Infinite Us(2)

That racket from the apartment above was not helping.

The noisy upstairs female started a louder chant, something that reminded me of the weird mess my twin Natalie watched every Halloween with her friends when we were kids back in Atlanta. Some movie with three white chicks from Salem, singing about spells and sucking the lives out of children. The one with the redhead woman that my assistant Daisy says likes to burn Kim Kardashian on Twitter. That shit was funny, hell of a lot funnier than the movies she was in that made my mom laugh so loud when I was six. It was a Broadway phase she kept from my pops. Nothing like the witch mess from that old movie, that nonsense was crap. And that's what my new neighbor sounded like.

Four nights. Four nights of this bullshit. Four nights too many.

Coltrane fell silent when I pulled the headphones off and moved across my apartment, not giving a damn that my t-shirt was wrinkled when I picked it off the floor and tugged it over my head, not caring whether or not that loud woman would get pissed if I interrupted what had to be some nightly juju ritual.

My skin pebbled in the cool air from the vents at the elevator ceiling but I didn't shake or cross my arms to get rid of the sensation. It fed me as I slipped into the elevator, ignored the quick flash of my reflection showing the bags under my eyes, the streak of muscle that twitched when I stretched my shoulders. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to confront this chick, but I was tired and annoyed, and before I stopped to think about what I was doing, the elevator dinged and I stood right in front of 6-D's door. There was a constant thump of a drum line bumping beneath the sliver of light at the bottom of the door; the only shadow I could make out slipped around that light, probably dancing to whatever voodoo junk pulsed from those speakers.



       
         
       
        

Coltrane was music. Spirit music. Deep, heart-aching music that seeped into your soul, filled in all the fragments that life left empty. This garbage? Hell no. This wasn't music at all.

Two bangs of my fist on the door was all it took. I stood there, arms braced against the doorframe, loops of black tattoos, things I wanted to remember, things I could never forget, running over my forearms visible, moving as I twisted my fists on the wooden frame. I didn't care what I looked like, tall inked black man breathing fire at her door. Not worried that this woman might see something of a threat in me, wide shouldered, thin, wrinkled shirt, jeans slipping low on hipbones. Instead, I was focused on that mean ache of messed up calm and lack of sleep crowding in my skull. My stupid pissed off attitude amped up the longer it took this female to open the door. Waiting, I envisioned that I'd yell, I'd unload on her, then get the hell away before she could react, stalk back to my own apartment with my anger leeching out behind me. Then maybe Coltrane would work and I get at least a few hours' sleep.

The drumbeats stopped. I heard footsteps, the turn of a lock. I was breathing anger through my nose, eyes glaring, like a bull ready to charge.

Everything changed in the second the door opened. With the smallest creak of a hinge, the softest slip of light, a perfect shadow was silhouetted in front of me, followed by what felt like a whip of wind moving through the park, of plastic beads and forgotten parking tickets on Bourbon Street the second Fat Tuesday ended, of the spray of waves that had crashed against the quay. It slapped across my subconscious. A whoosh, a break of something that could have been a kiss, likely was a punch in the gut, though no one touched me. Before I finished one blink, there she stood, half a foot from me, staring at me like she knew me, like she'd been waiting on me to knock on her door.

"Oh. Oh no, honey."

It was her. The girl I had seen through my window, and again a couple of times on the elevator. The girl, no, the woman, new to the building, who had not only caught my eye but caused me to stare even though I'm usually not so stupid as that. Once, coming home, I had noticed her walking a block in front of me, and had followed her like a stalker, not even realizing how creepy I must have seemed. Every time I saw her, it was like her presence had gripped me like a crazy moth to a flame, but I had been too wrapped up in my work and my own damned mind games to even consider that she was real, and approachable, and living nearby.

And now she stood in the open doorway, only inches away.

Her touch brought me from my gawking stupor. At least, it made me move. She touched me and it felt like a bolt of electricity. Fingers warm against my skin, gripping, pulling me forward like she expected me to follow, like resisting her was not an option.