Moonlight is a different thing when you can’t hear yourself breath. Bass beats replace pulse and guitar thickens the atmosphere replacing the world that was with a new, separate existence. People pass in front of you – each in their own seclusion, all moving to the same flow of primitive, self emanated motion – and their energy floats on sound waves to me, to the air between here and the streetlamps. I shuffled in the gutter, laughing out loud and to no one.
“Got a light?” She had to yell a breath away from my ear to catch my attention.
“Sorry.” I shook my head and made an apologetic face to reinforce my sounds.
“What, you don’t smoke? I didn’t think there was anyone left in this city that didn’t.”
She bummed a light off the kid next to me, took a short drag, and linked her arm in mine. She led me away from the smoke and lights and sat me down on the curb under an oak. I’ve climbed those branches.
“You weren’t dancing.”
“I was.”
She looked at me askew and blew smoke up into the night.
“You weren’t. I was behind you for the last four songs. Not a bob of the head. You uptight or something? I don’t like guys with shit up their asses.”
“You dance?”
“’Course I dance.”
“Why aren’t you dancing, then?”
“Is that some lame-ass invite to dance or what? You want to dance with me?” A smile plays in her eyes as she looks me up and down. “Don’t feel like dancing just now.” She tossed the butt beneath her heal and let the last drag circle in her lungs for a few seconds before exhaling. The smoke came out in streams through her nostrils.
“Do you feel like I do?” The lyrics drifted through the air, disappearing somewhere down the street. We sat with the music between us. “Do you feel like I do?”
“You’re a cute kid, you know that? Bit shorter than average, little scrawny, but you’ve got good hair and a good look about your face. You move good.”
She leaned closer to me with the last couple words.
“Thanks.”
“Why you all alone?”
“You’re alone.”
“Not anymore I’m not.” She bumped her shoulder against mine and I pretended to fall over. She laughed. She had a nice laugh. “I come to make friends. You should always make at least one new friend everywhere you go – my pops told me that one. Makes life more enjoyable, gives you someone to laugh with.”
A drunkard stumbled away from the haze of lights and found himself leaning against our tree.
“You two gonna kiss?” He smiled and plopped himself down next to us. “Don’t mind me, miss. Carry on with your romance making, seductionous ways!”
She hid her smile in my shoulder.
“You! Sir! Watch out for that Sally sitting next to you there. She’ll bewitch you, she will! It’s a sweet misery, eh? I caught it once, sir. Caught it myself but only because my young mistress caught it onto me! She was quite the catch. Ah – yes, quite the catch!”
She leaned her shoulder into mine again and my first thought was to lean mine into our new friend’s but somehow the thought never mustered itself into action. I absorbed her pressure and watched my feet tap themselves against the pavement.
“You want to dance, mister?” She pulled him up by the wrist and he found his feet and spun her clumsily around. I watched her laugh and how graceful she moved and how comfortable she was around this man. I couldn’t imagine her being anything but. Her dark hair was gathered loosely on top her head, some of it was, anyway. It fluttered over her eyes as she swayed. I felt she’d been a lot of people’s friends, watching her dance in the shadows under the moonlight.
“Temptress!” the man laughed and pushed away the air between himself and her. He continued down the street, laughing.
Her white teeth shone at me through the dark. She kept dancing.
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