Donna

Donna
A short story
by Alex Avakiantz

My old friend, Vince, was deathly allergic to bees. I remember after I left Newport, the two of us met to catch up one day. We sat on a park bench, opened some beers, and talked.
“Look up at the clouds,” he told me.
“Yeah, yeah. If you look hard enough, you see shapes right?”
“Well, sure. But if you look even harder, you’ll see yourself.”
“Okay Vince, now you’re just jerking me.” He started to laugh.
He took a sip of his beer, chuckled again, then started to choke. Vince fell off the bench and started to scream.
I yelled like a madman for help. I turned him over to see his face frozen and his spirit already long departed. Gazing at the clouds, neither of us noticed that a bee had flown into Vince’s beer can.
I’ll bet he sure as hell never planned for something like that, but fate prefers to discriminate.
***
I’d count the number of tiles on the ceiling, the number of hairs on my hand, the number of curse words tattooed onto my cell mate’s bald head—anything to pass the time.
The scary part is that I actually got used to it. Wake up time at Newport is 6 AM, no exceptions. Then it’s off to breakfast, work, lunch, recreation, work, dinner, and, before you know it, bedtime. The routine leaves a guy so jaded that he can’t discern any single day from another if he tried. If my life was a painting, it would have been in one color.
“Are you ever going to get rid of those sideburns, Stalin?” No one had called me by my real name, Arthur, since I was eighteen. In here, everyone assumed that because I was half Russian, I must be some crazy Communist spy. Naturally, the nickname stuck.
As for the sideburns, the fact that they wouldn’t be stylish for another thirty years didn’t really bother me. My father was an actor as a young man, and he would constantly be denied lead roles simply due to his similar unwillingness to shave his sideburns. We were just built that way.
Newport didn’t seem an ideal place for making friends. Andy Stein from Brooklyn would murmur to himself as he shot dirty looks at people. Hank Blanche was a Klan member and wasn’t too shy about showing it. And Porter, well, Porter smelled real bad.
I was surrounded by these and 800 other inmates every day as I ate breakfast; I thought I’d never shake that lonely feeling. And then I met Stanley Ashcroft.
“You got any smokes, son? I dropped my last one in the urinal.”
Eloquent fellow. Stanley, a short and rather portly man from Seattle, was serving a 10-year sentence for assaulting a casino owner. The owner claimed that Stanley was counting cards at the blackjack tables. As far as I was concerned, his only sin was being a genius—and possibly a gambling addict as well.
“No, sir, I don’t smoke,” I replied. “Sorry.”
“Ah, that’s alright. These Chicago winters are just so miserable.”
“It’s spring, sir. And we’re in Boston,” I replied. The man furrowed his brow and yawned vigorously without bothering to cover his mouth. I hated it when people yawned like that.
“Oh, is that so? Well, it doesn’t much matter. Prison is prison to me. What’s your name?”
“Arthur, sir.” His handshake crushed my unsuspecting fingers. That bothered me too, especially since some people think they have you all figured out as soon as they grab your hand. If you don’t squeeze just the right amount, then you’re a pansy, a Communist, or both.
“Well, my name’s Stanley Ashcroft. You got a last name?”
“It’s just Arthur, sir.”
“You can drop the formality. How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty.”
“How long you in here for?”
“Twenty,” I replied. His expression changed.
“Whoa. Who’d you kill, Arthur?”
“Myself.” He paused when I said that.
“No. What did you actually do?”
“Who knows?” I said. It sure as hell wasn’t any of his business.
“How can you not know?”
“Look, I’m sorry you dropped your cigarette in the urinal, Stanley. I’ve got to go.”
Andy Stein shot me a dirty look as I left the breakfast room.
***
“JAPAN AT WAR WITH U.S.” The bombing to me wasn’t as surprising as the fact that the guards gave us copies of The Boston Globe to read about it. If their goal was to destroy prisoners from the inside out, keeping us informed certainly wouldn’t accomplish that. Knowing what went on outside of these walls made us realize we weren’t as isolated as we felt.
As for me, I wondered how differently life could have been at that moment. Instead of lying on my bunk, I’d be dodging bullets on the beaches of Normandy. Is a desperate life better than a noble death?
My mind still felt unstable. There were nights when I wasn’t sure what was worse: bad dreams or no dreams. If I was having bad dreams, at least I knew for certain that I was still alive. I lost more than just my favorite tennis shoes when I came to Newport.
