A raccoon hissed at him as he was walking home in the park. Just the other day. It was after dark, or at least close to it, as he was entering the leafy dim, the narrow pathway between the deep green grass, fenced off for the season.
He was walking at a decent clip, as was his style returning from work, plugged into his earphones, head down into his strides. But a fat hairy thing shuffled in front of him. It had the signature hunched mammalian look of a rat; the same skittering of sharp tiny paws. But it was much bigger, and there were off-white stripes across its back, down into its wire brush tail. It leapt onto the perimeter fence, and he could tell the weight, the thin wire bending as it climbed up. Peering closer, the nocturnal eyes beady and black, big gaped pupils reflecting street lamps from the avenue.
Then it hissed, angular mouth split like a cat, red wet tongue curled behind needle teeth. For a moment he stopped, frowning, wondering about rabidity, an article in the Times a few months back about morning runners assaulted by vicious raccoons.
But then the beast was over, hopping down into the dewy green, nestled with a blanket of fresh dead leaves, slick with the morning's downpour. It joined a companion, near invisible, seeping into the stealth of nocturnal predators.
He moved on.
Just the other day a homeless woman approached him, begging for pennies, food, leftover Halloween candy. He could tell she was legitimate from her look of desperation. She was wearing a filthy white t-shirt, too large, dangling to the knees of her ragged jeans. A bag lady, carrying all assortment of plastic and shopping satchels, a crusty McDonalds happy meal box pried open for donations.
It was on the train in the evening, a weekday, packed with suits. They ignored her. She spoke timidly, waiting for the car doors to ding shut, not the booming salesman pitch of a certified hustler. Someone with genuine needs, the deep soaking pain in the gut of hunger. Or worse.
He gave her nothing.
He got drunk alone in his apartment watching stupid internet videos. Just the other day. Returning from work, stripping off the shirt, sweaty beneath his heavy backpack, changing into jeans. Cracking a can of beer, propping down in front of the LCD monitor, navigating the web lazily with a loose mouse grip.
He finally dozed off hours later. Some video of a bmx stunt gone wrong on repeat. Buzz gone, the light from in the windows across the way finally dead, the night a cloudy starless dark.
He wonders what all these things mean. Banal. Mundane events that replay in his head. Things that should have seeped into the unmemorable ether of the past. But somehow regurgitated.
He focuses on the physical. The chores of the weekend, taking down the seeping trash bags, folding the laundry, doing the bed. Restocking the cans of beer. Paying the bills. But when he's done he sits in his chair and stares at the screen and watches football teams collide in the crisp afternoon. He wishes for snow, for some sort of storm to wipe away the dwindling decay. Ennui.
She left for the final time. Walked out with her jacket over her shoulder. Just the other day. Didn't say anything, just let the door shut on its own weight. To him, it sounded like a slam. He wanted to call and ask her about it. Determine if she was really serious. Hesitates. If she were serious the call would do nothing but make it worse. Implicate his guilt. Whatever that was. If he didn't call maybe she would forget it, long for the habits of old times. The warm blanket of the familiar. Maybe.
But probably not. It's not surprising that she's gone. He's never been much good at anything. He managed, eking by momentum of past success, the good opinion of others, lucky genetics. But overall, a solid B student. Not outstanding.
He lets his facial hair grow, strangely transfixed on a tiny blonde nub underneath his lower lip. He twists it when he gets nervous, contemplating the rough hairs. He wonders if he could ever braid them.
She always wanted him to have a smooth face. Just the other day, she bought him a new set of razors. Those expensive ones with the triple blade, advertised with Hollywood special effects.
Just the other day, shaving, watching her sit in the bathroom staring down at a plastic straw. Then jumping up, cracking her pedicure, waking the neighbors. The catalogs and mail order, Saturdays at maternity stores replacing wardrobes with sweatpants and billowing black tops. The waiting rooms of sterile OBGYN offices, flipping through glossy celebrity magazines.
That same toilet bowl stained forever red, just the other day. The blood she would not flush until he had looked and held her shaking shoulders.
The leaves are falling harder, close enough to reach out and grab. They twirl like deflating helicopters, skidding crispy on the pavement as they come to rest. Then the wind bustles into the trees and the leaves billow in heavy clouds of gold and orange, dirt brown, drifting higher against the curb, seeping into the black gutters.
The walkers around him are hunched into gray pea coats, hands in pockets, hatless hair flipping wildly in the autumn wind. When he catches their eyes, they're on the verge of tears, watery red weakness, cheeks pink.
It's hard for him to believe. The fall is almost over. Soon it will be winter, dark and cloistered, naked trees under the screaming wind.
He remembers the warm summer before all this, the happiness, fingers locked down the avenue. Making love under an open window, curtains tickling his back.
Just the other day.
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