Today in a Back Alley a Man

Today in a back alley a man in an old brown hat offered to give me super powers. He held his hands out, palms up, to say Trust me, his eyes open wide, his hair unwashed, hanging greasy from under his hat, and a woman in a black skirt walked by the alley, her heels making a sound on the sidewalk: pock. The man called himself Sally, and talked about his parents, their house in Spain, their pet pig. He did not stand up. He said, ‘I need some money for the train.’ He said, ‘This is so embarrassing.’ My hands wer­e in my pockets, held in fists, and I stood with my side to him. Around us were white brick walls, black plastic trash cans, old bottles, hamburger wrappers, a Christian fish, gravel, puddles, unrecognizable piles of unrecognizable things. I was on the way to the store.

‘Sorry, man,’ I said. I always say, ‘Sorry, man,’ I will always say, ‘Sorry, man,’ and I will make empty gestures to my pockets. Old men in alleys will eye me, will shake loose coffee cups, will sleep in red sleeping bags by shopping carts and sheets of cardboard, will tell me stories and say, ‘Hey.’

‘I will give you super powers,’ said Sally. Is Sally a man’s name? Maybe it is short for Salvador.

‘Sorry, man,’ I said.

Here are super powers that I would like to have:

• Invisibility. At parties, on trains, when my roommate comes home with a scowl, when I am in back alleys. Some people would use it to watch women bathe, and maybe I would do that too, sometimes. I could creep into their homes, follow them to their bathrooms, and stand silently in the steam. Maybe I would sing, or clean the fog from the mirrors for them. Maybe I would sit down and imagine talks we might have.

• Flight. When I was younger I would dream. In my dreams I would fly, would soar above my friends, would run fast and bound and slowly catch the air and circle in the sky and look down and say, ‘Here I am, flying.’ In my dreams I would never save people, or escape people. I would only fly, and land atop tall things: Trees, a school, my father. It was not much use, in my dreams, this flight.

• Strength. I cannot think of anything I would do with strength.

Later today when I walked through the alley again I saw that Sally wasn’t there. There were instead two kids, playing, pushing one another and screaming, smiling, calling one another by their names. They both had dark curling hair. They ran in circles, and shoved, and did not notice me, or did not respond if they did. When I walked past them their father called them sharply and said, ‘Didn’t you see that man there?’

‘It’s okay,’ I said.

The father held both hands out, palms up, and said, ‘Sorry, man.’

It is okay.

(here)