Something to Take Home

She puts the phone down and glances over her shoulder; the office is empty and silent except for the hum of her computer. She reaches under her desk and slips into the short man's skin, pulls it up over her arms, dark and exotic as amber, and finds her/himself once more lotus-style on the concrete, a neglected box of rice and raw fish going to waste on the sidewalk beside him. He raises the viewfinder and leans back against the red railing.

The tall man on the opposite sidewalk continues to waver in the fog, his arms stretched out like some demented conductor over the side of the bridge. His wrists and ankles protrude from his suit like wooden spoons; his hair, now missing the hat that lifted off over the edge an hour ago, could be bits of brown yarn or even twine; and the black suit itself is a faded assortment of pockets and patches. A nine-year-old could have pieced him together on a rainy day with scavenged scraps from around the house. But a nine-year-old would have laid him safely in her bed or on the shelf, not left him cold and teetering on a bridge where his sheer height could topple him suddenly over the side.

The short man lowers the camera, eyes the remainder of his lunch, and pushes it away. A group of tourists emerge from the fog, chatting; the sound catches him for a moment like a net: "...International Orange..." "...fangs in the dark..." "...gallons, cause you never..." "...no I guess I didn't..." San Francisco sweatshirts and sun visors and tennis shoes barely miss him before crushing the leftover rice. "Ooh!" and "Yuck!" and something about "...people like that..." before kicking the box over the side completely and fading forward into the fog. He snaps a shot of their backs and looks down through the railing. The rice box is caught in a grate that runs the length of the span, the food splattered over a couple of used condoms and a moldy teddy bear a few yards down.

"Hey stop!" A woman's voice screeches by in a VW. The short man snaps his neck back just as the tall man's right leg goes over the rail.

Ring! Shit. The office phone. "Hello? Fissure and Associates. I'm sorry, but we're closed for the evening. Oh. Hi. Yeah, in about half an hour. OK, ice cream's fine. Sure. Cake too. Fine. Yes, fine, really. Ok ok. Yeah, lotta work. Ok now. Bye. No, really. Bye." She drops the receiver and burrows back into the skin.

Where is he? Ah, still there, right leg up over the rail and body weaving like tall buildings do, although you hardly notice unless you're sitting very still. The fog has moved in between them so that the drivers hurdling by don't see either one of the men posted to the bridge like placards. Sun barely shimmers off the whiteness. Pavement swirls like the black water below. The short man untwists his frozen legs and stands up. His eyes see the swoosh of cars past the curb. But the lens sees only the tall man in black. He raises the camera once more to his face and from the safety of that window, makes it across.

The short man pauses before stepping onto the opposite curb. He wants to speak, but can only think of phrases to do with basketball hoops and reaching bowls on the top shelf. The tall man now has both legs over and clings to the rail leaf-like, his pants and coat tails and the loose skin of his jaw quivering, his yellowed fingers easing their grip. "My hat," he moans through a hole in the fog.

"Yes, I saw the hat," volunteers the short man. "It blew off over the side."

"My hat," the tall man wails, ignoring the small brown man with the camera.

"It's probably on the head of some duck now." The short man laughs nervously at his joke.

"My hat!" cries the tall man to a gull gliding suddenly into the fog. And with that, he reaches out his hands, catches the surprised bird to his chest, and takes it down with him through the clouds below. The short man click clicks the shutter, but the cold has made his hands too slow to capture anything in time.

All she takes home that night is a piece of light like gold off the water just before the fog zips itself back up again.

ãElizabeth Terry
10/24/1996