Last Tuesday was slow for Steve but got a little slam bang there for a while at the end.
Afterward he came home to 640 Monroe with a sack of grub from Dog Town and decided to check his mail on the way up to his room.
The only thing was a blue flyer from Chase Bank down the Avenue.
Something like two hours earlier, at the end of the afternoon, he had been rushing to finish some correspondence and found, when he logged off, that he had only a half hour to make it to the P.O. down on Broad Street and post his package.
A do-able walk, he had told himself pushing through the heavy door at the foot of the stairs and going out through the one step across lobby along side those self-same mail boxes to get himself out on the street, Monroe.
And, then, whuddayuh know? there was a No. 7 bus just pulling into the curb at the corner in front of Lola's.
It wasn't there for him; he'd only just come out on the street. But he hardly had to run to catch it.
The doors opened and a passenger descended to walk off immediately and disappear. The doors closed. But he got to them just as, tapped on the glass and was admitted to ride.
It was a day warm for February, last Tuesday, even if the sky was all over gray and it would have been both wonderful and worth it to walk but, now, with this fortunate convergence of himself and a bus, a dollar fare would leave no question of his getting his package to Virginia off on time. Catching the bus was the right thing, he told himself, while No. 7 growled out into traffic and made for downtown.
Seconds later the bus was slowing again as it came up on the red light at Goodman. While they were still moving, beginning to slow down and just passing Enright's Thirst Parlor, Steve noticed out the window on the right a cop couple on stroll patrol shoulder to shoulder going the bus' direction out on the sidewalk. Without cap or coat, the two were blue straight-arrow models for a Police Academy poster this fine afternoon. He was tall and slender and she had her hair tied back and, with her hands together on her belt buckle, her shoulders squared.
The two of them were such remarkably fine young officers Steve want to comment on them. But this was a bus full of weary looking late afternoon riders and no kind of audience. All were filling their seats like sacks and staring slumber-eyed straight ahead of them to no where.
The bus, held up at the light behind other traffic, wasn't quite at the front of the Chase Bank at the corner and the young cop couple over took and passed it. The light went green just as the boy/girl patrol turned smartly in through the glass outer vestibule door in the bank's cropped off Goodman/Monroe corner where the ATM resides.
And, just at the same moment, with the bus crawling out into Goodman gaining speed, Steve saw that there were two police cruisers parked up along the curb just before the Goodman entrance to the bank's parking lot. A funny thought occurred.
"Y'don't suppose they knocked over the bank again?" he spoke out loud.
The somnolist in the first forward looking seat on the aisle managed to look around where Steve indicated. His hang down face had that patient, enduring look of all veteran bus ridding, health clinic visiting folk.
"That'd be third time this year," Steve suggested.
Something like a smile came to the traveler's face after all. An appreciative smile, Steve thought it. These days who wouldn't smile at the thought of a bank being robbed?
The ride downtown left Steve off just the other side of the Inner Loop overpass in front of the Strong Museum. Across the way the steel construction frame for the new office building going up on the corner of Woodbury was already part of the high rise sky line of the downtown City of Rochester behind and above it. The girders were that rust brown and the building frame was a huge new playground Jungle Gym appropriate for a spot across from a Museum of Play.
Steve cut across through the museum grounds. The new skating rink in front of 10 Manhattan Square was a shallow artificial pond once more in the fair for February weather. The thought occurred to him that, when the inevitable next freeze came, he'd want to come down here after dark and take in what the rink looked like with lights all around it and the magic midtown city looming above it against the night sky.
There was a line at the post office but he had come in plenty of time and his Valentine package went off to Herndon, VA, with assurances that it would arrive well before Saturday.
After, he stood out in front of the office and decided to go home by Alexander Street and Park Avenue. He was still thinking he might walk up Park and revisit Stevers candy store for a little late shopping for more local loved ones.
Instead, he turned down Rowley and came home to Monroe that way putting his shopping off to the morning when he would have letters to Penn Yan and Bloomfield ready to go. He was still, then, thinking he'd go home and make a healthful salad for his supper but, then, after he had walked home, he decided instead to walk on up to Dog Town and treat himself to Italian Sausage and an order of fries.
"That for here or to go?" he was asked.
"Go," he said.
There was a plate of home make cookies on the counter as he had hoped there might be and two looked like Oatmeal Raisin.
