShearJoy and it sways slightly in the winds. Lined by mighty elm trees the neighboring buildings extend down the sidewalk following Dober to the water. The elm in front of ShearJoy has leaves that shake on their limbs like rattlers tails. All the other elms follow suit. Trash skips down the sidewalk having missed the receptacle.

Engines roar as a muscle car and a truck sweep by me blowing the hair off my face. I can still smell the exhaust, even though they’ve passed. My stride is long, steady. The meridian in the center of Dober is three left feet away. If I make it. One misstep and I got chipped teeth, staring at a bloody bumper. Or worse.

Before leaving the safety of the sidewalk I hear Cheryl’s soft confident laugh. She has an amazing sense of humor. I shut my eyes. The moon is undeterred and round. Cheryl’s eyes are greenish-blue. Her eyes, I’ve committed to memory. They change color depending on her mood. Right now they’re more green. Last week they were more blue. The rumbling of traffic rises, crescendoing; an angry herd with fire red eyes, stampeding with rubber hooves, on a freshly laid pasture of tar and crushed rock. My breathing and thought infuse. The tree leaves tremor and rattle. All I can hear now is nothing.

I open my eyes. The madness of Dober now behind me. Cheryl returns my distant gaze merely as a formality. Her eyes remain unaware of my passing presence. She strikes the lights on ShearJoy and I too push on up Sixth, up the hill, and into the night.