PIRATES ON HIGH STREET

I’m leaning against the trunk of a cherry tree in the warm noonday sun, watching fattened blossoms parachute patiently like plump, pink paratroopers, plummeting to the battlefield of emerald green grass at my feet as I wait for Mae, my lunch date, to arrive.
I’d been working up the nerve to ask her for a kiss since sharing the whispered hiss of a nitrous tank with her during an anonymous backyard bash last week: the moon was full that night, and I saw myself drowning, reflected in the sparkling highlights of her eyes. At that moment, I would have done anything to own her love.
It was not to be. She, exhibiting both a ladylike poise and level of class I had thought lost forever in our modern world, gracefully and politely declined my offer. A phantom firefight of good manners and quiet etiquette ensued, punching my soul through and through with the hot lead of longing; each round that found its way to my heart was carefully engraved with the manifesto of her true intent. In delicate terms, she explained why we were \"...such good friends.\"
God, how I hate that phrase.
Still, I admired her style and admitted defeat with an understanding smile. Easy come, easy go. The perimeters of our relationship were now firmly defined, and I would respect them. Yet not three nights ago she knocked on my door at the witching hour and practically parked herself on my pelvis!
As we watched The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover on my battered beige couch, she rested her head on my shoulder and sighed deeply, while I assumed the lonely role of confusion; torn between wanting to cross the fine line that exists between platonic friends, but not at the risk of stomping a callous boot in the mirror-pool perfection of the moment. I wanted to be closer to her, but not at the risk of pushing her away.
I had a beautiful woman I was secretly crazy about curled up in my lap. So where was the dilemma? I twirled one of her lovely black locks absentmindedly around my index finger, fraught with indecision: incorrect interpretation of these signals meant losing one of the few friends I had, who just happened to be a genuinely brilliant and deeply engaging woman. Do I, or don’t I? Should I? Should I not? Did she? What if she didn’t? The irony was not lost on me: women love men who think, but fall for men who act.
When I looked down again, she was asleep. I put her in my bed, closed the door, and took the couch, the moment lost like cloud shapes in a summer breeze. I kick myself every time I see her now, knowing she will always be a \"what if?\" Or should I say, a \"what the fuck was I thinking?\"
Perspective must be maintained in such matters, and the advice of a friend now springs to mind. \"Each time we re-label a \'need\' as a \'want\', or eliminate it altogether, we gain a new measure of control over the physical realm.\" I console myself with this while watching a strange girl stroll confidentially down the street toward me.
This mighty Aphrodite wore a flowered sundress and leather sandals which showcased her long thighs and defined calves that rippled like a great cat on the Congo. Out of habit, I turned my head away. I found her wildly attractive, yet I felt uncomfortable staring at her. I have always found myself unable to deal with the scornful looks I seem to receive in return from that more shining species.
But this time, something made me look back at this woman, but my eyes did not stop at the surface of her trim, athletic body. Instead, I was peering at something I thought I saw beyond her bronzed skin and flowing mane. Something deeper caught my attention, like a flash in the pan, and I felt the strange tickle of deep recognition in the back of my mind; I realized I was seeing the root of a carefully hidden truth, the anima behind the scented veil of illusion. And once past this careful apparition, her true humanity would be laid bare.
I must have looked strange to passersby as I stood alone beneath that cherry tree; leaning forward so intently with crossed arms, dark glasses obscuring from view the eyes of a man seeing something he did not fully understand. With all of my being, I knew I was getting closer, and closer still to a faintly flickering grail I was not sure I should be seeing at all. But it didn’t matter now, because in another moment I would have it.
Then the moment was gone; some unseen force had snapped my concentration and derailed my train of thought. All I could salvage from that wreck was a lone piece of unmarked baggage, the guarded advice of a fellow passenger on that ruined train whom I would not meet in this world or the next. And he said:
\"Attraction is like a gun or a knife. You buy a weapon for different reasons; to defend yourself, or take something that is not rightfully yours, or most importantly, because there is something you wish to trap, something you wish to kill, and you need to draw your prey in close before you pull the trigger or expose the cold, flat threat of the blade.\"
It didn’t make much sense on its own; I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was I’d just seen when I really looked at that girl in the dress, and now she was nowhere to be seen. The sidewalk was empty again.
The wind picked up and the light began to glow a hazy gold, soft and glowing like Aztec treasure, the kind conquistadors and pirates have killed for, all of it telegraphing a summer storm on the horizon of the evening. The air was pungent with the scent of sunshine and summer rain, and something else, something I swear I have never smelled before. Water droplets began to fall, exploding with a meaty slap in the dust while others shoved the discarded blossoms farther into the grass, and I felt more alone than I did when I woke up this morning, as though something in me had changed, one step further removed from the maddening crowd.
I opened my mouth to taste the rain, breathing it in, and a gigantic bottle fly alighted on my shoulder. The buzz of the tiny wings was deafening; I could see the cobalt blues and the wild greens shimmering on its body before it buzzed again and flew away, tracing triangular patterns in the strange fire around me. A wooden pirate ship sailed down High Street, the wind billowing her tattered sails with a fluttering roar, the crow’s nest narrowly missing the stoplight before it disappeared again.
And then rain stopped, and I could see Mae approaching me with a smile. I returned it with a wave.