122 The Meadow Whispered panic through the monochrome town. A faint discord of strings. Fretfulness in the savory mouth of the hero’s girl as she watches him brood for his buddy Jimmy. And Veronica? What did Veronica mean to her man? She tries not to dwell. Does the news break now, the kid and his puppy? Does the hero say he’s just stepping out a while? In the diner, I get angled as a man got something there’s no vaccine for. Sympathy for what I was, alarm at what I’ve become. Guys with daughters, guys I known years, keep their distance. Old timers, all emotion spent, grumble in their coffee. A waitress—new uniform starched, unstained—hair shorter than fashion, her pinched, unfriendly face not knowing me, flips up her pad and waits. Don’t know why I’m here—I’m not the action. “Water please. Cold water.” Her pencil stub slices across me. “All water is cold water. There’s only water.” Can’t find encouragement in her face. “There’s sweet water.” “Beg pardon?” “There’s heavy water.” “There is not.” She checks across her shoulder—the greasy menu glints. “If you’re eating we got most of that.” My hands spool and unfurl. “I’m not meant to be here.” A rose tint in her cinch-waist dress, color—new as cellophane—fills the scars in her fingers and rash on her throat. Her hair takes a little yellow. Some pale shading leaks on the table top—who knew it was russet-brown, or my shirt a modest blue? In a town too cheap for color, it’s impertinence. The action’s in the sheriff ’s den where they’re making plans for nightfall; and where her ribbon was found: the hero’s there now, tracing flattened grass that lays like wind bore down precisely from above. If they think of me, I’m a service dutifully rendered, a good deed to trade for bad times. Perhaps they believe I’m weeping now, her picture beside me. But I’m
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