The story of a young man who walked through the world sleeping. People would come at all hours of the night for the young man they called Buddha, hollering his name from the sidewalk. On one side of his place was ours, and on the other, two black hole rowhouses that spat out teenagers then swallowed them up again. A heavy woman with stringy hair and close-set eyes seemed to keep watch over the brood, but it was hard to imagine her mother to them all. In sun or sleet or snow, one scrawny boy with a shadow-mustache walked a grey pit bill mix, and when the dog shit on the bricked sidewalk, the boy ignored it, he and the dog equally ill-kempt, their eyes and mouths drooping like caricatures, boy and dog each always scratching some scabbing scrape or cut. A girl no more than twelve wandered the street on balmy days, wearing a helmet, sometimes riding a bicycle like a lazy fly, asking at houses containing children—could so-&-so come out and play. She lingered on stoops and curbs, sometimes simply standing in the middle of our cramped street, staring at our other neighbors coming and going, standing too close to their parking or leaving cars as if waiting for an invitation. There was a day when, arriving home, I gave her an empty notebook from the back of my car, silently congratulating myself for the impulsive benevolence. What should I do with this, she asked, and I suggested drawing a picture, maybe drawing flowers, it being spring and all. Hours later she rang our doorbell, reciting that her mother had directed her to bring the notebook back. In our rowhouse, my fiancé and I had papered one entire side of a hallway with maps, and when we broke up, I tore them all down, to shreds. Even though I was the one who had broken us. True story.
Sophie Klahr is the author of Driftwood (Gasher Press, 2027) and a number of other chapbooks & books. Her writing may be found in The New Yorker and elsewhere. sophieklahr.com
