Accident
Even when it rains people die. They fall down dead and lie there just like rain but bigger except now I’ve left that bar, left the dance beneath the disco ball—no John Travolta white—and found a wet street and rubbernecker huddlers muttering to guess the face beneath the graceless drape of coat. An ordinary coat. Muddy on the bottom hem, lining torn—say: pockets filled with gritty crumbs, a crinkled hanky, a quarter, two dimes, a muddy half ticket for a show from a different night. When not raining, nor crying into a crinkled hanky, no need for quick forty-five cents. Maybe the show was lousy, like the rain, not impressive, deathly boring. Arms out now, splayed, a question, fingers meeting rain, reaching for an embrace, or a wave, to the truck. Surprise! But, no dance taps left, one shoe gone, legs anatomically askew. No music will move battered flesh, no murmuring from the clutch of dancers done dancing now dull from no purpose will lift her from pale distance. They huddle over the slug of mortality, the empty hands of help. No calendar pages to turn for her. Not one more beer at last call. Last call. In the bar the disc jockey has unplugged his sound. Unplugged. She too. My stepping forward makes the sound of moving water. I find the lost shoe, scuffed, the sole worn. A scent of stories she left behind, a little like mine. Not my shoe, not my coat, and don’t blame me for the rain. But I know that shoe.