Dead Street

“But you said attack.”

“These days,” I said, “the courts can label any type of action an attack. A lot of big-mouth wise guys draw some time for sounding off to unprotected women.”

“Tacos protects me pretty well,” she smiled back. “The only ‘big mouth’ I’ve run into lately was a young guy who made a nasty remark...”

“How young?”

“He wasn’t some old lecher. Since I couldn’t see him I can’t describe him, but his voice told the story. Anyway, he never came by again.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I just gave him what I thought was a dirty look, only maybe he couldn’t tell with me in sunglasses.”

I made a small probe. “Mind if ask something?’

“No. We’re friends.”

“Why do you wear them? Sunglasses, I mean. Your eyes are lovely.”

She thought about that. “Sometimes I can feel the sun on my eyes — almost as if the glare is bothering me.”

“Is it?”

Her head turned and she seemed to look in the direction of my mouth. I felt like kissing her.

She said, “I don’t know.”

“Explain.”

“At the end of the day I... I think I can see a red sunset.”

“Oh?”

“The doctors said it was simply a mental reaction. I realized the time of day that it was and expected a red sunset. A sense memory.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I wanted to tell them that they were idiots. I saw something. And it was a sunset. Nothing definitive, but the colors were there. Something bright and beautiful was shining at me.”

“But what did you tell them?” I repeated.

“That I saw a sunset. They made me re-word it to I thought I saw a sunset.”

“When do you see a doctor again?”

“Never, as far as I’m concerned,” she retorted. “I am done with them. I’m blind. All they can say is there is no hope that I’ll ever get my eyesight back. So why should I bother with doctors?”

“You giving up?”

“Nope. I’m just going to make do with the best that I have.”

“And what is that?”

She thought about that, patting Taco’s head until he rubbed his big muzzle against her leg, then she said softly, “I don’t remember my past, so my present is always like living in a paper sack, and the future is all blank space.”

“That’s what you think?”

“Come on, neighbor Jack, what kind of future would I have if I hadn’t had a benefactor like my old veterinarian?” She gave me a sudden big smile and added, “How old are you, Jack?”

“I’ll never see fifty again.”

“I’m almost forty-three.”

“You’re a kid,” I said. “An infant, in this place.”

And it was as if something had stabbed her. Her head jerked in my direction and my eyes were suddenly locked into the black lenses shielding her sightless ones and a shudder touched her shoulders.

Then she took a deep breath and released what she was thinking. “What did you say?”

“I said you were a kid.”

There was a tautness to her expression, and her eyes seemed to search for me, then whatever she was looking for disappeared from her mental image and she whispered, “Strange.”

“What is?”

“Being called a kid,” she told me. “Why would I remember that?”

And then I remembered it. I used to call her “kid.” I’d hold her tight and kiss her, tasting all the sweetness that she had and we’d talk about what we’d do when she grew up.

No way would I have recounted any of those conversations to the guys at the station house. Career cops are funny people with the tightest association between partners and other cops, bonds nobody could break. But, hell, I couldn’t tell them I was wildly in love with a kid. The old-timers would have run me ragged. When Bettie disappeared in that wild abduction, the ranks closed behind me. I never let them open again.

And now here I was.

And who remembered anymore?

Somebody remembered. I could feel it! Damn it, the years were only a hiatus, a period of waiting, and now it was almost over!

Bettie said, “I have to feed Tacos. Would you like to help me?”

“You need help to feed your dog?”

“I need help to talk to my new neighbor. Your house has been empty ever since I’ve been here.”

I said “Okay, young lady....”

“You did it again.”

“What?”

“Called me a ‘young lady.’ That’s worse than ‘kid.’”

“You’re younger than me,” I said.

“Okay, no woman’s going to argue with that.”

And once again I took her hand in mine and, without realizing it, our fingers intertwined and started speaking a silent language that only special people can understand, and at the top of the stairs Bettie said, “Jack....”

“What?”

“Are you sure?”

“About what?”

Her face turned toward me and she reached up and took off her sunglasses. And there were those eyes. Hazel. Pure hazel. The brown and the green swirled in them. How she found the line of vision to mine was something I didn’t know. She was looking at me, watching me, then she let a smile touch her lips.

I snapped my fingers at the greyhound and damned if that dog didn’t smile at me. No tail-wagging, just a daggone smile.

Back in New York City my street was nearly ready for the macadam medical examiner. Nobody had to tell me. I knew the progression of the gravediggers that tore up the entrails of a city and spit them out in some abandoned area that developers would discover and build upon. What was strange was that I didn’t care any more. The city was in a state of flux, blowing up like a fat man who had once been skinny and raunchy and enterprising but now was dropping into the mire of his own wealth. He was fat now. He was going to get fatter.

Bettie said, “What are you thinking?”

“You wouldn’t want to know, doll.”

“Jack... you did it again.”

“What?”

“You... you called me ‘doll.’ “

“That’s you all over, baby,” I said.

Creases showed at the edges of her eyes and she told me, “It’s like hearing an echo. And echoes aren’t real.... Are they?”

“Something else was there first,” I said quietly. “Something real generates echoes... kid.”

She gave one of those girl shakes of the head that sent hair spilling across her face and her laugh had that Tinkerbell ring to it.

“Well, let’s give my big mutt two cans of his favorite dish and a big bowl of biscuits.”