The Canine Commune was busy and several orders were in ahead of his for the Meth Head crew in the kitchen back of the counter to fill. The end of the counter toward the door was especially crowded with others waiting for food to go and the tables toward the front windows and the door were especially full of customers dining on dogs and burgers.
Steve was about to pass the time taking in the place's gallery of art, at least the framed photographs of dogs on the walls away the crammed front of the place when he overheard some one ask,
"Which bank is this?"
"Chase Bank, down here...."
One of the owners was standing with his back to the wall in the gap at the end of the counter along side the menu sign that describes the Town's specialty dogs.
"...Cops were through here lookin' for the guy. Asked me had I seen anybody suspicious, anybody run by here?"
The owner looked all non-plus.
"People run by here all the time," he said. And, making a further face, added, "Who don't look suspicious?"
"Whole neighborhood looks suspicious!" one of his listeners agreed and the laughter continued.
"Third time this year," Steve spoke up.
"Second time for this one guy!" he was told.
Steve was thinking about what had been said about the neighborhood.
"I was in Exxon one morning," he related. "Guy comes in there complaining to a cop having coffee that this dude talking to himself was back out there up the street again. Cop said, 'You're going to have to be more specific.'"
It got a good laugh. They were a good crowd and knew Monroe.
When Steve came home to 640 and checked his mail the only thing in his box was a blue flyer from the Chase Bank. If he opened a checking acount with them, the bank would give him a hundred dollars.
"Yeah, right!"
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
THE AVENUE PROMETHEAN
A city is mankind's forever youthful repudiation of the natural world's various impositions.
The other night the Avenue was snow wracked.
Snow fell through the streetlight. On the ground it became a still bound and turbulent lake to look at, alienating and stormy in its distortions of the familiar. Monroe's curbs and corners had become buried, all but indistinguishable in rumpled whiteness from the plowed and tire rutted asphalt; the sidewalks, endlessly stumbled though were too often deep piled and tossed about. Traffic rumpled by with its music oddly muffled, its pace just that much retarded that a resident would notice the difference.
Still it must be said for the young and foolhardly who turn out at night that they will not be denied. They will have their time. Saturday night is Saturday night and must be had for all it is worth. The bars were open. The traffic slowed but never ceased. And, out of the bars, they wandered into the street when and where they wanted in the snow and blared good naturedly back at the horns of impatient motorists. From bar to bar and to Gitsis', Mark's and even Mr. V's cart behind the bank on Goodman, they waded through the static white surf that foamed over the sidewalks and wore grins rather more than grimaces doing it unless and until their faces turned to stone.
They ate hot dogs with snow in their hair and laughed.
The traffic backed up for the light at Goodman and a van's side door opened.
"'Ey, man, you okay tonight?" I heard.
I turned with my cup of 7/Eleven coffee in hand.
"Need any money?"
"No, I'm good."
Only Monroe's ever practical panhandlers had deserted the scene early and what was a night on the Avenue without handing over the broken bills of a bar tab to some colorfully decrepit character?
"I'm good," I told them.
I went home dodging across Cornell between the cars pulling in, one after another, at the parking lot at Gitsis' and walked by the line up waiting patiently behind the barrier at the dinner door for admittance. They were hugging the plate glass, getting in under the overhang.
I crossed Wilmer to the quieter block in front of a now officially closed J. D. Oxford's and noted the same little girl standing on the corner in front of Lola's. It was well after three a.m. and I'd noticed her there more than an hour earlier watching without curiousity the young men who were drifting out of the bar in a crowd.
I stood in the doorway at 640 next to the Pub and kept her distant company. I watched the two or three late customers cramming slices and gabbing with the staff in the lighted window of Rookie's Express across the way. The blue circled sign in the window on the side of the building spelled out in red script Open over and over. And, after a while, the pizza chef with the nearly bald head wearing a logo short sleeved shirt ran a pair of boxed pies over to those drinking late in the Pub.
"That's okay. We're open to three," he said, leaving.
The Rochester Police Department cruised by on the Avenue, went up as far as Oxford Street and turned around to return.
I wondered if he had noticed what I had noticed and looked around to find the little girl gone.
The cruiser turned into Wilmer and disappeared behind Lola's. Walking down I saw him again darkly through the two cornering panes of deserted Lola's plate glass. He was pulled up in the street and, from the corner, I heard him asking the little girl her name through the lowered passenger front window. He asked her to spell that.
