Nights on the Soul©

I met him at the mall, of all ordinary places. Is love ever ordinary? Is it supposed to be? Gee, it’s always been extraordinary for me. I had just started to recover from a two year self destructing relationship I had with a man intent on his own suicide. Broken vodka bottles and his lack of personal hygiene wore on my nerves. My seemingly never ending efforts to make this individual happy repeatedly brought myself into a state of sympathetic depression. I thought I could actually make another person happy. At that time in my life I was a reasonably upbeat sort, and the idea didn’t seem so unreasonably farfetched. The guy quit his job so he could be manic depressive full time, on my allowance. We experienced a joint alcoholic drinking binge during which he persuaded me of the futility of our existence. A suicide pact left me forever rid of his eternal pessimism, with only the scars on my wrists as souvenirs of my bungled quest. Six months of therapy with a counselor from the crisis center did a bit to assure me I would do best to stay off liquor, throwaway my straight razors, and try to put the episode, forgotten, in my past. My dead boyfriend got what he wanted, and I was not too terribly distraught about his demise.

On this particular night I was in the mall reviving my newly free self. Jon, my stylist at the Haircutting Place, gave me a complete makeover. I was delighted with the change to shorter hair and feeling decidedly fresh and affable. Looking back I suppose the bright expectations I had for the future opened my receiving channels that evening. For on that night I met someone who not only radically disrupted my life but significantly changed my views on life, death and God Himself.

I’d just bought a Glamour magazine and was walking out of the bookstore when I saw the most interesting character across the way. Not one to pass up an opportunity given, and never one to be shy, I hurried over past the elevator to catch up with him.

“Hey! Hey you!” I called. He turned to look at me coolly as I bounded up to him. “I just wanted to say, uh, that you have the most fascinating hair. Who does it?”

“I do it myself,” he replied.

“Well it looks great. Pretty wild actually. Are you new here? I’ve never seen you before.” I figured I knew most of the progressive types in town from going out to clubs. But, gosh it sounded like such a line, I could hardly believe it came out of my mouth.

“I’ve just moved down from Atlanta a month ago.”

“Oh, why? I love Atlanta.”

“I have a friend here,” he said.

“Oh, hm. Tampa’s not all bad, really. America’s next great city they say.”

“The infamous ‘THEY’, huh?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “THEM, no really. Ybor City has such fun junk shops and all these artsy galleries and new clubs opening up every once in awhile. Of course, that’s usually after one closes down, but there’s always something interesting going on, at the Ritz or Masquerade.”

“I’ve been to the Masquerade. The one in Atlanta is better.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Heaven, Hell and Purgatory levels. That’s way cool, but Tampa’s Masquerade was the first, that’s got to make it special. It is the best alternative club here, anyway. I haven’t been to Atlanta since its’ Masquerade opened. I went to Club Rio, Weekends, and Backstreets one night.”

“All in one night?” He cocked an eyebrow as he asked this.

“Yeah, back in my drinking days. I was sick at Club Rio and threw up all over the stairs. It was pretty funny, but I think the friend I was with didn’t think so. She got us a taxi and I threw up in there as well, but then I felt much better. So we went out again instead of home. It must have been four in the morning before we got to Backstreets where I immediately slipped on some ice and fell flat on my face. Yes, those are my fond memories of Atlanta … yikes, that was kind of a bad visit, actually. I haven’t been back since.”

“I get sick of places easily. Clubs and cities. It’s just a business, both. The people who run those places never really know what it’s all about. Clubs and cities, businesses and governments. Man, it just doesn’t mean anything and they don’t even know it. I think it’s sad.”

“Hmm.” I didn’t exactly know what he meant, but I felt sure he meant something. I hoped I wasn’t presenting myself badly. Flustered as I was I couldn’t think of anything stimulating to say in my effort to impress this man or keep his attention. Already he was looking off into the distance, the end of the mall, apparently thinking about something serious.

At this standstill I shrugged, said the polite thing about how nice it was to have met him and that I’d probably see him around.

Walking out to my car I noticed how excited I felt. It seemed the Gods in their heavens had smiled on me for once. My blood was rushing so fast I could feel it making me dizzy.

I started the engine and dug in my purse for my cigarettes. I punched in the car lighter and was just inhaling a long drag when I had the strongest urge. Something about that guy had intrigued me so deeply that I had to talk to him again. I felt I must talk to him. Like it was some dire need in my soul. I didn’t even know his name. The urge was unstoppable and I put out my cigarette, turned off the car, and jumped out. Verily running towards the mall, I had a premonition of my impending doom were I not to solidify my relationship with this new person. It seemed my life depended on knowing him, and I was most overwhelmed with this knowledge.

I entered the mall intent only on finding my dark stranger. Already noticing an element of possessiveness about his person. Breathing in quick shallow gulps of air, I stared with eyes opened wide into each shop window desperate for a glance of him. I barely realized the oddness of my situation, only the pressing value of my mission. A vein was popping out of my forehead, my eyes bugging out, my step that of one driven by the devil. I wouldn’t know the severity of my position until much later. This current lack of control and inappropriate behavior didn’t strike me as being outside the norm. I just had to find him.

And then I saw him.

And I was suddenly shy, even coy, possibly dainty. Definitely not myself.

I praised the heavens above that leadeth me to this perfect creation called man.

Hell, I had to find out his name.

Feeling a bit silly but undeterred nonetheless, I approached what was soon to become my obsession.

“Hello again,” I tried to sound light and inviting, though surely I was panting, being slightly out of breath from my pursuit. My face was plastered with a huge smile, I was deliriously happy to see him again.

