The fog was thick and intense as he walked north along the rain-slicked, empty 49th Avenue, approaching Steele Street. His hands were freezing, jammed deep into his coat pockets. Thick brown workmen’s jacket, the padded fur hood over his head. Thick beard, that one two-inch-long angry hair poking out from his lip like a needy child, always reminding him it was there.
At Steele he stopped. The sun was just rising. It was a little past six am. Blue sky to the east, bulbous gray clouds above. He coughed into his jacket arm. He cleared his throat. Cold crept into his body. Jeans, no long johns, the jacket, just a T-shirt under that. It couldn’t have been above 30 degrees. He saw frost everywhere around him. Early February.
Steele was lonely, rain-slicked and empty. Goddamn it, he mumbled under his icy breath. His whole body shivered. He felt his half-empty pack of Camels in his left jacket pocket. He desperately wanted a cigarette. But he needed to move. Movement was the best thing. Get the blood traveling. Warmth; he needed warmth.
Carefully, glancing both ways, he crossed Steele. In the distance, up on the hill above Caesar Chavez, he saw an old rickety red pickup truck, janky, even from here making loud mechanical jangling noises he could hear.
He walked across the road and headed further along 49th. He was back in the suburbs. The sidewalk wrapped round to the right, towards Reed College, and he followed that. As the sun slowly rose he felt a little better. Why had she done it, anyway? What was her problem? So what if he stumbled home at 4am, still drunk from being at the bar?
Amazingly, he didn’t feel hungover. Well, that wasn’t actually surprising: He was still a little drunk. Out again with Luke and his buddies. The bar downtown. Total decrepit dive. A fucking ghost-town in downtown Portland now, ever since Covid. Zombie apocalypse; homeless people shooting up and shitting right in the street.
And then there was the girl. What was her name? Jeannete. He hadn’t known a girl with a name like that since he was in grade school. It was an uncommon name in contemporary times. But that had been her name. He was at the bar getting the boys another round. Maybe twenty-five people in the whole tiny, shitty bar. Neon sign outside. Long oak laminated bar, sticky from spilled beer. Warm in there, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61, Revisited playing medium-volume in the place, which he liked. He loved every song on that album. At the moment he met her the second half of Like a Rolling Stone was playing. He knew all the lyrics.
The woman sidled up to him at the bar as he waited for his drinks. They eyed each other playfully, awkwardly a few times. She giggled lightly, blushing, looking away. He smiled and stared at her unabashedly for a moment and then faced the mirror behind the bar. He was always bad at this. Plus he had a girlfriend, Ranna, at home, a mile away.
He cleared his throat and then the woman next to him said, “Big Dylan fan?”
He grinned. “Yes. Massive. Ever since I was a kid.”
She laughed flirtatiously and said, nodding, “Me too. Poet. The poet. Of the 60s. Like, our parents’ generation.”
“That’s right.”
Just then the bartender came with his four beers, setting down the pints of Guinness. He lifted one pint and took a long, deep pull. M-m-m. Delicious.
“Wow, you were thirsty,” she said, smiling.
She had dark hair, a pale round face, and wore jeans and brown Ugg boots. She looked vaguely like Christina Ricci.
He suppressed a burp. The bartender asked her what she wanted.
“Gin and tonic,” she said. “Two.”
“Are you an alcoholic or something?” he said, joking. “Two for just you, huh?”
“Oh no, I’m here with my friend. A girl,” she quickly added, blushing again but this time maintaining eye contact with him.
“I’m James,” he said, extending a hand.
“Jeannete.”
“You come here often?” he said, glugging again from his pint. He slammed the empty, froth-flecked pint down on the laminated bar and took another pint, meant for his buddies, and sipped.
“First time. You?”
“I’m a regular. Barfly. Always here.”
At the same time they both glanced at the cracked, ancient mirror behind the bar and saw themselves, standing side by side, nervously facing straight ahead, wide-eyed at seeming their own uncomfortable reflections.
She seemed like she wanted to say something else but then didn’t. The bartender set the two drinks down. She thanked him, tipped him with a few filthy, semi-balled up dollar bills, eyed James and said, “Well, nice to chat,” snatched the two drinks and sashayed off.
James watched her ass shift sexily left and right in the tight jeans as she walked. She went to a corner table and set the drinks down; across from her was an older woman, blond, overweight, who immediately started talking to Jeannete. A beat or two passed and he saw them speaking but couldn’t hear a word—Queen Jane Approximately was now playing on the stereo—and then suddenly Jeannete looked backward over her shoulder and jerked her head at James. He smiled. She seemed embarrassed. The friend followed her gaze, saw him, and quickly looked away. They both nodded at each other mysteriously.