The only thing I truly owned anymore was my memory of San Francisco, of home. When I was in high school, I’d take my little sister Jeannine with me down to the pier every Saturday and see how much money I could make playing my saxophone. The crowd support was wholly uninspiring.
The most I would ever earn was about two bucks, though I probably wouldn’t have made that much had Jeannine not been singing along. What an adorable child she was. After a while, though, it all became a trite, pointless routine—kind of like what awaited me.
On May 28th, 1937, the trite routine decided to take a detour. Seeing only 80 cents in my saxophone case, I decided it was time to go home; I couldn’t help noticing that a girl about my age had been sitting near me the whole time though.
Boy, you should have seen her. She was rather short, with blond hair, freckles and deep blue eyes. The girl was drawing something on a notepad.
I was never too sure of myself when it came to girls, but I felt compelled to walk up to her. My instinct never failed me in the past—why would it now? Maybe I’d even think of something clever to say.
“Did you know that fish never blink?”
“Um, what?” She must have thought I was insane; I died a little on the inside.
“Oh. I mean, hello. My name’s Arthur.”
“Nice to meet you, Arthur! I’m Donna.” Her smile made my knees quiver.
“I’m—I’m sorry to bother you, but I was just curious what you were sketching.”
“Well…take a look.” She handed it to me.
It was me. The saxophone was drawn like a mangled cucumber while the Golden Gate Bridge in the background was virtually unrecognizable.
“It’s…lovely.”
“Well then you go ahead and keep it. I really do adore your playing, Arthur.”
I decided that whatever confidence I had left wouldn’t be there for long, so it was time to act. What did I have to lose?
“Would you like to go out for ice cream or something?” I held my breath.
“Well, sure! But only if you tell me some more of those great fish facts!”
I still don’t know if she was genuinely intrigued by my embarrassing excuse for a conversation starter. Maybe she was.
***
“No way,” Stanley said. “You played the saxophone?”
“Sure did.”
I don’t know for sure what compelled me to share all that with Stanley; I barely knew the man. I suppose it just seemed that sharing my memories was more satisfying than reminiscing by myself. Whether I was reliving good times or bad times, I felt more secure knowing that someone else also understood. Before I could say any more though, the clock struck nine. It was time for bed inspections.
“Stanley, what’s wrong?” He looked really concerned all of a sudden.
“Oh. It’s nothing’, Arthur. Just got this bad feeling. Tell me more about San Francisco.”
“Well, I never did see Donna again. Never even got her last name.”
“That’s a damn shame, son. Women come and women go, right?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Stan yawned in that annoying way again. I decided to ignore it.
“Arthur, you never did tell me why you’re serving time. I’ve been asking you for years; you really can’t tell me?” And with that, everything suddenly went into slow motion.
“One of you fellas care to explain this?” the guard interrupted. He was holding a switchblade.
“I’ve never seen that in my life,” Stan said.
“I found it under your bunk, Ashcroft,” the guard replied.
“It’s not mine.”
“Come on, Ashcroft. Let’s go.” The guard was losing his patience.
“It’s not mine.” Stanley was losing his, too. The guard grabbed Stan by the collar and slapped him so hard that he fell to the ground.
I always thought Stanley had a calm demeanor about him. He seemed like the kind of guy who was in control of his emotions at all times. After all, the man never lost a card game in his life. That’s why I was surprised with what happened next.
“Stan, you okay?” I helped him up on his feet.
“Yeah, I’m alright. You know, you’re my only friend in here. I wish you didn’t have to see me do this.”
He grabbed the switchblade and repeatedly stabbed the guard in the throat. Whoa. Stan was breathing like he had just run a marathon. But that calm facial expression of his soon returned; he knew it was all over. Stan lied down on his bunk, closed his eyes, and waited.
***
Only God knows why two people as different as my parents ever got married, but they did. I was their only child which was probably all for the best anyway. My dad cried with joy when he heard the words “it’s a boy!” My mom cried too, but for different reasons.
There would be arguments every day. The words my dad said weren’t nearly as bad as the words my mom wanted to say. Maybe it was something deeper, but it seemed that the problem was laziness; she would work tirelessly while he tirelessly worked the sofa.
