The Smile

FI-HANKRA

Black humid nights sticking to my skin, street lights illuminate the hazy air, a pot hole I didn’t see.  Black art – graffiti decorate the steel gray curtains that protect the trinkets in the corner store at 4th and Rhode Island.

The little Arab man sits the sealed glass booth across the street, pushing petro beneath the British sun—quietly he sells the assistance they need to roll and blow. 

Ambient noise surrounded by silence, glazed eyes, like deer, like zombies pierce the window of every passing vehicle—focused. Empty space full of plight, of black, of despair.  A war on hope, on hugs, ambition on drugs. Peeking through the blinds from above, observing, listening to the street babble, seeing but not seen, like leery prey perched in the jungle trees shielded by darkness.  A scream, a moan, a flashing light, there’s blood in the street—on my hands, my shirt—oozing from her nostrils, draining from her ears. A bleeding stone on the pavement next to her head, and a small dent, a breach, just above the left temple. A glazed gaze, a desperate stare, her eyes fixed upon my face as I push—quietly chanting the rescue mantra, 1 and 2 and 3…, unconcious-ly, we both know it’s time, a fading frown greets the other side. I continue pushing protocol against the obvious, the odds, against the reality of blackness, 329 and counting. So young—whose daughter, sister, mother—who’s next? They lift her body into the red and white box with the spinning light and asclepius fades into the night. 

The street sweeper comes just before dawn,  just before work.  Traffic flows and never they know, how humid was the night. 

Twenty-three calls — fire in the sky, struggling to breath, black smoke choking my thoughts, I can’t see, temperature’s rising, got-damnit, somebody please vent the fucking roof! 

Stripped down, trying to remove the carbon residue and grime that clogs my pores—thick soot tinged mucus, mixed with a hint of gore, erupts from my lungs when I cough on to the shower floor and oozes down the trough. I manipulate the shower head in a circular motion, have to wash it down, have to get clean. Close my eyes as the lukewarm water sanitize my mind, envisioning the water falls of Trinidad—I was there once, standing on the black shiny rocks under the cliff, the waters of heaven flowed down upon my head — mmm, it felt good, I was clean then. 

Fatigued — sitting in the dark, slumped over and dripping. Dark spaces, black faces between my thoughts. So many images etched in my mind but this one, her face, had an eerie familiarity. 

Dried and dressed, my gear bag slung over the right shoulder. A silent morning. Talking seems out of place — quietly moving through the station. I nod, good morning, to Dave as I walk through the parking lot, to my car, thinking, I’ve got to get home. He nods back, no words are exchanged — none are needed.   

It’s 6:00 am, moving  against traffic on my way home, the people are rising with the sun—with hope. 

Pulling into my driveway I notice how green the cone shaped Leland cypress in the front yard are, grass perfectly edged, the ancient twisted limbs of the Japanese maple. The colorful arrangement of the flower bed. A moment to gather myself and listen to the morning birds converse. Slowly placing my key in the door, I enter and behold—the smile, the face of angels — but never a word about how humid was the night. 

by K. Osei