In the soft heat of the night, I watched her.

The neon lights from the bar windows and the yellowed aprons of light from the street lamps provided a cinematic setting as she stood, or walked. Usually, she wore white. Tight skirts were her trademark. The few times that I came close enough to her to see her face, I was struck by her dark hair, high cheeks and pouting lips. She exuded a sultriness that was not contrived, but natural. Almost innocent.

Once, as I cruised slowly past, I caught the flash of her eyes, green and unimprisoned.

She was there almost every night and I watched her.

The small automatic pistol sat uncomfortably in my belt at the small of my back, but it was a reassuring weight. Whenever the police stopped me, I worried I worried they might somehow discover it there. My driver’s license was valid. I had no criminal record. They quickly became bored with me and left with hardly a backwards look of disgust.

And then one day, she was gone. Each night I drove around, checking her different haunts. I ached for even a glimpse of her, but I found only dirty, tired women and evil men with shadowy faces.

Until I found her again.


One night an old Mustang slowly pulled up beside her.

“Grace!” the driver yelled. He was in his forties with pure white hair.

She leaned into the window, striking a pose. Her posture was perfect. Classic. I’ve seen other women try to copy it, but where she was art, they were burlesque.

They spoke for a few moments, and then the door kicked open and she got in. It was a scene I’d watched dozens and dozens of times before. They drove away up the street, signaled and turned left.

She would be back in an hour. Maybe less. I could have waited, but that night I went home. I had learned enough.

Grace.

Her name was Grace.



I dream and she is my dream.

She is the center and the whole.

She sees me, knows me, wants me.

She asks me to save her.

Begs me.



Days slip by me, like friends that have become strangers.

I work. I go home. There is no passion.

But when the night touches the street, I can feel the tingling. And when it is full and strong, the tingling becomes a drumbeat. It feeds me, drives me on.

The 7-11 at Altamont and Sprague. I can always find her there, though she is never there for long before someone stops to talk to her. Then she strikes that sculpted pose. The door opens. They drive away.

Sometimes I follow the cars she gets into. She has two different places she uses. Elegant choices, really. One is a small parking lot with garbage strewn across unlit pavement. The other is a small lot of individual cabins. She adds dignity to both.

There are other times where the cars lead me somewhere else. His hotel. At times, I’ve followed them into the lobby, just to hear the desk clerk announce the room number absently as I feel the cool, heavy metal in the small of my back. Those places are usually beneath her. But she endures.

As the night wears on, she always returns to another place. I don’t follow her there anymore. That’s where he is. Where he profanes her body and where she profanes it herself with the drugs. I know that he forces them upon her. I know that he tries to break her spirit and force her blazing green eyes to gloss over.



Her cries are muted, but I hear them.



The first one was not the one I wished for. It was Emily that I wanted. She lived next door to me and had soft, red hair. It hung down about her shoulder in a lazy curl that bounced when she hurried.

Early in high school, we walked together. I carried her books. Sometimes I did her homework for her. I mowed the grass for her father just to be near her. She was intoxicating.

It took me two years to tell her how I felt. When I did, the disgust on her face was plain.

Go the dance with you?

The air left my body.

I don’t feel that way about you.

And she never would.

I avoided her after that. Avoided them all.

One Saturday night I wandered around town. I drifted “down there” and I watched. I saw women on the corner and I knew exactly what they were. One had red hair. I had never been with a woman and I didn’t want to start with her.

Then I saw a sailor approach her. I edged close enough to hear bits of their conversation. He was ugly. A roll of fat bulged out from the middle of his uniform and his face was angry with red acne. But that woman, she smiled at him. I heard her mention a sum of money. A small amount, really, for the priceless gift of that smile, and he took her away on his arm.

It was two weeks before I had the nerve to walk up to her myself, cash from my paycheck weighing confidently in my pocket. She smiled when I said hello.

“Nice night,” she said. “Looking for a date?”

“Yes.”

She named a price and I patted my pocket. I had three times that much. She took my arm and led me away.

The room was dim, but clean. The musky smell was barely cloaked by an air freshener. I saw a couple of old pictures on her nightstand as she took my money and undressed.

“First time, huh?” she asked, and I nodded. She would be able to tell anyway.

I thought it would be like a spell, a touching of souls, like I had read in one of my mother’s paperbacks. But it was awkward, quick and empty. I stared into her eyes, but they were cold. Her smile did not touch them. Her moan carried no conviction.

“You come back sometime, lover,” she whispered as I buckled on my pants.

But I never did.



Destiny chooses us. We can accept it or refuse it, but we cannot choose destiny. It chooses us.



One night, he came.

The loud motorcycle swung to the curb and screeched to a halt before she had a chance to look up. When she did, I saw her face twist in fear. I could feel her want to run away, escape. Silently, I urged her to. But she stood fast.

He got off the seat, his large frame blocking my view of her. Even from my distance, I could see the patch on the back of his denim jacket. I knew who he was. I knew his purpose.

His voice leapt across the street in spurts. Questions, then accusations. She listened. Shook her head.

My jaw clenched.

A clawed hand shot out and gripped her above the elbow. A short cry escaped her lips.

I unsnapped the holster and brought out the small .32 caliber.

She screamed, “No, I told you!” and tore her arm from his grasp.

He hit her, his fist clenched and driving into her cheek.

She collapsed like a life-less rag.

I opened my car door, my blood surging with hate. My hand gripped the small pistol, the gavel with which I would now pronounce judgment on this man. My foot touched the humid asphalt and my eyes bore in on him.

A flash of blue and red lights and the brief, mournful wail of a siren interrupted me. The police car powered up onto the curb behind her and that man. Two officers got out of the car, sticks firmly in hand. The man took a step backwards, raising his hands in surrender. The officers threw him over the hood of their car and cuffed him roughly. Then he was in the back of the police car.

