The Scary Issue!

Every morning at 7:40, she boards the bus, wearing one of two jackets – navy blue and full of down, or charcoal gray worsted wool – depending on the weather. It’s been a mild winter so far, but more than a few days have blown their cold, bitter breath beneath his creaky front door. He only has one coat, a fatigue-colored winter jacket that he’s had for years. The elastic-bound bracelet sleeves are frayed, and the elbows have faded from military green to soupy pea, but he sees no point in replacing it. It still keeps him warm.

He’s noticed that she winds scarves around her neck, under her coats. Here is where the variety lays – nubby white, carrot-orange, or, recently, a richly-hued red which bleeds over her throat. She only has one pair of gloves that he’s seen, woven and black, tucked into her cuffs. He envisions her slipping her hands into its knit before shrugging into her coat and pulling its zipper taut. He can picture her as a small child, being sealed into a pale pink parka before tumbling out the door to play in the snow.

The bus bumps down Broadway with a rhythmic stop-and-go regularity, and he absentmindedly rubs his thumb and forefinger together. Without fully realizing even that he’s doing it, he wonders what the zipper would feel like in his hands, or her scarves against his wrinkled cheek, or her gloved palms pressed against his chest, under his shirt.

Closing his eyes, he rests his head against the bus’s curved windows of shatterproof glass. All the while he sees his fingers making a tight bracelet around her wrist, her skin smooth against his calloused thumbs. He can’t keep himself from imagining the pressure of her hips against his.

Although he knows he shouldn’t, he plots out in his head her route home. He runs though the bus schedule he has memorized, and considers the various possible times at which she might head back up Broadway to her stop at Edison Street. He will ride public transit until he discovers this, and then he will get off at her stop behind her, and follow her home. He won’t touch her. He’ll keep his distance as she walks up the path to her door. He’ll stand across the street, outside the halo of light cast onto the sidewalk by the streetlamp, and watch her enter her house. He’ll do all this, but he won’t ever touch her. It doesn’t hurt to look.