~
Now, back in the cold of reality, 6:17am, James entered onto Reed College property, the gorgeous brick buildings that seemed to be from the 18th century (they reminded him of Philly and Boston; more New England than Pacific Northwest), the beautiful bridges leading over the wide, open creek which always made him think of backpacking in his youth. He liked these bridges. He always paused along the railing, looking down at the serene, pale green water, seeing the reflection of the lights above and some of the brick buildings in the water.
He saw the bridge now. Walking to halfway, he stopped and, after rubbing his hands together, and shaking his body in a spasm of freezing cold, he pulled his Camels out, yanked one out, stuck it between his dry, cold lips, lit it with his old purple bic, and inhaled the grotesque, lovely tobacco.
He leaned his head back, taking it all in. Yes. This was nice. He wanted another beer. Why not keep the thing going? Was twenty-eight too old to do that? He didn’t have to work today at the store anyway. Dead-end retail jobs. Selling clothing. Men’s pants, shirts and shoes. He hated it. On Hawthorne and 34th. Near Powell’s Books, the Hawthorne location.
But: For better or worse he was good at selling useless crap. Always had been. It paid the rent. He rented a little one-bedroom on Belmond and 53rd. And his girlfriend, Ranna, had moved in a month ago. They’d been together nine months, almost ten. Ranna—originally from Seattle—was a bass-playing dirty-blond rocker chick who wore a beat-up leather motorcycle jacket, was 5’2, grew up with a violent alcoholic mother and a father who split when she was five. (He took off for North Carolina with another woman.)
Ranna was broken in that fun, terrifying, delicious kind of way. Almost like a tragic literary character from some 1950s novel. A kind of female Rebel Without a Cause. James Dean in a skirt and black Chuck Taylors.
He and Ranna had met at a punk show last year. Bumped into her multiple times standing right up front at the gig. Every time they bumped he felt her fist-sized soft breasts. It made him hard and he had to pretend it didn’t. He didn’t want to seem like a freak. It was so busy at the bar that night he didn’t even drink; he was stone cold sober. They’d exchanged some glances throughout the night. Then, blind luck, he bumped right into her outside after the show. Struck up a conversation. Talked music: Punk, blues, jazz, Dylan, Generation X, Iggy Pop, etc. Some laughs. An exchange of numbers.
Now, smoking his Camel, James watched the green reflective creek, and thought of his years of solo backpacking. Just then it started to snow very gently. This made him happy but also annoyed. He wanted to go home, climb into bed, be warm and happy, feel Ranna’s skin with his hands. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. She needed time. He’d stumbled home at 4am, drunk and too happy. She found him out.
~
Last night, after Jeannette had walked away, he’d stared at the two women across the place at their table, watching them. Until the overweight friend looked up and caught him. The woman reddened a little and leaned in, whispering to Jeannette. Quickly, James averted his eyes. He faced the bar again, once more seeing his reflection in the cracked mirror. His hair, dyed jet-black. His thick, muscled arms, tattooed badly. His green eyes seeming lost at sea, stormy somehow. In these moments for some strange, unknowable reason he always felt like crying. He never understood this. But it was an impulse he’d had all his life.
He looked away, finished the second Guinness pint, ordered two more, and, with the four pints full again, walked back to his table.
“Fuck did YOU go?” Luke asked incredulously, half smiling half angry at the long wait for his beer. Luke, with his frizzy golden afro and freckled, pale arms and lean, tall torso.
Rick and Timmy laughed.
“Girl,” he said, glancing back behind him, across the room. The three men followed his gaze.
Luke smirked. “The fatty?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” James said. “The other one.”
Luke looked again. He shrugged. “All I can see is her back.”
Everyone had snagged their pints. They clinked glasses and everyone glugged like their lives depended on it.
~
Back at the bridge it became too cold. He dropped his dead, inch-long Camel into the creek and watched the tiny orange dot fizzle and die and then it slowly moved with the relaxed current. Another dead soldier. He jammed his hands back into his pockets and started back towards his place. It was his place, after all. Did she really have the right to boot him from his own apartment? It was too brutally cold out. It wouldn’t stand. Anyway, they’d have good makeup sex.
He walked back at a medium pace. Snow was whirling and falling all around him. Back at Steele Street a few scattered cars raced by. Snow was falling all over the road. He glanced back up along the hill towards Caesar Chavez.
Then he crossed.