It was getting on toward half past. The snow fell more slowly through the streetlight and it was as though the storm had tired of trying to stop the city and its young people.
In another three hours or so my Sunday Times would be arriving.
January 11, 2009.
The other night the Avenue was snow wracked.
Snow fell through the streetlight. On the ground it became a still bound and turbulent lake to look at, alienating and stormy in its distortions of the familiar. Monroe's curbs and corners had become buried, all but indistinguishable in rumpled whiteness from the plowed and tire rutted asphalt; the sidewalks, endlessly stumbled though were too often deep piled and tossed about. Traffic rumpled by with its music oddly muffled, its pace just that much retarded that a resident would notice the difference.
Still it must be said for the young and foolhardly who turn out at night that they will not be denied. They will have their time. Saturday night is Saturday night and must be had for all it is worth. The bars were open. The traffic slowed but never ceased. And, out of the bars, they wandered into the street when and where they wanted in the snow and blared good naturedly back at the horns of impatient motorists. From bar to bar and to Gitsis', Mark's and even Mr. V's cart behind the bank on Goodman, they waded through the static white surf that foamed over the sidewalks and wore grins rather more than grimaces doing it unless and until their faces turned to stone.
They ate hot dogs with snow in their hair and laughed.
The traffic backed up for the light at Goodman and a van's side door opened.
"'Ey, man, you okay tonight?" I heard.
I turned with my cup of 7/Eleven coffee in hand.
"Need any money?"
"No, I'm good."
Only Monroe's ever practical panhandlers had deserted the scene early and what was a night on the Avenue without handing over the broken bills of a bar tab to some colorfully decrepit character?
"I'm good," I told them.
I went home dodging across Cornell between the cars pulling in, one after another, at the parking lot at Gitsis' and walked by the line up waiting patiently behind the barrier at the dinner door for admittance. They were hugging the plate glass, getting in under the overhang.
I crossed Wilmer to the quieter block in front of a now officially closed J. D. Oxford's and noted the same little girl standing on the corner in front of Lola's. It was well after three a.m. and I'd noticed her there more than an hour earlier watching without curiousity the young men who were drifting out of the bar in a crowd.
I stood in the doorway at 640 next to the Pub and kept her distant company. I watched the two or three late customers cramming slices and gabbing with the staff in the lighted window of Rookie's Express across the way. The blue circled sign in the window on the side of the building spelled out in red script Open over and over. And, after a while, the pizza chef with the nearly bald head wearing a logo short sleeved shirt ran a pair of boxed pies over to those drinking late in the Pub.
"That's okay. We're open to three," he said, leaving.
The Rochester Police Department cruised by on the Avenue, went up as far as Oxford Street and turned around to return.
I wondered if he had noticed what I had noticed and looked around to find the little girl gone.
The cruiser turned into Wilmer and disappeared behind Lola's. Walking down I saw him again darkly through the two cornering panes of deserted Lola's plate glass. He was pulled up in the street and, from the corner, I heard him asking the little girl her name through the lowered passenger front window. He asked her to spell that.
It was getting on toward half past. The snow fell more slowly through the streetlight and it was as though the storm had tired of trying to stop the city and its young people.
In another three hours or so my Sunday Times would be arriving.
January 11, 2009.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Home For the Holidays.
Gary had these wide eyes and grin that never left his face when he ran into Mark on Main Street just up from the canal bridge that morning.
It hadn't been that long that he'd been out of town and nothing had really changed.
But,
"It all feels so different," he laughed. "Everything looks the same only - I guess I'm not used to seeing it anymore, y'know?"
And Mark did, kind of.
Gary had been downstate to school and was now home for the holidays and, though the two of them hadn't really known each other that well in school, Gary seemed genuinely thrilled to have run into Mark and they went around for coffee.
Gary had gotten in the evening before. He told about coming up on the Thruway and pulling into the old town, the old neighborhood. He was out, now, he said, just to look around and couldn't get over the feeling of being somehow a stranger to it all. It was great being home but he was a day late getting back because he'd stayed on a day with friends he'd made at school so they could binge together one last time. They'd been out the night before break and decided it just hadn't been enough. They had all stayed on and did it over again.
"That was goddam special, let me tell you!"
Mark had been commuting across town to MCC and thought he would transfer eventually but wasn't sure where he'd go.
They should get together, Gary decided when they were back out on the street. They should go out somewhere, close a bar.
