My skull can’t hold any more memories, so I walk them off late at night. And this night, as always and despite my very best attempts, when I look up from the street I see you standing there.
The streets are silent except for the sea lions barking from the pier they now dominate down at fisherman’s wharf. Isn’t it crazy how you can hear them from miles away? San Francisco is small, it’s true — only seven by seven miles to roam.
I listen to Mozart’s Requiem K626 Lacrimona, a mix of the tragic and the elegant juxtaposed against the high Italianettes, squat Spanish Mission revivals and sun-bleached shingle-style homes. In Vienna, we toured the house that Mozart lived in after he got real famous — the Taylor Swift of the 1770’s.
You, who sometimes curls behind a bush, a tree, or a red fire hydrant, watching me pass then trailing from behind. Once, you said, you waited at the top of the Lombard Street stairs for hours. When I first started walking I preferred going alone, but now I like your company so long as there’s the right amount of distance between us.
The restaurants are closed, shops boarded with graffiti scrawled across the front. The old ice cream store is open, and half the sign is out so it only says HERE in flashing red neon. The night is cold, dark and crisp. My hands are balled tightly into the pockets of my north face jacket, the one I took from the giving stone at the old building in Brooklyn along with some 70’s rock records.
It’s a San Francisco summer, and normally the streets would be packed. You’re the only one who knows how much I love it: the solitude, quiet, peace of mind — well despite the circumstances, as the sentiment goes.
You stand now at the top of the red brick road. You somehow already know that I’ll take the grubby metal stairs down from the sky all the way down to the cold major street. You watch me approach and I gently scratch the side of your face; you purr.
We walk a long while in silence. When we reach the waterfront, you turn to say you’re tired and want to go home. You look at me with your big moon eyes as if to say but don’t worry — you’re going to be fine. You tell me that you miss us, and that you still think of that cold winter in Paris whenever you drink St. Germain.
Then you say Hey, what do I know I’m just a cat and you leave, turning a corner with the swish of your tail before I can say anything, and I don’t see you again for a very long time.
The docks were silent, and the lamps illuminated a light rain that was starting to fall. I ducked my head and walked the rest of the way home alone, going a different way from how I came.
As I trudged back towards home I looked up across the horizon at the other hills. Small boxes with windows of warm yellow light went on for miles against the inky black sky. The stars aren’t visible tonight.
I miss you too, I say aloud. You can stay longer — I might have the muscle now. Maybe, just maybe, when you get too tired I’ll be able to carry you in my arms.
The rain intensified, blowing sideways now. I dug my hands more deeply into my pockets and thought about nothing in that particular moment, my mind a smooth granite slate making way for something that was coming fast, I knew, something big I had to make way for.
I discovered a dead mouse on my doorstep this morning. Her stomach was ripped open, little pink guts spilled all along the welcome mat. From somewhere in the sky I heard you say you’re okay; everything is okay. We are going to be fine.