Faces In the Puddle

It is 1023 and raining on the cottage huts and monastery tops of Kenjimonde. A young monk
the other brothers have
named The Smoker is kneeling, splashing his face in a puddle. The cortege of the abbott happens
to pass by,
two or three monks hiking umbrellas over the Old Man's head. "What good does it do, young
sprout," the abbott
asks, to much laughter, "to wash one's face in a rainstorm?" "Oh, all the
difference,
Abba," The Smoker
says, rubbing his face furiously with freshly and again freshly fallen water. "Clarity requires I
wash
not only a dirty face, but a clean one. And once that's done, to scoop from the wealth of my reflection
and
wash it as well." Effortless words. But given the young man speaks so openly, does it constitute an admission,
a gentle flick, or a form
of challenging encouragement? As they look over his shoulder, the answer seeks
focus. So many
more faces in the puddle.


*

A thief with a knife in his side sidles up to the bar. It's already past high moon and the patrons
are Anglo
and Saxonly drunk. "A draught here, a man's bleeding to death," the thief says, "something
to plug
the wound!" "Make it two," shouts the wound. Muffled between the thief's pressed fingers,
"I'm dying of
this man around me." The barman and everyone marvels from stoops and benches. "Hush
now," the
thief chides his side. "You've got the knife you were always asking for." The wound
bubbles
its hilt truly with the ease of a sword-swallower. The whole blade nowhere except on the
thief's face,
where it yelps right off his pocked pallor. "Never you worry, I've got money," it assures
him. "I'll
pay for my draught and yours. Just be my face here this once and you can get drunk on my
shilling." The thief
wrenches the hilt with both hands and sneers. "Oh like my ears haven't heard that before."



*

A parking garage in a mid-sized city, the American South. Two college boys and a squatter
punk, his
girlfriend. Met on South Limestone where the dirty couples panhandle. Instead giving away a
few clean
dollars the clean kids offer to buy passage to a movie at the old historical theater downtown. The girl
brings
her pet
kitten. Sneaks it past the box office tucked in her jacket. During the movie they stink so bad the
boys can't
forget one second they belong in college. What's the movie? Some frivolous drama a comedy
with
curled toes, an action flick with too much sound not enough explosions? They laugh at the spots
that make sense
to the plot. To his left, the younger of the boys watches the girl hold the kitten on her knees. Feeds it popcorn.
Innocently, a
baby zombie, it gnaws that brain like a kernel. In screenlight the girl is Japanese amused and beyond
either their
previous definitions of beauty. Her boyfriend toughly sensitive by way of touch, just like misfits in the
50's. With a
straw doubled up pinched between fingers he etches dried dirt from her bootsoles. Afterwards they
step in
separate breaths and bring the cold along, up the walk back to the garage's third floor. At their car
the boys ask
where do you want to go? The girl, though, not there when they look around. A trickling echo
brings the younger
one around the car. And there she is, beautiful, suddenly of mere earth and frankly significant:
crouched
cuddling her kitten to chest with pants around her ankles. Urine in a thick trickle trails gravity's
contour past her
shadow. Towards him quickly enough he leaps both feet apart to let it pass. Gatorade yellow,
full of light
it fuses to carry his eyes along with it. Almost now, twenty years ago.