"Man, I just can't come down, y'know? I'm not ready yet. I need to JUICE!" he bellowed suddenly and made people stop and stare.
They planned to get together that night and go down to Monroe Ave in the city. Gary had been a few times before but never when he was on his own. Mark could, maybe, show him around.
"Gona be a blast!" Gary was certain.
They arranged to get together and agree that it would be a good night for going because it would be out ahead of the snow that everyone said was coming. When they met up that evening Craig Martin, who had been in their class as well, was with Gary. Gary was still up as before and Craig switched off to the back seat of Gary's car so Mark could sit up front for when they got off the Expressway downtown.
Craig had run into Christie Steiger earlier in the day much as Gary had run into Mark. Mark recalled her as another of that crowd. When Craig and Gary weren't recalling their old times together, Craig was on his cell in the back seat with Christie. He wanted her and her firends to make it down to the Avenue and meet up with them.
"It's early. Nothing happens before ten."
He was on the phone with her again when they left the car in the lot off Oxford Street.
"We're here...at Oxford's...on Monroe.... Come on down!... Anytime 'fore closing."
When they came out of the alley onto the street they fell in with a crowd crossing from Spike's that had gotten segmented when it tried to ignore the traffic which was heavy both ways. They all went into Oxford's Pub together.
Coming down the sidewalk, Gary had noticed that the Mark's across the way on the corner was no longer a Mark's, had become something called Rookie's Express but was still a pizza parlor.
The summer before Gary had been 'down here,' with a couple of friends, he told them over their first beers. They hadn't been able to get in anywhere then, but it was one of those summer nights and they hung around anyway. They got an old panhandling bum to buy them some beers in the corner store at the other end of the block up from Spike's and drank them in the lot between the bar and Subway. It was the lot where the bums hang out on the steps of an enclosed porch and stairs up the side of the building. Later they went for slices and sodas from Mark's, sat on the curb and watched stretch limos pull up and unload whole dozens of guys and girls in front of Oxford's.
They saw a fight nearly break out that the pub's bouncers broke up. Some faggot in these big strange glasses thought he was part of one of those crowds and kept trying to horn in with them.
"But this other guy?" Gary related, "He wasn't havin' the loser. He was going to throw down, go hands with this guy if his friends hadn't held him back. Then the bouncers shooed the dork off the block."
"Gil Farnum?" he added. "He nearly laughed his ass of the curb. Actually - off the curb. Dweeb came back up our side of the street. And he's shouting all this shit over there to the bar, y'know. Startin' things back up again. Only one of the bouncers, man. He stepped down in the street and jus' looks at the guy - and he runs off again! Jus' looks! And Gil fell over on my lap he was laughing so hard!"
"You knew Gil, right?" Gary asked, his face a mile wide with the memory.
"Freakin' Farnum!" Craig called him and pulled on his long neck.
Mark said, yeah, he remember Gil but he wasn't sure which one of that crowd Farnum had been. Maybe he was the blond wrestler who shaved his head to look more intimidating.
There was a gang from Spencerport next to them in the bar for a time. They were buying rounds for one another and, after Gary shout out how they were all from 'the Port' too - just not saying which port, they were included in on the beers.
"We were 'O5," Gary claimed.
"'04," Craig corrected him, popping peanuts and grinning.
"That's right, '04."
Gary got into a running gag with one of that crowd, the two of them sharing memories that had never happened. Perhaps they were memories of things that had happened - just not all in the same school. Some times Craig and Mark were asked to confirm a memory.
"Oh, yeah! Sure! Sure - freakin' best time I ever had!" Craig would say.
From time to time, Craig would go out on the street for a smoke and to make another of his phone calls to Christie Steiger and her lot. They were always somewhere and might be coming around to the Avenue.
Mark would go out, too. At first he would bum a smoke from who ever else was there on the sidewalk but he had never smoked that much and, after a time, even other peoples' smoke made him nauseous. He would go for a walk up the block, instead. For late in December it was a mild night, but he would shove his hands in his pockets and pull his hoodie up over his head and walk along like that. The other end of the block everything was closed and dark. One time he walked as far as the Expressway and stood out on the overpass in the middle with the lights of the traffic whizzing to him on the left and away from him on the right. There was still such a lot of traffic and the cars and trucks traveled so fast that their head lights seemed to streak toward him before disappearing beneath his left foot only to reemerge red eyed and going away beneath his right.
He was returning from one of these walks at Last Call.
