Strong enough

Sunday evening and I'm at a cigar bar in the middle of somewhere. At the second floor window, muted light slips through the slats. It's deep and dark inside; my face visible only in the laptop glow. Straight hair, brown and silver, drifts down around my face like tinsel. Downstairs, Sheryl Crow croons through unobtrusive speakers.

God, I feel like hell tonight;

tears of rage I cannot fight.

I'd be the last to help you understand.

Are you strong enough to be my man?

I sip chilled framboise through a delicately twisted wine glass and sigh contentedly. It's quiet up here. No one has ventured up the narrow wooden stairs. Not many will tonight and none will stay. I spread my fingers across the keys, the night's words and drinks stretching out before me.

Nothing's true and nothing's right,

so let me be alone tonight.

'cause you can't change the way I am.

Are you strong enough to be my man?

Lie to me.

I promise, I'll believe.

Lie to me,

but please don't leave.

When they've drifted into Josephine Baker and Sarah Vaughan, two men argue downstairs over who won the chess game. Checkmate. Another man asks for the cheapest beer. I scribble their dialogue in a tiny spiral bound notebook. Never know when I could use it. I steal lives like that.

This time the manuscript is not nearly as laborious as the last. The words come sharp and easy. I've been writing for days. Or my whole life. However you want to play it.

Here I am alone tonight, at home with words. I order a cider. Another chess game begins.

Photo by Leif Skoogfors courtesy Corbis