A walk by the river

I know that if I stay another minute in the bar, no matter my good intentions, I will ask Janet for a drink. And even if she can see right through me, I have my pride. If I will be staring into the eye of the curse of the working class, it will be in some other bar. I lift my head from the table, rise, and take my coat.

Janet is wiping the bar, facing away. I hesitate at the foot of the stairs up to the street.

The jazz combo finally breaks into melody. Clarinet. Saxophone. Drums, gently throbbing inside me. Bass walking up and down the strings that hold me up. Janet looks round and gives me a smile, her full lips crinkling into her freckled cheeks.

I struggle with the expression the music wants to put on my face, winning, fighting out a smile for Janet. I wave goodbye and climb into the moist chill of the evening.

Moist chill. I hunch my shoulders together under my coat. I know another bar nearby, across the bridge. In any case I am in a mood for a little walk along the river. Janet has posed me a mystery, a puzzle to solve, something to chew on as I walk along. One. I love my work. Two. I fall for women in trouble. Three. I can't hang onto them much after I get them out of trouble, at least the trouble I deal in.

The streets have a dark sheen of late evening dew, and mist haloes the few streetlights. My stomach rumbles, and I feel the cold on my ears. Maybe a small steak, some pie and coffee, then home. Across the river I see the lighted wrap-around window of an all night diner. I quicken my pace and walk to the bridge.

I continue to worry on the bone Janet has pointed out I have been carrying all along. Four. I still believe in true love. Five...

As I reach mid-span, the mist-blurred moon appears from behind a building downriver. I pause to lean against a steel truss and regard the constant, inconstant lady of the night, shining two-thirds of her veiled face on me. I hear a car pull up and park on the far side of the bridge. Slow footsteps echo from the opposite walkway, and a figure approaches the midpoint. A woman. She stops midway and turns her head to look up toward the moon.

I know her.

She turns away to face the rail above the river.

I know that move, that posture. But who? Is she someone I want to see again? Or never again?

She puts a foot on the lower railing and swings her other leg over.

I race across the roadway, my hands outstretched, hoping my crepe rubber soles don't slip.