Leaving

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I’m looking out my window at the people standing in the rain at nearly midnight to board any one of four idling buses to somewhere else—fellow travelers with different final destinations—but all of us, leaving the city. My accumulated life is packed in a single suitcase stowed in the cargo bay beneath me—no more, no less, than what I  had when I arrived at this same bus terminal eons ago, filled with wonder and an insatiable appetite for the city that very quickly aged me beyond my years.

The pneumatic hiss of the door opening draws my attention up front. A man boards and heads down the aisle bringing with him a cold draft,  sour with diesel exhaust. I worry that the man will sit next to me, ruining my chances for any sleep during the journey. Sure enough, he stops at my seat. I look up to find him smiling at my astonishment, because I know him.

The last time we were together, Jack loaned me $20. Unless he tracked me down to collect the debt, I can’t imagine why he is standing before me, so, I greet him with an incredulous, “Are you leaving town, too?”

Jack is wearing a black turtleneck under his US Army fatigue jacket with sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves, each one earned while serving in Viet Nam. He still looks military, clean shaven, hair trimmed short, combat ready, except for his wire-frame glasses, which he removes and wipes with a handkerchief before taking the seat next to me. Jack has perfect vision and the lenses are clear glass. He started wearing them when he went back to school. “They make me look smarter,” he once told me.

He lights a joint, takes an abrupt toke, and passes it to me. “It’s Rachel,” he says, exhaling smoke with his words, watching me for signs. My gut tightens, but I meet his gaze with stoicism. Apparently relieved that I’m staying cool, he adds,  “She sent me to persuade you not to go.”

I look up front for Rachel only to see the driver’s face in the rear view mirror. He’s counting passengers. We’ll be leaving soon. I know Jack is waiting for me to say something, but I’m back in New York three years ago, remembering the first time I met Rachel.

*

I’d just returned from Europe, and was on my way to San Francisco. Lenny, an old college friend of mine, was letting me crash at his apartment for a couple of weeks. While I was there, his girlfriend Rachel stopped by often. I learned that she was 25, worked as a buyer for an uptown department store, and loved the playwright, Beckett, especially, “Waiting for Godot,” which she claimed to have read in French.

One night, a few days before my departure, Lenny hosted a small going away party for me, during which he got very drunk and ended the night regaling me for “running away” to find a better life on the West coast. “You’ll be back,” he said, slurring his words. “Your problems are in your head. No escaping them, old man. They’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

As soon as the last guest departed, Lenny went to bed leaving Rachel and me alone, our backs against opposite ends of the sofa, our nestled legs covered by a tartan plaid throw. I felt in a  reckless mood. President Kennedy had been assassinated two days earlier. We were both depressed, and a little drunk. I asked her to lie beside me. I put my arm around her. I could smell her perfume, a primal scent bearing citrus and jasmine notes. She is Lenny’s girl, I told myself.

Rachel snuggled closer and asked me about my year in Europe. I related the few embellished stories I had carefully edited for the world to hear. She laughed as I described a failed sexual encounter in the compartment of a train bound for Madrid. “So, how many girls did you sleep with?”

“I never slept with any,” I said, telling her the truth. “I missed sex education class and badly need instruction. I’m looking for an experienced woman to show me the ropes—no strings attached—just sex education as a civic duty.”

She smiled, playing along. “Such lessons take time, and real commitment. But you are leaving soon. Can I persuade you to postpone your trip for educational purposes?” And then, she kissed me.

The next day,  I ran into Rachel at my favorite deli. She told me she was meeting a friend for lunch. When I asked who, she answered that I was the friend, and taking my arm, she steered us to a booth.

During the meal, I fell all over myself trying to impress her, while she nibbled away at me, taking such small pieces that I never noticed I was being consumed. Afterwards we walked through the park until dusk, and then, hand in hand, our blood lusts propelling us, we somehow managed to navigate the transit system to surface only two blocks from her three-room, four-story walk up in the East Village. We spent the rest of the night together. I was back the next night, and the next, until I headed west in a snowstorm carrying with me the scent of her perfume, her long farewell kisses, and the sight of her in her red beret and fur-collared coat waving both arms as if she were greeting me instead of saying goodbye.

Rachel wrote to me a few weeks later. She told me that she was going to quit her job and join me in San Francisco. I wrote back a single line. “No strings attached.” She wrote again. I threw away the letter unopened.

Six months passed. I was going to school nights, and working part-time at a bookstore on Market St. Returning to work after lunch one afternoon, I smelled Rachel’s perfume as soon as I entered the store. Molly, the bookkeeper and a close friend, took me to one side and asked me to meet her on the dock at the back of the store.