“Oh, hi,” he said and smiled engagingly in return. I didn’t know quite what to say then, besides feeling just a little foolish for having chased him down. I felt a bit like a puppy dog bringing a stick to my master so he would continue to play with me.

“Um, gosh, I don’t mean to bother you, but if you have some time or aren’t doing anything right now do you think we could sit down for a moment and talk?” The words came bubbling out of my mouth all at once, and though I wasn’t saying anything particularly brilliant, he agreed.

“OK,” he said as he turned away from the daggers he’d been admiring in the window of the Remington knife shop.

We took a seat at one of the white wicker tables close to the fountain. He looked at me intently for a moment after we sat down, but quickly glanced away. I was fumbling in my purse for cigarettes, offering him one, to which he refused, and lamenting the fact that I never have a light when I need one.

It seemed to connect in my mind that the light I really needed was the flash of inspiration that would unlock the passages to my thought processes, thereby allowing them to flow freely instead of being held in check at all the stages of my life, hence stifling the creative energy of the universe. I remember this incredibly thick feeling taking hold of my head. The weight slowed me down to a trance like state as this revelation was realized in my brain. I looked across the table at this stranger and my tongue was useless as a lame hind leg, and he was watching me with an unsettling intensity. His eyes were bright under hooded eyelids. I felt at that moment a surge of electrifying shock as I recognized him. I felt so strong a bond to that second of time, to this person, to my God given life that the pain wrapped around my heart. I felt that I might explode from the pressure of breathing.

He took from my hand the lighter I had located at the bottom of my huge black purse and held it up to my cigarette for me to light. I didn’t think I could inhale at all as I could scarcely draw any air, but as I looked into the fire and saw its’ warmth as synonymous with that spark of inspiration I sought, I laughed somewhat giddily.

“So what the heck is your name?” I burst out.

“Dave,” he was so soft spoken, yet I could tell there was a strength he had hiding behind his serene composure.

“Oh, I like that name. I’m Miranda.” I kind of bobbed my head a couple of times, acting goofy in an attempt to make light of the awkwardness of our meeting.

“You probably think I’m crazy, because after I met you and I was leaving the mall I felt like if I didn’t come find you and talk to you some more I would never see you again in my life and I couldn’t deal with that. So I came back in.” I left what I was saying open to his joining the conversation.

“Oh I doubt that. I knew I’d see you again.” His saying this surprised me completely and I laughed a little nervously.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Well, I remember you from before.”

“What do you mean?” I asked somewhat perplexed. He smiled strangely. It wasn’t a fully enjoyable smile, just the corners of his red lips turned up, like a two sided sneer. And his eyes seemed to be laughing at me, not with me. For a moment, he looked almost sinister, dressed all in black as he was. It just occurred to me he was wearing a long black trench coat, a bit much in Florida even in the winter. Black buttoned to the collar shirt, black jeans tucked into black combat boots. I felt quite unlike myself, wearing a lot more make-up than usual, my hair freshly cropped over my ears, leaving a length of bangs up front, the rest cut very short. Perhaps behind my mask of face paint, the warrior woman inside of me garnered enough nerve to try to catch the devil.

Dave was looking at me in a sideways manner, having to peek out from the stacks of hair covering his head. As he wasn’t saying anything I felt obliged to carry on the business at hand.

Quavering as I continued, “I, I just wanted to talk to you some more. Get to know you. You seem like such a neat person. In some weird way I feel like I have to, I’m meant to talk to you, to know you.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You just do what you want to do.”

“No, you don’t understand!” I implored. “Last night I had a dream. You were in it, I swear! I was in these catacombs under Rome. I was walking over all these crumbled bones in the darkness. And then I went into one room that had some lit candles and a sort of altar in the corner and when I went closer there were photos of my mother and me when I was a baby, all of these mother and child shots and some postcards of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus were there, too. And then I noticed on the ground there were these figures, tiny statues of people I knew and I was bending down to touch them and there was a draft of wind and all of a sudden I was frightened and I looked toward the rotting doorway and I sensed someone was there.”

As I relayed the dream, it became clearer and somehow more surreal. I felt as if it was a memory that I had forgotten but something made it come rushing back. “And I went to follow them and I ran out into the long stone passageway and I was running and running until I came to a room that was all done up with beautiful table settings and massive chandeliers glittering with blinking lights and it was as if a grand ball was about to be thrown but there was no one there but me and then I saw a man reflected in a mirror and I didn’t know him then, but now I do because, it sounds ludicrous, but I’m quite sure it was you … !” I stopped and looked at Dave in shock.

“What happened then?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I must have woken up then. But it was you, I know it was!”

He smiled slightly and shrugged his shoulders. “Dreams are inner desires expressed through the subconscious. That you focus on me as the person in your dream is your choice. The dream is over but the choice to believe it was me is still yours.”

“Dave, I feel this incredible force about you, between us, that’s why I had to talk to you again. I think you’re going to be important to my life, somehow. Tell me I’m completely deranged.”

“You’re not deranged. You’re beautiful.”

I gulped in awe at this statement of his. Here was this absolutely gorgeous male in front of me telling me I’m beautiful out of the blue. But, hey, this whole meeting was out of the blue.

“I, um, thanks … I think I should go now. How can I get in touch with you?”

He wrote down his phone number on a napkin, and I gave him mine. He said goodbye and walked away without looking back and I stared dumbly at his fading figure. When I got back in my car, I turned the engine on and started to cry.

Out of the blue.

***