In the end though, he concluded that his marriage and his life were prisons—so he escaped. I never heard one piece of advice from him, but that was one I really could have used.
***
The only swell part about prison is that a guy has all the time in the world to ponder things he’d rarely have time to ponder in the real world. No mortgages, car payments, or anything of that sort within these walls. Consequently, I found myself thinking about Donna more and more. Maybe she would visit me one day.
See, I hadn’t exactly told Stan the whole truth about her. The first time I laid eyes on Donna certainly wasn’t the last time. On May 29th, 1937, the very day after we met, I saw her again.
Donna sat on the edge of a dock in a yellow frilly dress, blowing bubbles and laughing to herself as her feet dangled childishly. She looked innocent, yet so stunning that I felt like running away.
Maybe I could just stand near her until she noticed me. I wasn’t sure whether to stand with my arms crossed or with my hands in my pockets though. How does a person even decide these things?
“Hi there, Donna,” I finally said.
“Oh, hello! Alex, right?”
“Um…yeah.”
“Just kidding, Arthur!” That smile again. Its radiance put the Sun to shame.
“Well… I just thought if you weren’t too busy, maybe you’d like to have that ice cream with me now.”
The ice cream shops in the Bay Area weren’t exactly spectacular. In fact, the ice cream was overpriced and usually tasted more like frozen ashes on a stick. But it didn’t even matter. We just talked and talked, and that ice cream was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted.
“I’ve heard the strawberry kind is supposed to be good.”
“That’s the worst one, Arthur!”
“Oh.”
We both were born in San Francisco, but Donna had spent the first half of her life in Paris where her mom worked. It was the kind of city where people ran through the streets singing at the top of their lungs, with a baguette in one hand and a rose in the other. I bet French people always covered their mouth when yawning.
I was surprised to find out that such a girl—who clearly loved life—also loved cemeteries.
At times I even felt that I could learn more about life just by seeing Donna smile than I could by talking to an old man or by reading an old book. So why ruin such moments by speaking? The silence was bliss.
***
I felt for Stan. The guy only had one year left to serve! Instead, his sentence was now life without parole. The man was going to die in prison, and there was nothing I could do about it.
We only spoke a few times after that, mostly because the guards had become increasingly vigilant and controlled most things Stan did. He should have just submitted to that guard. Sure, he’d get a beating like no other, but then he’d be free in a year. Instead, the split second decision to act on his pride ruined his life.
September 14th, 1959 was my last day at Newport. Twenty years of life had been wasted, just like that. I knew I had to see Stanley before I left.
He started to cry when he saw me; I was finally escaping, but there was no escaping for him.
“How are you, Stan?” My heart ached.
“I’m happy for you, Arthur. I really am! What will you do on the outside?”
“I don’t know, Stanley.” I shrugged.
“Well, you could move up to New York. This jazz thing really took off, especially up there. I heard about this John Coltrane fella, really killer sax player. Maybe you two could work together.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I had never heard of John Coltrane.
“Something bothering’ you, Arthur?”
“Yeah, something’s bothering me. That wasn’t your switchblade.”
I didn’t say that aloud, of course. How could I? Could I really admit to Stanley that the knife was mine? That I needed a place to hide it, and that since the bunk assignments changed every week, I didn’t know the bunk I placed it under was his? Could I tell him that he would never breathe the fresh air of freedom because of my cowardice, because I didn’t admit to the guard that the weapon was mine? No, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t change anything. I’d have to live with that.
“No, Stanley. Nothing.”
“Well, then. Now that you’re about to be a free man, you going to finally tell me how you wound up in here?”
“Yeah, Stan, I will.” It was the least I could do.
“Well, on with it then.”
“I was a draft dodger.”
“Ha! Who would die for a country like this anyway? But I didn’t know you could get twenty years for that.”
“Well, I wasn’t tried for that since the draft hadn’t happened yet. As soon as Poland was invaded though, I could tell the U.S. would eventually get involved. Anyway, I had to find a way out.”
“So you were afraid.”
“Not exactly. With my father gone, there was no one else to take care of my mother and sister. If I merely snuck past the draft, I knew Uncle Sam would catch up to me eventually. I had to commit some minor crime. That way, at least I’d be back with my family by the time the war was over instead of being killed in it and leaving them helpless.”
“What was the crime?” He seemed a bit skeptical.
