Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 1 - Part 2

The next morning was colder, but dry. I had overslept and was walking with purpose from my transfer when I was stopped short by his approaching form, gliding above the earth, away from the bus stop.

Once within an acceptable distance he said, "The bus is down. Looks like it could be a while."

This was unfortunate timing. I had scheduled a performance review with a supervisor whose opinion I valued, and in whose hands lay the responsibility of determining wage increases. Now stomaching the idea of calling for a taxi I could not comfortably afford, I looked past him toward a handful of fellow bus riders who stood talking on their phones. "Do you think any of them would split a taxi with me?" I wondered aloud.

"Don't worry about that. My place is close and I have a car. I'll drive you."

He looked at me with such devastating concern that I very nearly needed to hug him then and there, to assure him that I felt deeply nurtured by his offering. "You really don't need to do that."

"It would make me happy if you'd say yes."

His dark eyes divulged a fleeting sadness, which I spent the next instant wondering if I'd actually seen. I had a number of reasons to say yes. "Alright," I said.

He didn't say anything but smiled and started in the direction he'd been walking, and I fell in alongside him.

"How old are you?" I asked. The question came to me out of nowhere, and sounded extremely bizarre now that it hung in the cold, clear morning air.

"Twenty-three," he said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two," I replied, in a casual tone that mirrored his apparent lack of sentiment for his age, and immediately struck me as idiotic, since I had obviously cared enough to ask in the first place.

"I figured we were close in age," he said.

I wanted to ask him if he had any reasoning that ventured beyond appearance, but it felt like another strange thing to ask, so we just walked in silence for a minute.

"It's not much farther," he said, "just around that corner. Do you live close to here?"

"Not really. I get off the 40A at Stratham and walk from there."

"That comes from Corbin right?"

"Yes," I said. He referred to the nearby suburb in which I rented a clean, small studio. On my street, the buildings did not crowd together and up against worn sidewalks the way they did here. I envied him a little for calling this cozy, bustling part of town his home, but the rent was out of reach for someone like me.

"I grew up in Corbin," he said. "I don't go back there too often anymore, though."

"Oh, cool," I said. "I grew up there, too. Never quite made it out, I guess."

Cars hurried along the narrow street, shunted between endless lines of parked vehicles, punctuated only by the occasional side-street entrance or hydrant.

Suddenly he ran several feet ahead of me, whipped around, tie and coattails flying outward, and pointed at me with both hands. "Bengals."

I stopped and shook my head. "Chickadees."

"Aww, get out of here, then," he said, letting his whole frame slump down as I caught up with him. "Although I guess I would have remembered you if you were a Bengal."

I laughed. "Sorry to disappoint you." Although I had no stake in, nor had ever paid much attention to the unusually heated high school rivalries in my hometown, his impromptu display had been completely void of pretense, playful and lovable.