Thank You, Abraham
Late May of 1995, I treaded the boardwalk of Ocean City alone, hollow with heartbreak, pretending to look for a job.
Ain’t no peach that pale hail from these parts, you half sang from your bench as I walked by, what you doin’, sloping around here mid-afternoon? I looked back, ashamed, through a veil of auburn hair. You chuckled. Let me guess: another Irish hot mess on the Boardwalk? You got old bones for one spring chicken, missy.
Your huge self was twice my age, as wide as the bench was long, khaki shorts, white t-shirt adhering to your skin. Before noticing me, you had been engrossed in meditative delectation, fingers tending a bucket of cheesy nachos, the biggest portion of anything I’d ever seen. How did you get there, I thought, how on earth did you get there? So large and so very hungry in front of everyone.
Hey, I said, stiffly. We talked until dark, about Ireland and Mississippi, my life as a waitress, yours as a chef, how it feels to lose love, or shatter it, how Ocean City is a fine place to be anonymous, all about Charlie Bird Parker and a little about Alanis Morissette. After my initial mortification, it was a salve to be near you. Was it that you saw me clearly, or just that you were so very at ease with being seen? For the first time I admitted what I was: heart-snarled, desolate all over.
When it got late and rowdy, you hauled yourself out of the bench, slow as a lame Labrador. Boardwalk after dark ain’t no place for a slow movin’ man like me, you said. I asked if I might walk you home. You acceded and I linked you the three blocks back to the bus stop, waited amongst the carousing crowds my own age, sat next to you for the ride, a hundred or so blocks to your apartment building.
You invited me in as a courtesy, apologizing in advance for the small size, the clutter. I declined, but kissed you then and meant it; not the kiss of lovers, but of kinship, touching something within the other that we already knew.
Slowly, from the side, I leant in to your long jowl, your smell sweet, like good suede. For so long, I had felt unbearably heavy and old, but as I rested upon you, I became a fledgling, newly aware of unused wings.
When we allowed each other to move, I stood straight, absolved from ancient weight. A tiny sound issued from you, like a baby bird, a keening. Were you sad, fearful? No. You were smiling, brimful of our moment. Enjoy yourself, sweetie, you’re younger than you think. Your thumbs stroked my cheekbones. You too, I said, you too, though I knew this was not quite true.
What saved you in the end? I dream that it was the same for us both: not food, but friendship, your great appetite for that other ferocious fuel.
Jay Kelly is a writer of short fiction and non-fiction based in Dublin.
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