WALK

What’s a walk? Where are we going? So he has a hot cross bun, and he’s sure-footing it down the lane. His chest is a squeeze box taking in the bright air as he strikes a rhythm harmonizing with the bebop and the doo-wop of the human flow: the mothers with squishy children, idlers blowing smoke, hustlers picking their teeth, deliveries screeching to a stop and shooting the gap with a rumble that causes pause. Suits and ties go by as if pinned on a clothesline pulled along reading the news sucking java, an old, tumbledown beggar rattles a paper cup for change, a fixed boulder in the stream, a bus stops, wheezes open, pouring out a tributary of seekers, eager to be on the rising tide. A sharp-nosed performer draws a crowd with a puppet on strings making jive with a girl whose legs pull in the whirl for a look, her face, alive with grace, hearts gush, bills fly out to drop in a waiting pork-pie hat. Dogs by the dozen, leashed to their walker, wait for the light. Their noses twitch with the beefy flavors of Stracotto di Fassona Piemontese carried by a breeze escaping the cookery of gents, with sharp knives in white hats. While a cat, in a slice of sun lolls in a bookstore window upon a dusty Atlas of the Ancient World, its head rests on its tawny paws and sees through lazy slits, the pack of barking bobble-heads at the curb, take flight. Ahead, the many-have-a-penny bunch dash from a hash of trash and a gear-whining hulk; a rivulet of yesterday’s stew leaves a streak. Store fronts reflect passing limbs with that swing setting a pace for a tub thumping race, until there’s a line out a door amid a clatter and clink, sandwiches yelled ready big as Dagwood’s, airborne on plates in a din of honky-tonk talk that raises a grin without the gin. He keeps on.

Further, he’s blasted with a rush of hot air from a Chinese laundry, glimpsing bundles of clean clothes wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. A woman in a martial green coat stands with a bag of the unwashed in crimson boots with formidable laces. Above, a single bulb, beneath a white enamel disk, drizzles a weak, milky light over a sour-faced clerk writing methodically on a pad with a chewed yellow pencil. A pigtail slithered down his arm and onto the counter, forming a cobra’s unease. Soon scaffolding narrows the way; a chute directs debris thudding into an empty metal bin, the clang and clatter deafen as colored hard hats on Lego men appear in charge. He joins those who scoot toward their fixed horizons.

From behind, feet in a fury, clip his heel and he stumbles sideways into an alley and through a slit in a painted curtain of a rocky ledge at the edge of a beach and a wine dark sea beyond. A woman stands in front of an easel, wearing a short, soft, blue tunic. Her hair, reddish gold holds her brow and cheekbones in a helmet’s grip. She paints furiously, the result unseen, her breasts murmuring and barking beneath her loose garment, unmooring her guest from their intent. The sound of the rhythmic sea breaking waves fills the air, filling him with a deep lassitude. His destination withers in a salty wind. She, the fierce, barking painter, strides over, takes his hand, and pulls him to her painting. It is a spinning vortex of billowing black clouds laced with lightning, suffering faces, and tangled bodies trapped in the maelstrom. He feels her arms lift him and his head push through the skein of woven canvas into a screaming gale, the sound of wood snapping and glass shattering and cries of fear. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then a wet cloth, a huge breath, large hands pull him up. Chatter over the matter of his heart-stopping crash. He’s patted, dusted, and probed, but on he goes, unsteady, blinking at the sun.

He staggers forward, then rights himself and moves with a haste born of dread. Threading through thinning crowds until his heart quiets, a bicyclist strikes him on the shoulder, tossing him through a doorway into a dark room where he tumbles onto his back. A hunched figure with grizzled gray hair lifts his head. A white cane taps toward him, its silver-rimmed tip flashing in the dim light. His body vibrates and rises from the floor as if he is a leaf caught by a random gust. Seated at a table, he finds a drink that is sharp and refreshing. He rises to leave, but the blind stranger begins to sing. He remains held fast in the chair. The song weaves a tale that starts in a town of ships and fishermen beside a fickle sea that makes him heartsick for home. The singer describes a man, the image of his father, on a fragile boat in a wrathful storm. A massive wave toys with their fate. The captain rails above the wind, thieving his words. “Be steady and true to yourself. Our bones will break against these rocks below this faceless cliff.” The sailors wailed and shed a weight of tears. He feels sick. “Stop! I will not hear more.” Panting, he pushes up to stand, but vines grew from the chair and snatched his legs and arms while the song unspooled. He screams. A key turns the lock, opening the street door, which floods the space with sunlight. Released, he runs for the outside, startling the bar owner, who leaps aside, cursing, as he hurtles past.

The street gathers him up and sweeps ahead toward the lowering sun. Through the bobbing heads riding with the current, a fat barber pole emerges beside a window with Haircut & Shave stenciled on the glass. Inside, a black gentleman in a short white coat offers a chair to the stranger seeking shelter. Weary, he enters. The barber, quick and confident, leads him inside and offers fresh fruit, salted nuts, and a cool drink. Then brings him to a sink that cradles his head. Eyes closed, he yields to a hot, sharp-fingered stream of water. Skilled fingers massage his scalp with creamy shampoo and fine lotion. The barber dwarfs the man and hums as he works. Clean and fragrant from the oils, he sits in the barber’s chair. With long, powerful arms, the barber snaps the striped snowy cape that floats over him and fastens a strip of paper around his neck. A resonant voice asks, “Where are you from that life slapped your shoe leathers to my joint for slick and snip?” The image of the day he left his father’s house jolts his tongue. “Arcadia with the high cliffs, verdant plain, and deep harbor where boats leave to fish the azure sea.” “No sir, no siree, not me. I keep my feet on rocky land that stays right still between my steps.” The barber rubs the man’s face with shaving oil, then applies a hot towel. Heat seeps into his pores, untying very knot in the day’s unfolding plot. Then lathered and shaved clean with a wicked steel blade, his skin blooms, with a whisper of aftershave, to a rosy glow. Before he’s freed, the barber rubs his hands with a light oil, snips the neck paper, and whirls away the cape.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he walks, no put-put more strut, out the door where the pace keeps its race. A bright aura bars the weary crowd, homeward bound, from jostling and diverting his determined steps. The sun, far ahead, readies to throw itself over the world’s edge, making room for the moon to change the tune. The many limbs beside him fall silent. He stops at the entrance of an open square, ringed with trees, quiet nooks, and fountains. At the center, by the clock tower, she waits, silhouetted by the swooning disk. He waves and adds a hey-ho shoulder roll. She whirls, a skirted flare shows leg, then stamps a foot for paths that cross despite the boozy bugalú of chaos and loss.