Bike almost clips her as she crosses the street. Bike passes without slowing down. “Watch where you’re going next time,” I yell after it.
“She should’ve been watching out for me,” cyclist yells back.
Ann’s turned around to me, shoulders humped as if to say how dumb she was not to see the bike, waves, goes. I watch her from behind. She’s got an Ace bandage around her right calf. Maybe it goes all the way up to her thigh. As a support I suppose because of the weight of the baby or leg veins or reasons I know nothing about. Continues to walk. Her hair flops. Her shoes are flat. Her dress is black, shirt blue. It isn’t a dress but something like a pinafore or whatever it’s called with two straps over the shoulder that button right on top of the shoulder knobs and very loose over her body, also because of the baby perhaps, black probably because of the baby too. So she won’t look that pregnant, so the bulge won’t show that much. It worked. She walks. Is so pretty. Voice face smile niceness kindness lovingness warmth. I picture her coming home to me. Standing there on the sidewalk my eyes still following her, I do. I’m writing. She puts a key in the lock, then the next. I hear her and run to the door. My room would have to be somewhere near the front on the first floor. I open the door same time she does, key still in the lock. She laughs. She might say “You almost pulled my arm off.” “I wouldn’t do that,” I’d say, “I love that hand and arm too much.” All of this is too much perhaps but I’d say it, I’ve said it, and kiss that hand and maybe go right up her arm with my lips and take the key out of the lock for her and give it to her and then kiss her neck and mouth. I’d hold and hug her. Maybe not too hard because of the bulge. It’d be our apartment alone and I might say to her then “Let’s go to bed.” She might even agree. Seemed like nothing pressing for her now, probably not a workday. She didn’t have any packages when I met her so she wouldn’t, if she doesn’t pick up any on the way home, have anything to put down. I could even lift her up and carry her but that might scare her so I don’t think I would. Later she might say or before we get to bed that she met someone I know on the street. I’d say “Who?” and she’d say “You. I said I’d give you your regards. No, you said to give your best and I said I’d tell you I saw you on the street.”
NAMES
Finally I become depressed by her. I walk around the room. I lie in bed. I try and read. I try to sleep. I look in the refrigerator. I open the bread box. I drink. I go outside. I walk the streets. I look in the apartment windows. I look at the store windows. I go to a movie. I leave the movie halfway through. Maybe quarter way through. I go to a bar. I sit and order a drink. I stand and set my beer down and go to the washroom though I don’t have to. I go because I want to walk through the crowded bar. I want someone to say hello. “Hey, how are you, what’s doing?” I want someone to say. Or someone who doesn’t know me but wants to speak. But no one says anything to me or looks at me as if they want me to speak. I take a pee anyway. I return to my stool at the bar. It’s taken. “That’s all right,” I say when the person who’s sitting there stands and says “I’m sorry, this yours?” The person insists. I say “Really, I don’t mind standing. I like to stand.” “Great then, for I want to sit,” the person says. The person gets her wine. She lifts the glass. I watch her drink. Watch her set down the glass and poke through her pocketbook for what? Cigarettes? A tissue? Or both? She pulls out a book. “No, that’s silly,” her expression seems to say, “reading in a bar.” The book’s a paperback. She slips it back into her pocketbook. Not her pocketbook. Her handbag. And the book’s a pocketbook. Not a paperback. There’s a difference. Or there once was. Or at least to me there once was and still is while to many people those two kinds of books might be and always have been the same. She looks at herself in the mirror facing the bar. The whole place is a bar but I’m speaking of the bar the people on the stools are sitting at. She has dark hair. Black. Dark eyes. Maybe black. Long body. Not long legs. Long body on top. Sort of short legs. Heavy legs. Big feet. Big for such short legs I mean. She looks at herself in the mirror again and sees me looking at her. She smiles. I smile. All in the mirror. She turns to me. “You caught me,” she says. “And you caught me catching you,” I say. “And you caught me catching you catching me,” she says. “And you caught—” “No, where I said it is where it ends,” she says. I think about that “No need to think about it,” she says. “Anyway, hey, how are you, what’s doing?” I say. “Hi.” “Hello. My name’s Rip and this is my hand.” We shake. “Is your name really Rip?” she says. “No, it’s Kip.” “With a K or a C?” “K as in Kip.” “Kip’s kind of a strange name for a man, though less strange than it would be with a C.” “Actually my name’s Tip.” “Tip’s an even stranger name than Kip with a K and much stranger than Rip, though Rip’s the most potentially menacing name of the three.” “My name’s really Lip,” I say. “Now Lip I like. A bit more sensual than Tip and much stranger and more sensual than Rip or Kip. But that the end of your names?” “No — Nip.” “Nip’s not as strange as Lip, though it is the most appropriate name of them all for this bar.” “My name’s really Zip.” “Quickest of the ips, Zip, even if its number of letters is the same.” “Whip’s my name,” I say. “Spelled with an H or without?” “With.” “Then Whip’s your most potentially menacing name so far and also the longest of them all ending with ip.” “No, my name’s Pip.” “Pip of a name Pip, but what really is your name as long as we’re speaking of it? Let’s skip Skip and I don’t flip over Flip and I doubt if it’s Drip.” “Sip.” “As appropriate for this place as Nip or Clip, though I don’t think it’s your real name.” “My real name is.” “Yes?” “Is.” “Yes, what is your name, sir, please tell me your name?” “What’s yours?” “Darlene.” “Hello, Darlene.” “Hi, Name.” We shake. “Can I buy you a drink, Darlene?” “No, but may I buy you a drink, Name?” “Yes.” “Do you come in here often, Name?” “Yes. But more often most recently, as lately I don’t have much to do late at night. Or rather, I’m a little too much by myself these days late at night. Or rather, something else.” “Spill it, Name.” “I’d like to and also to leave this place, Darlene. Would you?” “With you?” “Yes.” “No need to think about it. Lead.” “Where would you like to go?” “Let’s decide outside.”
We go outside. “It’s raining,” she says. It isn’t. “Why’d you say it’s raining when it isn’t?” I say. “Because somewhere it’s raining,” she says. “How do you know?” “I don’t.” “Then why’d you say it?” “I didn’t.” “You’re a liar, Darlene.” “I am. And you’re right. There is a possibility it isn’t raining somewhere now, and wasn’t raining when I said it was before. A very small possibility, but one nonetheless, which I guess makes me a liar. You want to stay here or walk?” “I’ve walked a lot tonight, Darlene. I’m tired.” “What do you do?” “Did I do to get tired?” “Did and do?” “I thought up and think up names for myself.” “What name did you start off with before you started thinking up names for yourself, Name?” “Is your name really Darlene, Darlene?” “My name is a mystery to me.” “And that, Darlene, is a mystery to me.” “I meant by that, Name, that it’s a mystery to me why I keep telling people my name’s a mystery to me while I’m still able to tell people my name’s Darlene.” “I like the name Darlene, though you ought to change it.” “Since you’re the name expert, Name, why don’t you change it for me?” “Change it to Darlene.” “You like Darlene?” “A little more than I like the name Darlene.” “All right, I will. From now on you call me Darlene. Now where do you want to go, Name?” “You tell me first, Darlene.” “You know, I’m beginning to like the name, Darlene. Yes. It fits.” “We can always go back to the bar,” I say. “Let’s. And it’s also a good idea because I didn’t pay for my drink or the one I never ordered for you.” “The one you were going to buy me and still plan to?” “No.”