“It doesn’t matter. The point is it ended up not being small at all. I thought I’d be out of here fifteen years ago, Stanley. Things just don’t always pan out the way you want them to.”
“I appreciate you coming to see me, Arthur.”
There was a long silence after that. The guilt over the switchblade was eating me up inside, but I decided no more words were necessary for now. So we just sat there for a while.
“You’re free to go, Stalin,” the guard said. I left that place as quickly as my feet would allow. Goodbye, cardboard box.
“His name is Arthur,” Stanley said as he softly wept. “He’s the greatest friend I’ve ever had.”
***
I had heard that the New York Giants were now playing in San Francisco. Maybe I could fly back home and check them out. After all, I’d always wanted to see a professional baseball game in person.
Twenty years. Where was I to start? Whatever my plans were, I could hardly accomplish any of them without money. When I left Newport, I didn’t even have my own clothes; the prison lent me a shirt and some slacks, instructing me to return them in a week.
I felt so lost in this new world that I almost missed Newport. At least in prison I knew who I was: a prisoner. Out here I was a middle aged man without an education, a job, or a woman. I wasn’t sure where mom or Jeannine could be, and I had started to think maybe Donna only existed in my mind.
I was never too familiar with Boston, but it seemed to have changed a lot since the time I first saw it. Cars, for example, looked much nicer. The roads were much smoother. But the people seemed very uptight and paranoid. I had heard something about a Joseph McCarthy, but didn’t really understand what exactly he was doing.
I resolved to visit Stanley at least twice a week. Maybe it was just the fact that he had finally accepted his fate, but he sure seemed to be doing much better.
“How’s life on the outside, Arthur?”
“Well, it’s okay. Freedom is pointless when you don’t know what to do with it.” That made him laugh. I knew I had to tell him what was on my mind, but I just couldn’t.
“Thanks for coming to see me.” There was something I did want to say to him before leaving.
“You can’t let this place destroy you, Stan. You’re still alive, so act alive.”
“What are your dreams, Arthur?”
I opened my mouth to attempt an answer, but I didn’t have one.
***
My earliest memory was of the Pink Elephant in San Francisco. My parents could have gone to the carwash across the street instead, but they knew how much I enjoyed looking at that bright neon elephant. Probably wasn’t too good for my eyes.
I wasn’t the only 7 year old who loved the Pink Elephant. Those kids most likely didn’t even understand what a carwash was; they just knew the Elephant was good. So we played and we played and we played.
One day, our game had me standing in the middle of a circle. Suddenly, an urge—like one of those out of body experiences you hear people talk about. I looked down to see a shy little puddle formed around my feet.
“What’s that?” my friend asked.
“That’s rain.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I have to go.”
I never came back to the Pink Elephant—there was nothing really there for me anyway. When my parents asked if I was coming along, I asked them what the point was. After all, there was a carwash right across the street.
***
I was a fool to think that leaving Newport would make life any better. After all, I had nothing there in Boston. And I had no one.
The extent of my human contact for the past two decades was getting my ass beat by inmates who thought I “looked at them funny,” but it seemed now even that was better than nothing.
I would wander the streets during the day and sleep in parks near the Mystic River during the night. But, of course, I didn’t actually sleep; I had conversations with the one person I did have by my side all along. Each night, I spoke with my old friend Memory.
By late 1939, Donna and I had become real close. We would see each other almost every day, always meeting at that same spot on the Bay. I decided the hands-in-pockets look was the smoothest.
There was no place I’d rather be than with Donna. She made me want to try harder—whether it was being a nicer guy to my schoolmates or just obeying Ma when she told me to throw out the trash. Love seemed like an impossible thing to comprehend, so I didn’t think about it too much.
I hated knowing that those moments with her couldn’t last forever; I loved knowing that those moments with her were too special to last forever.
***
Seventeen was truly the perfect age—right on the cusp of adulthood yet without all the craziness it brings. But then there were days like September 1st, when ignoring the world’s troubles wasn’t an option any more.
My mother came into my room that morning looking very distressed.
“Ma, what’s going on?”
“Turn on the radio, Arthur. They’re saying Adolf Hitler invaded Poland.”
Now, of course, the U.S. wouldn’t officially enter World War II for another couple of years. But I wasn’t going to take any chances by waiting. I had to talk to someone, so I went to Donna.
“There’s going to be a draft soon. I’m getting out.”