One of the officers helped her back to her feet and was talking to her.

I closed my car door and holstered the pistol.

The officers spoke with her for some time. She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded some more. The officers seemed frustrated with her. Finally one shrugged to the other and they left with the man. I knew they were going to jail. She was safe from him tonight, but this was only a temporary reprieve.

Only I could save her forever.



His hand balls into a fist and I am there. The gun barks in my hands and he pitches back. He slides down the side of his long, dark car. I follow him down with bullets.

I hold out my hand to her.

“We have to go,” I tell her.

She nods and slowly takes my hand.

I take her to my car and we drive away. We leave one destiny behind on the street and go to find another.



Three nights after he hit her, I saw him on the streets again. He was on Sprague, near the Bel Air Hotel, shaking a skinny Asian girl and yelling at her. Her short black hair bounced, punctuating every shake. Tears streamed down her cheeks, defiant and unwanted. Her face was pale and thin and she showed no emotion other than those muted tears. People filed quickly past, ignoring the scene. I didn’t know what that Asian girl did to deserve that shaking, but I knew Grace couldn’t be subjected to it again.

I had to take Grace away. I had to save her.

Tonight.

She wasn’t near the 7-11. I waited, hoping.

An hour passed, an insane hour. I saw his punch a thousand times in my head. Saw her crumple to the ground. This time, no police. I saw him beat her savagely. I heard her cries.

After an hour, I reached for my keys, hot for vengeance and that man’s throat.

Just then, a car pulled to the corner and stopped. She got out.

My hands fell to my lap and I stared. I stared and I wept. The tears landed on my jeans with an audible drip. Thwap. Thwap. I wiped them away, unable to feel disgusted with myself. She was alive.

I had to act fast.

I started the car and pulled up to the corner. My heart pounded and I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.

She leaned in the window, blocking the streetlight.

“Hi,” she muttered, her voice dull. I felt a stab of cold anger. Had her hurt her again?

“Hello,” I said, the word almost catching in my throat. Was this real? Was this happening?

“You looking for a date?” There was no color in her tone, none of her singular animation.

I could only nod.

“Cost a hundred,” she said, her voice unchanged.

I nodded again.

She opened the door and slid into the car, sitting near me. Her movements were as graceful as ever. I could barely see the small bruise on her cheek.

I smiled at her then, and when she smiled back, the veil of weariness and cynicism seemed to fall away. I dropped the car into gear and started driving.

After a few moments, she asked, “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes.”

I will sell the trailer and we will drive north. My uncle can get me on at his company. We’ll escape it all. Her world, my emptiness.

The drive home was short and silent. I stole sidelong glances at her along the way. She was lovely and she was real.

And she was with me.

“What’s your name?” she asked me as we pulled up to my trailer.

I told her. What did it matter, though? Souls have no names and that is where we are linked. I wanted to shout this out to her, but I didn’t. She knew it without words.

“Your name is Grace?”

She shrugged. “It is to some.” The words fell flatly on the silence of the night.

We got out and walked up to the door. I unlocked the door and we stepped in. I had cleaned up the living room earlier, but it wouldn’t have mattered to her.

Once inside, we stood silently for a long moment, regarding each other. It seemed to me that destiny had come and the immensity of it had us both stunned. I wanted to gather her into my arms, take her away…

“What’s your pleasure?” she asked, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Here? Or in the bedroom?”

What?

She was looking at me. “Well? What’d you have in mind?”

“I…I just want to…hold you.” My voice sounded pitiful and shamed raked across my face. I could feel it burning.

She regarded me, caution flickering in her eyes.

“Please…” I begged. “I wanted to take you away from this…life.”

Her eyes narrowed. She took a half step back from me and bumped into the coffee table. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I swallowed and tried to gather my thoughts. I was scaring her, I could tell.

Just tell her, I thought. She already knows.

“I’m the one,” I whispered. “The one you’ve been waiting for. I can take you away from all this. I can save you.”

Her voice tightened and she slipped her hand inside her small purse. “We’re done. Take me back.”

Take her back?

“Take me back right fucking now.” Her voice was hard.

I stood rigidly, unbelieving. My eyes searched hers, pleading. They were closed to me, emerald walls of suspicion and distrust.

Slowly, I realized. She was refusing destiny. There was nothing I could do.

I handed her coat to her without a word and held the door open for her. I drove back slowly, but not too slowly. I didn’t want to scare her any worse.

The corner waited for her. In fact, it beckoned. She opened the car door wordlessly and swung her feet out. Then she looked over her shoulder at me. “You know, you wasted almost an hour of my fucking time. My best working time.”

I sat motionless for a moment, still stunned. After a few seconds, I reached into my pocket and handed her a wad of bills.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked, barely above a whisper, but she grabbed the money and was out the door and walking away before I could say anything more.

I nudged the accelerator and left her there. What else was there to do? All I had wanted to do was rescue her. Show her that compassion was not dead in the world. Give her someone to grab onto, someone to pull her out of the mire where she had never belonged in the first place.

But destiny had moved on.

The next night, I drove aimlessly, exploring new roads. I wondered if destiny would ever find me. I felt naked and stripped without my dreams and my purpose. I thought of the small pistol, now in my glove box.

And I drove.

And I watched.

A week later, I saw a familiar face. It had been streaked with defiant tears when I saw it last, but now the soft whiteness was unblemished. Her thin frame and short black hair called out to me. She had a frail femininity that refused to be weak. Not weak, but in need.

I saw her and had a flash of that man with a motorcycle, gripping her by the arms and shaking her.

I put that vision out of my mind. He was nothing.

She was all that existed.

She was a jewel, a Chinese diamond.