Bee and Leaf

I had an awful rejection dream this morning. Someone--a composite of various women I know, some of whom I'm interested in, some not--had come over to my sprawling loft apartment for dinner and a date. I'd made some complicated dish with long-grain rice and chicken breasts and wine blended into the sauce; I'd lit long red tapers on the table, turned the TV to something romantic. (Don't ask me; it was a dream.) It was intense, sultry, expectant; my heart was thudding. Just as we were about to sit down to dinner, her cell phone rang; some contra dancer named Paul had decided to have a dance get-together at his house. "I really like his dances," she explained as she packed up her purse, and of course she didn't mean dances. "I'll be back in a few hours," she promised, sitting on my lap, pressing against me before she left. I woke up as I was sitting there, waiting for her to return...and then spent an hour trying to fall back asleep so I would be there when she returned. I felt I'd missed an opportunity, even if it were a phantasmal one.

But it was difficult to maintain any feeling of loss in the 53 degree sunshine that waited for me outside. I saw a little girl dressed as a bee, weaving across people's lawns while her sisters and parents walked along the sidewalk; I saw a tree-care truck with a logo on the door written in Tolkien's runic alphabet. (Translating upon my arrival home, I found it said "LEAF".) Weather like this reminds me of my body; the wind and sun tell me that there is a good side to being wrapped in sensitive skin, and makes me look forward to pretty girls in sun dresses and tank tops. Hence my current mood.

I had an excellent and informative AIM conversation with flammifera last night; I can see how it could be dangerously addictive. And we had our first thunderstorm of the year just as I was going to bed. The flashes were visible through my closed lids, and the comforting booms of thunder rolled over me as an afterthought.

Blood and Snow

I'd just posted my previous update when my employee, K., came into the office and said, in his usual laconic voice, "Ah, I think you'd better come see this. Someone is saying there's a fight in the theater."

I reached the lobby in time to see a thin man stagger out of Triplets of Belleville amid an eddy of alarmed patrons. His face was a mask of blood; a gash slit his right eyebrow. He looked at me and said, "Call the police. Now." He pointed to a heavyset, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair: "It was him."

Someone got out a cell phone. I asked salt-and-pepper to stop, to wait for the police to get here. "No! I'm not stopping for anybody. He jumped me." I followed him and his wife down the stairs, asking him to at least leave his name and number. "You wait for me," he told his wife. "I'll get the car. If this bitch keeps following me, I'll kick his ass too."

So I kept following him.

Down State, assuring him we'd run across some police eventually. Up North U. "How do you feel about running tonight, bitch?" "Um...fine. But you know, my legs are a lot longer than yours, and I'm maybe twenty years younger." He bolted; we ran full-tilt through the Diag, with me keeping about twenty feet between us, and him continuing to threaten me; I pointed out that there were always plenty of bicycle cops patrolling the park. He changed direction at that point, cutting back toward State in front of Angell Hall, then into traffic and across the street; he was laughing, actually laughing maniacally, as he ran down the gap beside the Kelsey Museum. Finally, he reached his car; he got in and tore off, but I was able to get the license number and a description (dust-covered red compact). (Which led to the only cool moment in the whole experience. I met two officers walking down State as I was coming back, and gave them the license number. "Which way did he go?" they asked me. I pointed, and three cop cars raced off in a squeal of sirens.)

Fortunately, B. is working tonight, and he was more than capable of handling the crowd of people in my absence...which is good, because I basically abandoned my post to follow salt-and-pepper. B. got towels and ice for the thin guy's head, and dealt with the police until I returned. When I did, there were flashing lights everywhere, and the thin guy was sitting downstairs, being ministered to by police; a stretcher arrived soon after. An officer Lee interviewed me: who am I? What did I see? Was I the manager? I was concerned, at first, with my faulty memory; was the car really red? Did I remember the color of his jacket? As I was answering questions, though, my hands began to shake and my throat became dry; I realized that the experience had, in fact, had an emotional effect on me. (A patron, an older woman in a fur coat, actually interrupted us at this point: "Excuse me. Can you tell me what the letters in the pattern of the carpet mean?") The officer was thorough but friendly, and thanked me when it was done; I'd gone above and beyond normal civic duty, he said. I may need to go to the station to identify salt-and-pepper later tonight; I'm waiting for them to call. And I sit here, shaking a little, waiting to calm down.

So that bit of violence killed my springtime mood pretty effectively. We just finished wiping the clotted blood from the sink. And hey, what do you know? It's snowing again.