New York City
April 21
“Do you have siblings?” Tox and Calliope were lying on their backs in her postage stamp of a backyard, watching dark clouds rush across the April sky. Coco was focused on a hole-digging project she had commenced several days ago. Calliope and Coco had returned home after a brief showing at the Harlem Sentry. Calliope wanted to check the house again; despite her transient life, she had some irreplaceable valuables and sentimental belongings she wanted to make sure were untouched. Tox had come back to Brooklyn after the meeting at Bishop Security’s Midtown office. After walking around her block, checking out the little pastry shop across the street, and trying his damnedest not to look like a lurker, he had knocked on her door. He told himself the reason was to update her about the meeting. Calliope hadn’t found it strange at all that he had just shown up, but deep down Tox knew he was playing with fire. He was like a gambling addict buying scratchers tickets or a junkie smoking weed, nothing serious, it’ll be fine…said every addict ever before a relapse.
Without preamble, Calliope had hauled him back to her tiny green patch and pulled him down on the quilt where, propped up with patio cushions, she had been reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.
“Nope. Just me,” Calliope answered. “My stepfather is much older than my mom, so he probably didn’t want to do the baby thing.” She paused for a moment. “I was probably enough. I was a bit of a handful.”
“I can imagine.”
She elbowed him in the ribs.
“It’s a support group.” He turned just his head to face her. “That bookstore in Harlem.”
She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant.
“I figured it out.”
“The suicide rate among special forces is high. My best friend can’t walk into a bar without flipping tables. It helps to talk about our stuff.”
“What about you?”
“Booze and sex are supposed to be fun. Not painkillers. I’ve been going to the group for about a year now.”
She sat up and looked at him. “Is it helping?”
“Yes. But not in the way I thought it would. I expected to go in and talk about my shit and feel better that I got it off my chest. But really it’s the other guys. I like helping them when they’re struggling, slapping them on the back when something good happens.”
“It’s a connection,” she said.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I’m sorry I followed you. I didn’t mean to violate your privacy. I didn’t think it through. I saw you and…it was so out of context, you in my work neighborhood, I just…”
“It’s okay, Cal. You really do just go where the wind takes you. I love that about you.”
“Maybe.” She tugged on her earlobe as she stared at the sky. “I’m trying to be more grounded.”
“I’m trying to be more flighty, but it’s hard to get this body in the air.”
Calliope laughed at his attempt to lighten the mood and took the opportunity to scoot closer, hip to waist, shoulder to bicep. He obliged her and lifted his arm, molding her into the nook.
“That cloud looks like a sphinx.” She pointed straight up.
“I don’t really see shapes in clouds. They just look like clouds,” Tox said.
“Their isolation, the clouds do not protest
As they waft and list and drift across an endless sky.
No sound they make,
No whisper of complaint,
Until they weep their torment to the grateful earth below.”
“That’s really beautiful.” Tox rolled to his side to face her.