Gary and the Spencerport gang were just then blundering out on to the street. There were, maybe, two dozen people out in front of Oxford's leaving the bar but not going anywhere right away. The front door of the pub was more open than closed then with everyone who was coming out or hurrying inside before it was straight up two a.m. They were doing "Teen Age Waste Land," for last song.
One of the 'Port crowd came out later than the rest. He had a slight build and curly hair and stepped around the clot of people who'd come out of the bar last ahead of him. He didn't hurry to the curb side but he walked straight there as if he needed to get where he was going.
He stood at the edge of the avenue straight up and still for a long moment waiting. At last his head bowed a bit forward and what he did was more like spitting up than the spewing that usually happens outside a bar at two in the morning.
Gary's Spencerport High classmate pointed.
"I went to school with that man!" he boasted in the same big voice he'd been using inside the bar.
With out looking around, the kid on the curb lifted his right arm in a weakened gesture of triumph and acknowledgment. When he did look around, he wore an accomplished grin and was glad to have that out of his system.
Soon different ones were piling together with their arms around one another's shoulders posing for prom night snaps and declaring their Spencerport affiliation. Gary and Craig Martin were among them.
There were cheers of,
"S-port! S-port! S-port!"
And there was laughter.
Gary grabbed both Craig and his new friend and called for the girl taking the pictures to immortalize the -
"Class of 'O4!"
Mark stood up the street and watched.
It occurred to him, and he wanted to tell it to someone, that he'd never had a real friend and didn't believe he ever would. He wanted it out in words spoken, too, that he had never been anywhere and that nothing had ever happened to him.
He wanted only to go home; but he had to wait.
THE END.
Christmas, 2008.
It hadn't been that long that he'd been out of town and nothing had really changed.
But,
"It all feels so different," he laughed. "Everything looks the same only - I guess I'm not used to seeing it anymore, y'know?"
And Mark did, kind of.
Gary had been downstate to school and was now home for the holidays and, though the two of them hadn't really known each other that well in school, Gary seemed genuinely thrilled to have run into Mark and they went around for coffee.
Gary had gotten in the evening before. He told about coming up on the Thruway and pulling into the old town, the old neighborhood. He was out, now, he said, just to look around and couldn't get over the feeling of being somehow a stranger to it all. It was great being home but he was a day late getting back because he'd stayed on a day with friends he'd made at school so they could binge together one last time. They'd been out the night before break and decided it just hadn't been enough. They had all stayed on and did it over again.
"That was goddam special, let me tell you!"
Mark had been commuting across town to MCC and thought he would transfer eventually but wasn't sure where he'd go.
They should get together, Gary decided when they were back out on the street. They should go out somewhere, close a bar.
"Man, I just can't come down, y'know? I'm not ready yet. I need to JUICE!" he bellowed suddenly and made people stop and stare.
They planned to get together that night and go down to Monroe Ave in the city. Gary had been a few times before but never when he was on his own. Mark could, maybe, show him around.
"Gona be a blast!" Gary was certain.
They arranged to get together and agree that it would be a good night for going because it would be out ahead of the snow that everyone said was coming. When they met up that evening Craig Martin, who had been in their class as well, was with Gary. Gary was still up as before and Craig switched off to the back seat of Gary's car so Mark could sit up front for when they got off the Expressway downtown.
Craig had run into Christie Steiger earlier in the day much as Gary had run into Mark. Mark recalled her as another of that crowd. When Craig and Gary weren't recalling their old times together, Craig was on his cell in the back seat with Christie. He wanted her and her firends to make it down to the Avenue and meet up with them.
"It's early. Nothing happens before ten."
He was on the phone with her again when they left the car in the lot off Oxford Street.
"We're here...at Oxford's...on Monroe.... Come on down!... Anytime 'fore closing."
When they came out of the alley onto the street they fell in with a crowd crossing from Spike's that had gotten segmented when it tried to ignore the traffic which was heavy both ways. They all went into Oxford's Pub together.
Coming down the sidewalk, Gary had noticed that the Mark's across the way on the corner was no longer a Mark's, had become something called Rookie's Express but was still a pizza parlor.
The summer before Gary had been 'down here,' with a couple of friends, he told them over their first beers. They hadn't been able to get in anywhere then, but it was one of those summer nights and they hung around anyway. They got an old panhandling bum to buy them some beers in the corner store at the other end of the block up from Spike's and drank them in the lot between the bar and Subway. It was the lot where the bums hang out on the steps of an enclosed porch and stairs up the side of the building. Later they went for slices and sodas from Mark's, sat on the curb and watched stretch limos pull up and unload whole dozens of guys and girls in front of Oxford's.
