Passenger(27)

I say, “Turkey on white. Please.”

She is watching me now from the corner of her eyes, trying to make it appear she does not see me, that I do not exist. I fight off the urge to yell boo! Then fight off the laughter that follows.

“Yes,” says the woman, stuffing the receipts down beneath the counter. “You,” she says, her familiarity with the English language economical at best, and taps a bony finger against the sandwich board behind her. But not just at the sandwich board—at the dollar sign that precedes the price. She remembers me. And I am relieved.

“Oh, yes,” I say. “Yes, yes. Sure.” I take money from the pocket of my jeans and slide it across to her on the countertop. “See? This time—yes. Sorry.”

I watch her hands make the sandwich, and there is an art to her movements. This woman might be one hundred years old, her brown, long-fingered hands looking battle-weary and arthritic, the fingernails like tiny little nubs, and she watches me—not the sandwich—throughout the entire process. To avoid her stare, I glance at a refrigerated unit housing various bottles of sodas and water and juices. Even something as simple as selecting a drink is a puzzle, an enigma. I feel myself struggling to come to a decision. Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, Sprite, 7-Up—I have tasted all these in the past. I know I have, although I don’t know when or where or with whom. But I am familiar with how each one tastes. Still, I can formulate no preference. It occurs to me that preference of taste hinges solely on memory—that we like the taste of one thing over another because of what we subconsciously associate with that taste. It is the same with smells, perhaps more so: that some smells are good because they remind us of good things while other smells are bad because we associate them with things that are bad. But when you have no memory—no catalogue of senses through which to compare—you have no preference.

Funny, the dilemma of choosing a beverage.

Funny, all of it.

So I select a bottle of water, because it is the cheapest thing in the refrigerator. That, and the sandwich, leaves me with twenty-three dollars—all that remains of Clarence Wilcox’s fifty bucks, after yesterday’s splurge on Chinese food.

Thanking the woman, turning to leave, I am ready to go back through the door…but freeze when my eyes fall on the gumball machine by the door. I remember seeing it on my first visit to this shop, but now it draws me in. There is an importance to it. I approach and caress the bulb of the glass. I watch my reflection, distorted in the curvature of the glass, stare up at me. Inside, the little colored gumballs seem to want to tell me something. Yet no matter how hard I listen, I am deaf.

Outside, I cross the street, my head down. Construction workers have gathered around the bed of a large truck, the steam from their cups of coffee mingling with the vapors of their breath. They laugh with great noise; their conversation consists of prehistoric grunts, grins, and snickers.

There are children in the streets, laughing and racing through the snow, scooping the slush from the gutters and packing it into balls of ice. They shout and cry and wing packed balls of ice at each other. They are ignorant to my approach; I am able to walk straight through their battlefield unscathed. Like a ghost. They are only aware of the vehicles that slide, much too fast, toward the intersection where they play, the tires skidding and locking up as the cars slide toward them. They scatter like cockroaches as the cars strum through the intersection before resuming their war game.

Meandering, I navigate the avenues, skulking by the rust-colored buildings and yellowed, sun-bleached tenements.

From an open window, a woman’s a cappella singing drifts down—

Eres mi amor, mi amor

Eres mi amor,

Somos amantes y somos amigos

Eres mi amor, mi amor

Eres mi amor…

There is a quaint stone church at the end of the street. It looks European, with its stone face and wood-plank doors and the narrow, mullioned windows with ornamental dormers surrounded by an aging, gothic parapet. Aside from the aesthetic appreciation, I feel nothing in looking at it. I am neither infused with reverence nor overwhelmed by skepticism.

As I step into the church, birds swoop from rafter to rafter above my head. Feathers light onto the floor of the narthex while the rustle of their wings disturbs the pamphlets tacked to a bulletin board. Straight ahead, the nave is flanked by two walls of flickering candles. Shafts of daylight slide through high windows; motes swirl in the vaulted ceiling. I walk down the aisle toward the pulpit, smelling the incense, breathing in the oldness of the ancient stone church, passing through panels of sunlight. The place, though as silent as the floor of the sea, is not empty; there are the random bowed heads and hunched shoulders staggered among the pews.

Instantly, I am overcome by the notion that I am someone else’s daydream. This stranger—that stranger. I pull my left hand up in front of my face, fearful that the address will be gone from my palm, and that I will begin to fade now that I have discovered the truth of my own nonexistence…but the address is still there. I do not fade. I am as solid and real as the little stone church.

I slide into the first pew. Directly in front of me stands the chancel, surrounded by an elaborate lattice and adorned with candles and poinsettias. The sound of feet shuffling on the scuffed floor echoes down the nave. I do not turn; I do not take my eyes from the pulpit. The ribs of an old pipe organ, tarnished and unpolished, stand against the far wall. Looking at the organ, I think, I can play you. I don’t know how I’m able, but I can play you.