Projection

They never spoke to me, but I was always right behind them, and depending on which way they were heading, I could be at their side. Sometimes I looked like one of them, or both. I don't have the vocabulary to describe what they look like or who they are, but I could mimic them. They noticed me right away and talked about me with the same interest I had for them. They said I’d be around for a few more hours, unless they went downtown, in which case I'd follow them there.

They sat in a park and spoke of 'old times,' and I quickly picked up what they meant by 'old times' and other euphemisms, as the woman said. The man said she was a woman of horrible moral aptitude, and she said he was a man with the moral clout of a Nazi. He said, “Be careful,” and she replied, “You better be.”

I moved behind them, toward the woman I was more sympathetic toward. The man said everything was her fault, and she said she had some faults, but not all of his. At least she did not smell like a gorilla in the morning. He asked how she knew what a gorilla smelled like, and she replied, “Sleeping next to you, and having been to the zoo.” The sun was falling, and this turned him the color of the sky.

“Listen here,” he said. “You’re lucky I don’t call your husband and tell him what you've been up to.”

She replied, “So he can kick your ass? If you bend over, I can do that for you, and God do we know how you like to bend over.”

It looked like his face was covered in rain. She was dry as the day. He told her to be quiet, and she smiled.

“Or what? Will your wife hear me? Lord knows no one has heard from her.”

“Stop ‘lord knows’ and ‘God’ like you’re some kind of saint, speaking with the upper echelon of religious powers!”

“It’s just veniacular, Robert. You should try it sometime.”

“And you should try keeping your mouth shut!”

“But if I did that, the world wouldn’t hear the truth.”

“And what truth might that be?”

“That you’re a pig, and I no longer wish to see you. You look like a burnt bottom that's been hit with a hose.”

Mimicking his movements, I raised my hand but kept stretching, moving farther away while still within earshot. We lowered our hands, and she laughed, and I must admit, I did as well. He was a hopeless creature, and old. That is what she kept saying every time he asked what her problem was.

“You’re old, and stuck in your old ways. When I reach your age, I hope to be stuck in my new ways. The water was not what it once was, Robert. The current is changing, the tide is different.”

“But that’s what I liked about you! You were old-fashioned.”

“That was a long time ago. I’m no longer a naive student, Robert, but a woman, and I suggest you get with the times if you expect to have any more friends.”

“Friends?” he said. “What friends? I haven’t had friends since 1964, and even then, they were quasi-friends. The only real friends anyone has in this world are when they're thirteen.”

“And do you wish to be thirteen, Robert?”

“I’m 59. Of course, I wish to be any age younger than 59. 60 is a different beast.”

“But you are not 60.”

“But about to be 60 is a different beast. Sure, some kids want to have a drink with you when you're 40, but when you're about to hit 60, you sit on park benches with lovers and quarrel.”

“Former lovers,” she corrected him. “I’m about to turn 40, and I’d still have a drink with you when you’re 60.”

“I said, kids.”

“So you really do wish to be 13, sitting in a bar, drinking with a bunch of other kids?”

“Doesn’t sound like the worst.”

“It doesn’t, it is very funny.”

“Can you spare me one cent of sympathy?”

“To a man who raised his hand at me? No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

“Like I was going to smack you in a public park?”

“You raised your hand.”

“Yet you would have a drink with me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you always cheer up.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“My husband doesn’t.”

“I never understood why you married Rick, except for the faint possibility he was the worst student I ever had and that attracted you to him.”

“Definitely.”

“Seriously?”

“No.”

I started to shrink, listening to them, staying while there was still light in the sky, and they mentioned me one more time.

“Look at our shadows,” she said. “An outline of us when the sun is high, and a reminder when our shadows take on a new meaning. Our shadows are filled with problems, but at least I am starting to deal with the suppression and force we women have put up with our entire lives. We can never be one thing; we are always two. A writer and a woman, and never just a writer.”

He stood, and I split in two. He said, “Consider yourself lucky. My shadow does not set with the sun, but follows me under street lamps and burning fires. When I was in the war, a M-1 Carbine at night always showed me that there was another self.”

“And when did you stop recognizing it?”

“When I met you.”

“I suggest you find yourself, again, Robert. Our shadows can’t do all the heavy lifting.”

They parted, and I followed both as far as they would have me, until I meant something else. Something I did not understand, but they did. Once it was night, and I flickered behind the woman sitting in front of the candlelight, and appeared and reappeared under each lamp post with the man, I realized I wasn’t mimicking them at all, but the shape of what light could not penetrate.