Outside my Window

(This is based on a real event.  Then in writing it different some things don't add up.  The bag lady was actually a very young lady in my future.  It was on my friends porch that we noticed the mail.  She was a very nice kind person, we did become lovers briefly and I don't even remember her name.)

For most of the day, I noticed the cleaners.  The guys that clean crime scene or deathbeds.  The beds that family can’t handle, if there is family, relations.   I’ve not died alone.  So I can’t comment from that side, but I noticed the cleaners more than I’d ever paid much attention to the old women that lived there. 

(Move)

She always had a bag, a shopping bag in her hand and her purse locked by her arm over her shoulder. The only time I talked to her she explained her bag.  Apolic.  She smiled when she called herself the bag lady.

I did call the police though.  Sarah made me.  Sarah was visiting.  She’s back in hot-ass Tampa and I’m in DC.  We were a commuting couple and it was not broken so why we try to fix it I don't know.  I don’t like Tampa or Florida for that matter.

It was all that mail overflowing the mailbox.   

I met Sarah one day riding my bike.  The dudes were coming on too strong.  She was attactive, but it an out there some to me sexing way.  I pretended to know her.  We became friends. 

“Do you see that,” She asked.  I said see what.  The mail.  Sarah was like that, seeing and feeling reacting.  She had my attention.   And I processed the thought of the mail and realizing I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the bag lady.  The lady that lived across the street,  That I would see and how beauriful she still was and imagine.

We saw this sitting in the bay window enjoying our coffee and each other.  Sarah is a waif and love that little nook.  This is the evening of our last day together the light was gold as is late afternoon in the fall, not too long before the drive to the airport early in the morning in time for her to make it work.

Without any discussion we got, went downstairs and across the street.  On the an’s porch, we found more mail under the overflowing mailbox.. I picked up a few pieces.   Junk mail, water bill__I recognized the logos.  I left my glasses.  I wanted to see the postmarks, but the type was just a blur.

Typical Sarah.  Mot caring about postal regulations she went straight for the mailbox.  As she sorted a hand full of mail we both recognized the manila envelope.

It was the bag lady’s Social Security check.  Sarah looked up at me with those eyes of her and said, Charles, we need to call the police.

That was yesterday. 

Your Call Has Been Forwarded to an Automatic Phone System

(What is an automatic phone system)

I have a hole is my heart.