“You can’t just skip the draft! Can you?”
“I don’t know yet. There’s still some time. I mean, I can’t just leave you.” She squeezed my hand so hard that I almost pulled it away.
“You know, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?” Couldn’t have been good news.
“My dad got a job in Paris, so my family is moving back there. I have to go with them.”
She flinched as though I was about to smack her. I didn’t, of course. I just waited, hoping that some meaningful sentiment would find its way out of my mouth.
“Oh.” It was all my lips could manage.
“Arthur! Is that really all you have to say?” Of course it wasn’t. I wanted to say more, but I was far too dizzy. Her blue wallpaper started to melt all around me, and the room suddenly felt much too small.
I flew out of there like I was leaving a crime scene. I wish I had at least said goodbye.
You could say I didn’t tell Stan the whole truth about how I ended up at Newport either—or even the partial truth really. I didn’t plan anything; fate just discriminated again.
After I left Donna’s, I got into my car and just drove north. I would have gone to Mexico, but I had a cousin in Portland.
I was about to get on the interstate when I saw someone familiar standing at the intersection holding a sign. It was my dad.
Our eyes met and he must have recognized me, because he immediately turned around and started to walk away. I pulled over, got out, and yelled after him.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He didn’t turn around.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t hear me asshole! Turn around!” The man started to run towards the lake before stopping.
“Please, don’t look at me,” he begged, all out of breath.
“Yeah, it’s not too easy. Where have you been?”
“Please, Arthur. You don’t want to hear my bullshit.”
“You’re homeless! Is that better than living with us?”
“It’s not that simple. I made mistakes, okay, I can admit that.”
“You left mom to raise Jeannine and me all by herself.”
“Arthur, I’m proud of you boy. You’ve grown so much. You’re a man now.”
“Well, you sure as hell aren’t. Stand up.” He was shorter than me by an entire foot, dirty, and reeking. And yet I instantly recognized the sad man.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Give me a hug at least, Arthur. I haven’t seen you in years, son.” He motioned for a hug but I stepped back. The man tried to hug me again and this time I pushed him away.
There was a loud splash.
“Arthur! Arthur! I can’t swim!” I heard the words but didn’t feel them. I didn’t move a muscle, and soon neither did he.
I sat on the grass by the lake for what must have been hours, trying to figure out what just happened. People must have heard the screams because as I stood up to head home, I was greeted by three angry men in blue. As they handcuffed me, all I could think about was Donna.
A lake, a body, and a childhood abruptly ended.
***
It was now 1960. Newport set up a job interview after my release, so I had to be at Fenway Park at 4. With time to kill, a lied down in a park and watched the clouds go by. Hey, it was free.
“So, Arthur, why do you want to work at Fenway?”
“Well, I’ve always loved baseball and I could really use the money.”
“Are you hoping to stay with us for a while? Maybe move up the ladder eventually?”
“Move up the ladder? Like what, janitor to cashier?”
“I don’t know. If you work hard, maybe twenty years from now you could be sitting where I am.”
“Well, asshole, I’m sorry to say that I don’t plan on being alive in twenty years. Thanks anyway.”
I left the man’s office in disgust, walking nowhere in particular. An oddly colored billboard caught my attention.
“Need cash? We can help!” The slogan was plastered over a picture of a woman with a newborn baby.
I found the building and was greeted by a young man who looked a bit too happy to see me. I knew that look—he was a queer.
“Hello! Did you see our advertisement?”
“Yeah, I did. What exactly is this place?”
“I thought you saw the billboard. The woman?”
“Yeah, what about her?”
“Um…this is a sperm bank, sir.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We buy sperm and sell it to infertile women or anyone else who needs it.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, sir.”
“So you’re saying…wait. You’re saying that you’ll pay me to jack off?”
“As long as you do it in a little cup and let us keep it. Yes.”
I couldn’t believe how behind I was on everything. This world was zooming, and mine was static.
“Wipe that damn grin off your face and give me the cup.”
***
Eighty- five cents. That’s what my manhood was worth apparently, because that’s all they paid me. At that point, I knew I had to either get a real job or kill someone so I’d never leave prison again.
Luckily, Wally’s Café, a nice little jazz club in the heart of Boston, was hiring. I was making $1.20 an hour washing dishes, which was enough to rent a small apartment near Fenway Park.