~
That night, after pointing the women out to his buddies, they’d ordered six more rounds. By 2 am, he was drunk. Not blacked out, mind you. Not slurring. Totally in control of his faculties. But definitely not sober. Loose and warm inside, free and with a liquid soul and blurry eyes. By the time the guys actually walked out of the place it was nearly 3am. Everyone knew them and let them stay inside while they cleaned and counted the money.
Shocking him, he saw the girl standing out there, chatting with her friend. Jeannette. He couldn’t believe it. He smiled drunkenly at her. She smiled back. The guys were talking about pointless babble: Football, Luke’s Roth IRA, some older woman Rick had met, etc. Drivel he didn’t care about.
And then, around 3:15am, the boys split off. They all left. Jeannette’s friend caught a taxi. It was, finally, just the two of them. She emerged from some shadows under the tree they’d been standing by.
“I’ve been waiting for you all night,” she said. She walked slowly towards him.
“Why didn’t you come talk to me?” he asked.
“You’re the man. You’re the guy. That’s the rule, dude. A woman doesn’t make the move.”
He chuckled. “You got me there.”
She was close to him now, a foot away. His 6’1 to her 5’4.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. It was a dumb thing to say; sloppy.
“Thank you. You’re very handsome.”
“I have a girlfriend. We live together.”
“I have a boyfriend. Same.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “You thought you were the only one?”
“Touche.”
She reached for his hand and took it. Her palm was warm and moist and he immediately got hard.
“So what now, James?”
James nervously glanced around them. No one was around. The area was empty, dead silent. Even the bar employees had already left, leaving and locking the place up while he and his buddies had yakked outside.
Clearing his throat, feeling his heart thudding manically against his chest, he said, “This,” and he pulled her to him, leaned down and kissed her. Wet, open-mouthed, with lots of tongue. They made out like that for five, six minutes straight, all the sexual energy finally being released in one flood of desire.
They’d stumbled backwards and down the block aways. He had her against a brick wall. Feeling her breasts over her coat. Round, bulbous orbs of lust.
“Wait,” he said, suddenly backing up, his loins hard and angry and on fire. “I can’t. Not…this.”
“What’s wrong?” she said, out of breath, her eyes alight with intense energy.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping backwards. “I can’t.”
And, before he could say another word, he took off, jogging. He felt foolish, childish, imbecilic. But he couldn’t stop himself.
~
Now, James once more stood in front of his apartment. He was exhausted, still half drunk, and just beginning to feel the early stages of the hangover. He couldn’t just walk right in. He needed a minute to compose himself. He placed another Camel between his lips, sighed, lit up and inhaled. His apartment building was quiet. He glanced at his phone: 7am now. Alright. Alright.
~
Last night he’d unlocked the door at 4:02am. He’d run all the way home, over a mile. He was cold, drunk, sweaty and tired. Ranna was there, sitting on the couch, when he came in and flipped the light on.
“Where were you?” she said, angrily.
He swallowed, his adrenaline up. Like a fist fight. Alarm bells rolling off his eyes. “With Luke and the boys.”
She stood up, walked up to him. “You smell of perfume. I mean like very obviously smell of it.”
He shrugged. “Girls were around. It was the bar. You know, Donnigan’s?”
“You know it’s 4am on a Tuesday?”
“Yeah.”
She sniffed him again. “You reek of perfume.” She looked deeply into his eyes, searching, like an investigative reporter.
“Were you with someone? Tell me the truth, James. I’ll know if you’re lying.”
He sighed again, looked away, then faced her and said, against his better judgment (he was drunk), “We just made out for a moment. That’s it.”
“Get out.”
“Ranna. Wait. Please. Hold on. Give me a—”
“GET. THE. FUCK. OUT!!!” she screamed.
Palms out he raised his arms and backed away. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
He went back out into the freezing cold of 4am. He jammed his hands into his pockets.
~
Now, he opened the door to his place. He expected her to be there. He expected her to apologize for kicking him out and he’d apologize again, reasserting it was only a kiss.
But she wasn’t there. He called her name. Looked everywhere. She was gone and no trace of her. Then he spotted the sloppily written note on the kitchen counter. A surge of fear and adrenaline raced through him.
He walked into the kitchen. He pulled his jacket off and slid it onto the counter. He turned the heat up to 80. He started water for coffee. And then he picked up the note.
James,
You blew it. I don’t trust you. It’s over.
He set the note back down on the counter. He sat down at the table in the adjoining room. As the coffee brewed he started crying.
What was he doing with his life?