“She said her name was Rachel, “ Molly said.“She came in about an hour ago looking for you. I told her you were out. She asked to see the boss. They were in his office for about 15 minutes or so. She told him she’s carrying your child—but George is fine,” she adds, to reassure me I still had a job—“he’s waiting to hear your side of things.”

That evening, Rachel met me at a North Beach coffee shop, an Italian place with an antique espresso machine that hissed steam and stretched half way to the ceiling. She was wearing a trench coat and her trademark red beret. From 6 feet away, I could smell the scent of jasmine, the promise of citrus.

“You’re right on time,” she said.

I sat across from her. We ordered coffee. She offered me one of her Turkish ovals, which I took. I brought out my lighter and our hands touched as I lit her cigarette.

“You’ve changed,” she said, apprising me as if I were a new line she was buying for the fall season.

“Not as much as you,” I said, taking in her swollen mid-section bulging beneath her coat.

“Did I get you in trouble, with George? Maybe, I got you in a lot more with your girlfriend, what’s her name, Molly?”

“Molly’s a good friend,” I said. “What do you want?”

“Don’t worry. ‘No strings’—your words.”

Our coffees arrived.

“I’m going to have the baby at a place called St. Elizabeth’s,” she said. “It’s a charity for unwed mothers here in the city. They take care of you during the whole thing, the pregnancy, the birth, the adoption—all of it.”

Rachel let me take that in, and then she briefly shared her life after I left New York. She kept her job until she was unable to camouflage her condition. She received three months severance pay and started making plans to join me. When she received my less than encouraging reply, she became even more than determined to make the journey west. “I suppose you never read my last letter to you?”

I confessed I hadn’t.

“I should have made a copy,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “I can’t recall it word for word, but it was brave and eloquent in all the ways that your one-liner wasn’t. In it, I forgave you for being so callous. I know it’s the fault of your upbringing. A raging mother, a passive father. You had no choice but to grow up to be a prick.” When I said nothing, she quoted Beckett, “‘Nous sommes tous nés fous,’ ‘we are all born mad.’ Don’t you see, David? I’m here to save you from yourself.”

I never visited her at St. Elizabeth’s, although I went there one afternoon after work. I don’t know what I would have done if Rachel had been among the dozen pregnant women smoking, playing cards, or enjoying visitors, mostly men—there to support the women bearing their children.

Weeks passed, and then one day, just before my lunch break, Rachel, no longer with child, walked into the bookstore. “You’re treating me to lunch. I have pictures of our baby.”

She not only showed me pictures of young David, but told me that her three month ordeal at St. Elizabeth’s had changed her. Its strict catholic regimen reignited her lapsed catholicism. “I know you don’t believe in God,” she said. “But I discovered Him again when I hit bottom.”

In the four photos she showed me, David Jr looked big for a newborn, but my experience with infants was limited. Still, the photos of this oversize, bald baby sitting upright on Rachel’s lap, rather than cradled in her arms, made me wonder.

“I’ll never know where he is,” she said, as she put the photos back inside her bag. “And he’ll never learn who his birth mother was. Can you imagine? I lost him before I had a chance to know him.”

“I’m sorry.” I reached for her hand. She made a fist.

“Thank you, but it’s not enough. ‘Je n'oublie jamais,’ — ‘I never forget,’ but one day, I hope to forgive—myself.”

She refused to tell me where she was living, just that she was working and healing. “I loved you, you bastard,” she confessed, as we said goodbye on the street.

I watched her walk away until she was out of sight. She had been places I could not fathom, and I felt ashamed. I thought of running after her, saw myself doing it, but in the end, I let her go.

*

“The bus is going to leave in a few,” Jack says, already on his feet. “You don’t have to leave with it.”

The marijuana buzz is a warm comfort. Outside, it is dark, cold and wet. If I remain on the bus, I will be in Carson City by sunrise. A new day. A new start.

Jack, faithful friend, waits for my decision.

I feel tired. All I want to do is sleep. “I have to leave, Jack. Tell her, I’m sorry.”

Jack sighs. I stand, and we embrace.

“You owe me $20,” he says, as he walks down the aisle.

The bus pulls out of the station, and eases into traffic for half a block before stopping at a red light. A woman wearing a red beret stands in the driving rain on the corner. She is looking directly at my window, and she sees me looking at her. Rachel waves both arms, this time, in greeting. I hesitate only a moment before pulling the signal cord to stop the bus. For once, I’m not leaving.

[Published September 2020 by Two Sisters Writing & Publishing