One day, I overheard the owner, a young Barbadian named Joseph Walcott, talking about some horn player named Miles Davis. Davis was supposed to perform that night, and apparently his sax player had bailed on him.
I hadn’t played in over twenty years, but I sure was tired of washing dishes.
“Hey, boss,” I said casually. “I play the sax.”
He squinted at me as if he all of a sudden had poor eyesight. Finally he spoke.
“You got a horn, son?”
“Well, not exactly. See, I’ve been in the joint for a while, and—”
“In the what?”
I forgot that I hadn’t told him about that when I applied for the job. I couldn’t understand why there was such a stigma towards ex-convicts. We were just people who got caught being people.
“Excuse me, Mr. Walcott. ‘In the joint’ is another way of saying, um, that I’ve had money problems recently.” I was hoping he’d buy that.
“Well, if you really do play, I can get you a sax.” Funny how quickly things can change.
Miles Davis was quite a guy, and he played like a maniac.
“My friend Charlie Parker, may he rest in peace, wrote this tune. It’s a blues in F with a 5-4-1 turnaround instead of a 2-5-1. Think you can handle that, Arthur?”
I didn’t understand a single word he said. I just played what came to me.
***
I played my heart out that night and every other night for two straight weeks. I had more than enough money to buy a plane ticket to San Francisco; maybe Donna was still living there. Once again I was leaving, and once again I knew I had to say goodbye to someone.
“I’m going to finally tell Stan about the knife,” I told myself. Better it be late than never.
“Name?” It was the same cold, austere tone of voice that I had become so accustomed to. The only thing that had changed about the people working at Newport was their hairstyle.
“Arthur. Just Arthur. I’m here to visit Stanley Ashcroft.”
“Ashcroft, Stanley,” the man repeated to himself as he searched through his files.
“Yeah, he’s a short guy, kind of pudgy, with—”
“Ashcroft, Stanley. He’s not here anymore.”
“He was transferred you mean?”
“No. I mean your friend died four days ago.”
***
There were rarely funerals for prisoners at Newport. If you didn’t have family, no one else gave a damn about you. So I paid for Stanley’s, but the only person in attendance was the guy who happened to betray him.
I ran out of tears to cry with. I just wanted to tell Stan how sorry I was, not only about the knife but also for lying to him about my life. It was too late to tell him anything now though. No matter what, I couldn’t.
Many years later, I found out what had caused my best friend’s death; Stanley had been living with cancer since he was 19. Maybe it was arrogant of me to think that I deserved to know something like that, especially after everything I did to him.
As I walked back to my apartment, I stopped by a pier overlooking the Mystic River. The river flowed majestically; feelings of guilt and self loathing weren’t there to hold it back. What was the point of escaping prison if I now wanted to escape life? Oh, to be as free as the Mystic.
I took the first flight out to San Francisco in hopes of finding my family, the only source of happiness I imagined was left.
“Sir, please put your seat belt on,” the stewardess warned.
“Why? If the plane goes down, you really think this piece of shit belt will save anybody?”
I was overjoyed to find that the two of them were still living in Queen Anne, the neighborhood I grew up in. My mom was getting old, so Jeannine turned down an acting career in order to stay home and take care of her. I gave up searching for Donna.
I came back to that spot on the Bay—my first stage. I stood on the grassy patch where she sat while drawing me those many, many years ago. The flowers had long since died.
“Freedom is pointless when you don’t know what to do with it.” Just yesterday I uttered those words to Stanley Ashcroft. Well, it sure felt like just yesterday.
But I was wrong. Freedom wasn’t something I could take for granted. Sure, my life was half over and maybe going nowhere. I’d wake up one day and be seventy. But I could still make the most of it. If not for me, then for Stan.
“I’ll have a vanilla cone, please.”
“All I got left here is strawberry,” the vendor replied.
“Oh. Thanks anyway.”
***
My dream has always been to say that I’m living the dream. Even after everything though, that dream—whatever it is—still eludes me. But life goes on.
Yeah, life goes on. I picked up the sax again and played gigs in San Francisco whenever there were any. I never got to play with Miles again, but hey, at least I was playing.
There was a letter for me on my doorstep one morning. I was surprised, since I hadn’t received any mail from Boston for the longest time.
As I stared at the letter, the Mystic was at last washing over me.
It was from the blue-eyed girl.