They saw a fight nearly break out that the pub's bouncers broke up. Some faggot in these big strange glasses thought he was part of one of those crowds and kept trying to horn in with them.
"But this other guy?" Gary related, "He wasn't havin' the loser. He was going to throw down, go hands with this guy if his friends hadn't held him back. Then the bouncers shooed the dork off the block."
"Gil Farnum?" he added. "He nearly laughed his ass of the curb. Actually - off the curb. Dweeb came back up our side of the street. And he's shouting all this shit over there to the bar, y'know. Startin' things back up again. Only one of the bouncers, man. He stepped down in the street and jus' looks at the guy - and he runs off again! Jus' looks! And Gil fell over on my lap he was laughing so hard!"
"You knew Gil, right?" Gary asked, his face a mile wide with the memory.
"Freakin' Farnum!" Craig called him and pulled on his long neck.
Mark said, yeah, he remember Gil but he wasn't sure which one of that crowd Farnum had been. Maybe he was the blond wrestler who shaved his head to look more intimidating.
There was a gang from Spencerport next to them in the bar for a time. They were buying rounds for one another and, after Gary shout out how they were all from 'the Port' too - just not saying which port, they were included in on the beers.
"We were 'O5," Gary claimed.
"'04," Craig corrected him, popping peanuts and grinning.
"That's right, '04."
Gary got into a running gag with one of that crowd, the two of them sharing memories that had never happened. Perhaps they were memories of things that had happened - just not all in the same school. Some times Craig and Mark were asked to confirm a memory.
"Oh, yeah! Sure! Sure - freakin' best time I ever had!" Craig would say.
From time to time, Craig would go out on the street for a smoke and to make another of his phone calls to Christie Steiger and her lot. They were always somewhere and might be coming around to the Avenue.
Mark would go out, too. At first he would bum a smoke from who ever else was there on the sidewalk but he had never smoked that much and, after a time, even other peoples' smoke made him nauseous. He would go for a walk up the block, instead. For late in December it was a mild night, but he would shove his hands in his pockets and pull his hoodie up over his head and walk along like that. The other end of the block everything was closed and dark. One time he walked as far as the Expressway and stood out on the overpass in the middle with the lights of the traffic whizzing to him on the left and away from him on the right. There was still such a lot of traffic and the cars and trucks traveled so fast that their head lights seemed to streak toward him before disappearing beneath his left foot only to reemerge red eyed and going away beneath his right.
He was returning from one of these walks at Last Call.
Gary and the Spencerport gang were just then blundering out on to the street. There were, maybe, two dozen people out in front of Oxford's leaving the bar but not going anywhere right away. The front door of the pub was more open than closed then with everyone who was coming out or hurrying inside before it was straight up two a.m. They were doing "Teen Age Waste Land," for last song.
One of the 'Port crowd came out later than the rest. He had a slight build and curly hair and stepped around the clot of people who'd come out of the bar last ahead of him. He didn't hurry to the curb side but he walked straight there as if he needed to get where he was going.
He stood at the edge of the avenue straight up and still for a long moment waiting. At last his head bowed a bit forward and what he did was more like spitting up than the spewing that usually happens outside a bar at two in the morning.
Gary's Spencerport High classmate pointed.
"I went to school with that man!" he boasted in the same big voice he'd been using inside the bar.
With out looking around, the kid on the curb lifted his right arm in a weakened gesture of triumph and acknowledgment. When he did look around, he wore an accomplished grin and was glad to have that out of his system.
Soon different ones were piling together with their arms around one another's shoulders posing for prom night snaps and declaring their Spencerport affiliation. Gary and Craig Martin were among them.
There were cheers of,
"S-port! S-port! S-port!"
And there was laughter.
Gary grabbed both Craig and his new friend and called for the girl taking the pictures to immortalize the -
"Class of 'O4!"
Mark stood up the street and watched.
It occurred to him, and he wanted to tell it to someone, that he'd never had a real friend and didn't believe he ever would. He wanted it out in words spoken, too, that he had never been anywhere and that nothing had ever happened to him.
He wanted only to go home; but he had to wait.
THE END.
Christmas, 2008.
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