What is A Smart Man Like You Doing in A Small Town Like This
Please, not the poet.
“He is the poet.” Smirked a little, she tapped on my shoulder and gestured at the man beside her to stand closer (her husband maybe, though she never mentioned). He extended her smile and shook my hand. A firm grip, a warm palm.
“What is an intellect like you doing in a small town like this?” He said to me, complacently with a flattering sense of humor, entertained by his own wit. This negation, this pride. So I told him that I am finding work at the local post office, working on some postcards and souvenirs. Suppose he didn’t find it funny—we ended the conversation in just a few more exchanges. Later that evening, I went to meet her in the alley, and we made love. None of us brought it up again--about the nameless man and his condescendence. She shivered towards the end and we remained still for a couple of more minutes after we finished. Silence gnawed through the night. Nothing special—no sweet talks or caress, just the entanglement of two bodily sniffs. How are we animal like this?
With the tacit agreement over sex, we met up this way from time to time, but there was never a fixed date for the rendezvous, just as how time functioned in this place. I kept writing on my own after the travel season had passed. Some college students came to me for advice when my poetry got published on the Monday Newspaper. So I gained a few extra that summer and was able to afford a bigger apartment by the Church. The moving-in was in a haste. I only had one suitcase and a bag of books and unfinished drafts, yet I had gotten used to the convenience of celibacy, the unmarried mobility.
That was when I saw him the second time, on the staircase. He was surprised, flinching before he pulled out that same smile as last time at the gala. The same old fixation for grace. I greeted him and asked if he’d like some help with his luggages (he was trying to move them downstairs). Several, some unzipped, fabric strips spilling out. What a jam.
A tinge of fluster slipped past his face. Flurried, he said yes. So I put down my bags and carried two of those fine-leathered cases. I didn’t say a word to iron the wrinkled air. But he may have awaited me to probe--what were his reasons behind the hassle (a distant travel or a break in the vow)? He uttered, Didn’t expect you to catch me in a scenario like this. A slight tone lift at the end of his remark. He smiled. Wry perhaps, almost a grimace, still attempting the poise of a bourgeois man.
We all had our troubled times. Something refrained me from looking at him. I spoke out of an instinct, from a heart of a broken story.
With our eyes on the floor, two men like us, carrying luggage, walked down those nine flights of stairs.
He shoved the suitcases into his car.
Want a drink?
Sure, I am not busy anyway.