When the lights come up in the grid and the evening sky seems lighter than the day sky, the colors, and the eyes of streetwalkers bleed on wet nights. The neon sign up high is also down low, in the puddle, in reflected gritty beauty. Her eyeliner runs down both sides of her face, though she’s not crying, or maybe she is, or will be when she gets to a mirror. It’s 1984 and the bulky yellow cabs are blocking the traffic, red brake lights dripping into the wet wake of asphalt. I was supposed to wait for her on the corner, but instead I’m under the marquee, drying off, with a blue light above me that makes me look like a ghost. Shiiiiish go the tires in the rain, above the low applause of the drizzle. She will sound frazzled, even breathless from her gallop her through the elements. She will feel that she’s not at her best. She will be inside herself, receding from the damp, receding from me. I will wait here anyway. I light a cigarette, because it’s 1984 and we all smoke, and then I light another, to warm her, to welcome her, because I see her splashing up the sidewalk toward me.

–Danny Grosso

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