Hey Lady!

I was walking home from the French Quarter. Had a craving for lemonade, baguettes and raspberry sherbet, decided instant satisfaction was well worth the beautiful walk to Rouse’s at sunset.

Walking through the meandering streets, past pepto-pink stucco, worn brick and peeling paint of the wonderful old buildings, I hear, “Hey! Lady!”

I look up.

Kid of 6 or 7, emerald green Spiderman mask is crawling about the wrought iron balcony stories above me.

“Lady…” his voice softens, “you want some beads?”

I laugh. He extends a handful of faux emerald, ruby, sapphire and gold – all mine for the taking. I shake my head – I’m flattered, but no, thank you!

He shrugs, ok, but don't ya at least want some?

When I shake my head no, he looks further down Rue Chartres and calls out, hopefully, to the next passer-by, “Hey Lady! You want some beads?”

Twenty-one. We chased each other through the smokey, greasy, lethargic fair crowds, laughing and flying, heads pounding from cheap beer and hitting every adventurous/upside-down/crazy ride we could find. At the upside-down-ferris wheel, he puts a handful of pennies into the pocket of his blue Hawaiian shirt. I give him a funny look.

He laughs and grabs my hand as we squeeze behind the safety bars of the squirrel cage, we adore each other, and as we ascend to the heavens, then upside down--spinning wildly out of control--bronzed silhouettes of Abraham Lincoln shower us and the confused people below. We laugh, and laugh, and laugh…

Later we’ll accidently kiss on an island in the Puget Sound, and like best friends I’ll confide in him that I love him months later, because I honestly do. He’ll return the words months after that. But I’d already moved on—drowned myself in my new-found admiration for the words from Dunne, Milton, Cheever, Dybek, Melville (how I wondered at “The Tartarus of Maids”) Nabokov, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Byron…that essay by Ruskin blasting industrial perfectionism…a hundred others whose names I could never remember but whose words, when read, changed my thoughts forever. Walking across the UW campus, as cherry blossoms bloomed, faded, fruited for the hundredth time, and their words shaped my thoughts into something new and fantastic, dark and exciting.

When I realize he’s waiting for me -- I’m scared, cold, disconnected. Not sure what to do I fly to Germany only to return and lose him forever.