600 Miles to Leadville

THE MAN, BARE-CHESTED AND BURLY , stands before a sliver of mirror affixed to the lamppost drawing a razor down his throat, the buildup of foam lather plopping off onto the sidewalk with each stroke. He nods as I walk by; customary. Zeus in tow pulls at the leash. I maintain my pace, but the dog is insistent, hanging back. Wafts of delicate Mediterranean herbs and spices: garlic, tarragon, anise, sage, coriander, smoked paprika, and sprigs of thyme, flow in and out on the man’s breath. I detect a hint of Baba Ghanoush, with sumac – 5 stars. He is clothed in brown oversized trousers, suggesting he has lost some weight, and three-quarter dove-grey dress socks in well-travelled Birkenstocks.  Deep purple and black chevron tattoos cover his arms. A crisp clean white shirt hangs drying on the coat rack. He insists he is not homeless. Although the sidewalk and this intersection cannot be considered residential. His accent is thick. Eastern European maybe. Mixed with flecks of French, Fl...

WHILE I AM REMINISING,  I’ve got one more funny story about this strange time in my life.  One night that summer, my little nutcase put on a dress of all things and came down to the grocery with me.  The dress was a musty, brown, plaid, to-the-knees number she’d gotten from a second-hand store some months earlier, and I could see as we were cutting actors the street outside our building that she was considering herself a real fashion plate or something, a grungy beauty queen.  Now, the mere presence of her blonde mop outside the quiet horrors of our dusty little pad was already an event, as it had been some time since she’d seen a face besides my angry mug and maybe Oprah’s, and what inspired her return to the world I didn’t know and didn’t care, I just wanted to get our stuff and get back home.  All we needed was some bare essentials—milk and bread and cereal and applesauce and fruit cocktail, which was the sort of things we pretty much lived on that summer, wh...

DAN LOOKED UP from his desk as the door opened, and a short, thin man dressed in black entered the department’s small library. The silence of the library wasn’t often disturbed by visitors. For some reason, Dan felt the man was a little odd. “Perhaps he’s a professor from another department?” he thought. It was 1973, and he had been working in UCL’s Department of Photogrammetry’s library and the adjacent laboratory for 15 months. His desk was in the back corner of the room. The 135-year-old building had high ceilings which allowed enough wall space for four eight-foot-tall sash windows. However, the day was overcast, and drizzle limited any sunlight filtering into the room. Not unusual for October in London. Dan had put on the overhead lights. They were too dim to do close work but gave sufficient light to peruse the oak bookcases. He had a desk lamp so that he could read his test results. The man hovered near the door and surveyed the room. He was not a young person; he wore half-moo...

THE FIRST TIME he sees her, she is plummeting to the ground, a stream of chiffon and chantilly lace. His heart leaps into his throat as he jumps from his seat gasping, arms outstretched, ready to catch her fall. The leather harnesses and ropes yank her back up and out of his reach, ricocheting like a bungy cord, depositing her high atop the wooden scaffolding. There she rests perfectly still, a shimmering blue heron overlooking a mirror lake, letting out the barest of breath while the audience, aghast, recovers theirs. The act is death-defying, mesmerizing, a tour de force. But for Eduardo, it is another matter altogether, something unimaginable. While risking life and limb, she looked at him, truly looked at him. And, she did not avert her gaze.  Now, back again, Eduardo takes his seat in the front row along the edge of the rotunda in the Grand Chapiteau.  The excitement is palpable.  The air hot and electric.  Dreamy oboe arpeggios snake and coil through the audie...

THE MANGROVE  is full of monsters. I have seen them. Once, Honor’s cousin Teale dared us to climb to the top of the nursery tree. Three-quarters of the way up, he slipped and fell into the green water. Teale swam willy-nilly toward a branch and almost made it, except this enormous mouth with ragged teeth got him and pulled him under. Honor screamed, and would not stop until her mother came and took her away. Around us, people whispered the death blessing: “Welcome this soul. May his body nourish you and his mind add to your wisdom. Amen.” That scared me. His mind added to their wisdom? Did that mean the monsters — we called them three-eyes on account of the lump on their foreheads that looks like a third eye — now knew everything Teale knew? That evening I had a nightmare about a Three-Eye that looked like Teale and called out my name. “Little twerp,” Honor said the next day. “Teale was stupid, Eezel. He was going too fast, and he went out onto that thin branch.” “But it wasn’t his...

WE WAITED  until everyone was asleep; then, we drove all night to Chicago. My mom wouldn’t know her van had disappeared until she woke at seven to get my sis ready for summer school. That first day, I worried about Sis making it to class on time, but Jenny said, “The world will go on without us.” I figured she was right. I would’ve liked to have kept going. Arizona, I guess. Maybe California. But we didn’t have the money for gas, and I figured it was best to let Jenny do the planning. She was the reason we went. I thought making the decisions might brighten her up. I never would have thought to go without her, but it’s true I didn’t like it when my mom said, “You’re spending too much time with Jenny,” or “I don’t like the way you look at her.” Sometimes my mom said nothing. When she looked at me, I got the feeling that, at fifteen, I was getting a little too big for her house. The first few days, Jenny and I stayed close to the van. Moved it from spot to spot. When we were out, we ...