The tears were dry by the time Sadie
got inside the front door to her apartment building. She had kept her
head bowed and to one side in an attempt at the tiny dreadlocks that made up her
hair would cover the bruise she was sure must be getting worse. However, even if the noticed, nobody on the A
train seemed to care about her face, thankfully. At least not
obviously. Nobody in the city seemed to care about anything, it
seemed. At least once a week, whenever she felt down, or tired, or
the least little bit scared the city would bare it's teeth; the
panhandlers would get more aggressive, the drunk guys in suits coming
up from downtown would leer at her on the train a little harder as
she went to class. She picked up the mail, a couple days worth, from
her mailbox and did the slow march up the several flights of stairs.
The windows in the stairwell were still open even though it had
gotten colder and the pigeons seemed to have multiplied in the small
canyon made by the two adjoining buildings. The huge granite stairs
were worn, the window sills on the other side of the chainlink
screens were thick with pigeon shit. She got up the several flights
and wearily made it to her door. As usual the keys had to get wiggled
in each of the various locks, but she got inside the heavy steel
door.
The place was tiny and dusty and
smelled like food that had recently turned. There was a grey light
coming from the window that overlooked the “courtyard.” It was
cool and dim, reflected by the bricks across the way. The two pigeons
that presided ove her sill were there, one in the nest and one
beside, and were not bothered by her coming home. She went into the
tiny kitchen and fetched an ice pack from the freezer, walked back
into the living room, kicking her shoes off. She fell onto the ragged
couch and threw the mail onto the scratched up coffee table that
attended it. She put the pack to her face and let her head fall back.
She looked at the ceiling as the cold of the ice pack crept over her
face like a lacework construct built out of coldness. Her left hand
ran over the endention left by the dog that had died not more than
two months earlier. More tears, this time rolling down her temples
into her ears and into her hair. She sat there and cried and thought
about the growing wetness along the sides and back of her scalp. She
cried for a while more and then sat up, rubbing her eyes with her
shirt, picked up the mail and went through it. Utilities
threatenening cut-off as usual. There was one in a crisp white
envelope mailed from Columbia university. She threw it back down on
the table and groaned. Wiped her eyes some more and picked it up and
opened it. It was heavy with paper that she unfolded and scanned one
by one until she found the word she knew she would find: “Explusion.”
Yep she chuckled; New York was simply not working out.
She got up and crossed the room once
more, the pigeons watching her passage, she went into the bathroom,
turned on a mix of cold and hot water to wash her face. She looked at
her face, the swelling was not as bad as she thought it'd be, but her
eye would nearly be closed shut by early evening. She marveled at
the purples and dull reds that had risen to the surface, even some
yellows and even green. It was pretty, she thought and she'd made
that motherfucker work for it. She looked again at her face, her
neck, her hairline. No bruises where he grabbed her by the throat.
Her expression turned hard and she turned off the water, reached for
the scissors and started cutting the small tight dreads from her
head, letting them fall on the floor.
When she was done she had a shower.
Afterward she dried off and looked at her head again. Completely bald
now, she had gone through two razors cleaning it up in the shower,
but there was no blood. The chocolate brown skin covering her skull
shone, and she managed a grim smile.
She walked around the apartment naked
eating some lentil leftover soup she'd found in the fridge. She ate
slowly, her lips close to the paper container as she spooned it into
her mouth.
Her body rippled with small tight
muscles and she moved elegantly as the dancer she'd come to New York
to become. If the pigeons objected to her nakedness, they didn't
bring it up.
The phone rang on the small table next
to the couch. She sat and answered it. It was her mother. There were
more tears. Later, all she could remember was saying “Momma, I
messed it all up” and her mother replying “It's alright,
baby,just come on home.”
