4 Roads out of Wakefield

He was driving down Route 460, the long leg of the widest road headed southeast out of Petersburg, where the dark path of the evening was interrupted occasionally by a few deep southern small towns...Disputanta...Waverly...part of the three cities named by General Mahone that included Wakefield which was his marker tonight...his last place to arrive.

It was the first weekend of fall, the evening still struggling to let go of summer.  Warm ocean-tinted air flew into the windows and he kept the windows down...and the radio up, blaring Amos Lee on a satellite radio station.  She was interwoven into his thoughts as deeply as the humidity clogged the air, impossible to separate and irresistible to worry.

A smattering of headlights from the opposing way illuminated now and again...but mostly he had the road alone to himself.

He was driving to apologize.

To walk up to her, perhaps reach out and grab a hand...maybe both...and just utter his repentance.

Pluck words and more words like slivers stuck in her heart and extract them...one by one.  Set them aside and burn them later.  Kiss the little holes they left and stop any bleeding. 

He pushed the car a little faster.

Wakefield straddles 460 in an almost pentagon shaped county way, with route 603 heading due south towards the Big Woods Wildlife area...and routes 603 and 617 heading north towards the James River.  He had never spent enough time down there to truly drive around and notice the names and the numbers...but 460 had always kept him company. 

Well...she did too.

She was as uncomplicated as the tides on the James River...she came, she went...she moved when the moon was closer...but she sometimes kept him in her shallows...not really allowing him to plumb her depths that he knew were there...as deep as the drop off as the ledge when the James met the Atlantic out past Hampton.

Lights from a far off ship...that's what he sometimes called her.  He knew she was there, far...and he could detect the faintest sign...

But unlike the horizontal metals of an ocean-bound freighter she was more nuanced with curves and angles, she shimmered like the thousand-dimes ocean top, she laughed in a deeply southern silk, and she let her bourbon-colored eyes get him drunk with infatuation. 

Smitten.  It was a good word...and as a few night bugs painted his windshield, drawn by the stark illumination of his headlights he vaguely empathized as he knew what it was like to chase such bright and beautiful objects.

He sliced through the evening wondering what she was doing...what she was wearing...he had called her and told her he was coming...she had been neutral...a Switzerland in this deep state of Virginia this evening. 

It was like he had hit his thumb with a hammer...it was a miscue.  A misstep.  He had worked all his life to master words with his mouth and his pen...and he wielded them at times like a razor.  Carelessly. 

And he had cut her.

He hoped not too deeply.  Not too scarring.  But enough to draw blood, maybe more than when a splinter gets pulled out roughly.

He simply hoped that his rough hewn words could be soothed over....generally the way she had soothed his own tiny spurs. 

The air smelled faintly of a dinner and he realized he was coming upon the diner at the edge of Wakefield...a parking lot filled with comfort food seekers and people content in an evening with each other.

He knew her place was coming up in a bit and shifted in his seat. 

He hoped he could content her this evening just as well.

The Sway

He loved watching her walk.

Quite often he was more punctual than her...and she was often quite late...but that was okay because he could find a vantage point, a view...a perch to allow himself one of the great gaits he had ever seen.

Her walking towards him was like a sunrise...a golden moment that was filled with possibilities and warmth...a stolen, delicate and fleeting time that took her from her distance to him.  It was a movie, with those old black and white still photos that you flipped in your hand and the character moved in stop-motion...Her walk to him was the first sounds of a favorite song...one memorized for years...permanent imprint...you moved your mouth to the words unconsciously...like the way his mouth moved anticipating her song on his lips.

Her hips swayed like a girl in a Tom Petty song...she clearly had movement...like a fingerprint to him that was so unique to her...he could see it in his sleep if lucky enough...one time at an airport a sign had kept him from any angle above her shoulders and he knew it was her walking towards him.  It was that ingrained...primeval...pure and maybe even reincarnate. 

It was subtle...slight...just enough movement to be noticeable to someone paying enough attention...it was catwalk sure and comfortable in her own skin...whether in heels or flats...tall or taller...and he loved it mostly when she arrived and the first thing she did was remove her shoes. 

It wasn't the last thing removed, but the shoes tended to be the very first.

Her walk towards was foreplay...her walk away was depression. 

He hated watching her go, for a billion reasons...but if nothing else he did get to watch her walk...even if going away for him for a bit.

It just meant she would be walking towards him next time.

Lazy Sunday

Later in that day they were slicing through the green waters in a kayak, and with only one paddle he was doing most of the work but the tide was coming in so it was an easy plow...the salt air was warm and there was a gathering of darkening clouds looming but no thunder yet...an evening storm would be the perfect coda to the day.

Earlier than that they were at the beach bar, a kitschy open-air place with hardly any variety but they had margaritas in plastic white cups, the rims lined with heavy salt.  She had tried the ceviche and loved it....he mostly ate the chips and what the natives passed around as salsa.  But the beach was nearly deserted and for a few moments it felt like it was their island...their views, the breezes and the scent of the bloom of the flowers in the trees surrounding the property.  After a couple of margaritas he knew he needed to either go kayaking or go back to bed.  She suggested the kayaking.

She let one of her hands trail in the water as they went, and he noticed her opal colored fingernail polish...it looked perfect on her...as did the red bottoms of her suit...it had moved slightly down and he saw the whiter part of her where the suit covered her normally...and the tan line was perfect...the contrast on her skin...she asked if he was looking at her ass and he had to confirm it.  She laughed and pulled up on the suit.

Even earlier she wasn't wearing a bathing suit at all.

In an evening that was a blur of words and bodies and music playing in the smaller room of the suite they had entangled and intertwined...burned the way a wick burns...the windows of the suite were open and outside there was no storm but there were winds and the scent of the evening ocean.

But that morning, upon waking, they were at different sides of the bed...in the slight movements of detecting her rousing he moved towards her...the sheets were still warm with sleep, her hair was tussled and beautiful and she still smelled slightly of perfume.  He found her arms opening and he got closer, feeling her beneath him, skin on skin...tanned and untanned parts.

Once upon each other they just laid there...even falling asleep for a little bit more.  Three hours later, after some room service in robes they were back again, just lounging in the luxury of a room with no clocks and nothing to do.

Until she suggested lunch and kayaking...and the return of clothes and others on a lazy Sunday.

The Smallest Things

Tiny, impossibly tiny billions of things...

The sun caught behind a tree like a fish in a net, the early morning still heavy in the air...

The crush of taillights on a black strip of pavement, everybody heading to other people mostly...but some possibly alone.

An elevator, empty. 

An airplane, scrapping white against the afternoon sky, the blue scribbled with fading trails of previous flights...

The first few turning leaves abandoning color to slowly crumple.

Many times it is a song...either shared or just a reminder.

Waiting in line for a sandwich...the primal need to eat...hunger.  Hunger is one that triggers many explosive thoughts...the same craving...taste-reminders...

A phone lifted to find a text...a few words in the ether that represent such a small portion of an exchange...

A mirror...time spent fixing lips and hair.

Sounds...sirens and horns...street lights...cities.

A window of an airplane, a tiny square with the world unfolding beneath...bringing me. 

A flower through a sidewalk...beauty in the incongruent...a bit of color against a pale canvass...

You...the billions of things that I see that remind me of you...