By Ann Kammerer
Some Saturdays I’d get restless after working all week for salespeople who never invited me to happy hour.
When the sun set, I’d load my backpack with beer and cigarettes, lace up my boots, and bundle up in a corduroy coat and black knit hat. I’d skirt down the alley to a dingy park, sit atop a splintery picnic table beneath a clouded moon, and listen to the tangle of rusted swings.
One Saturday, music pulsed from a rental house high on a hill. Lured by bright windows mirrored with silhouettes, I made my way up a set of worn stone steps.
“Who are you?” A blonde guy in a polo shirt and khakis blocked me at the door, flanked by two identical guys.
“I’m Linda,” I lied. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Like who?” he said.
“Yeah, like who?” the second said.
The third simply stared.
I didn’t answer and nudged past, the three guys muscling, grabbing my backpack.
“Hey.” A guy in flannel with dark wild hair broke through the swarm. “Leave her alone.
She’s with me.”
The three guys laughed. One pushed me toward him.
“Take her,” he said. “She stinks anyways.”
The guy in flannel took my hand.
“Let’s go.” He pulled me through a mob of people to grab a plate of snacks, then led me up a staircase to a room at the end of the hall.
“This is a lot better,” he said. “All those people are jerks.”
He swung the door open and set the chips, pretzels, and cheese on the empty plank floor. The plaster walls were bare except for a world map and a wrinkled poster of Che Guevara.
“Wanna beer?” The guy fished two Dos Equis from a Styrofoam cooler then sat down on a mattress strewn with worn paperbacks by Pablo Neruda, a Spanish phrase book, and a spiral notebook filled with scribbles.
“You can sit,” he said. “I’m not like them. I won’t touch you unless you want me to.”
I peeled off my backpack, then my coat, and lowered myself next to him.
“Thanks,” I said. “I mean, for saying you knew me.”
He leaned back, the top of his head brushing the world map, his face unshaven, his eyes speckled and hazel.
“Sure,” he said. “You looked like someone I might know.”
We shared the chips, then pretzels, not talking. He popped cheese in his mouth, then pressed a small piece to my lips.
“I bet you name’s not really Linda.” He licked his fingers and leaned in. “I’ll tell you my name if you tell me yours.”
He took off my hat and smoothed my hair, asking if it was OK.
“Sure.” I said.
He slipped off his shoes then mine.
Pressing together, we stretched the length of the mattress. We lit cigarettes and reclined on our backs, a blanket pulled to our chins, our heads propped on folded over pillows.
“I’m leaving soon,” he said. “On a motorcycle. To Mexico, maybe to Panama or wherever.”
He blew smoke rings, his jaw clicking.
“It’s good we met, I guess,” he said. “Too bad we hadn’t sooner.”
* * *
Ann Kammerer lives in Oak Park, Illinois, having relocated from her home state of Michigan. Her work has appeared in Fictive Dream, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Open Arts Forum, Thoughtful Dog, The Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies by Crow Woods Publishing and Querencia Press. She has received top honors and made the short list in several writing contests. Her debut chapbook of narrative poetry “Yesterday’s Playlist” was published by Bottlecap Press, with the collection “Beaut” forthcoming from Kelsay Books.