by Coreopsis
You see him around the neighborhood all the time. You're new, but you can
already tell he's been here forever. He walks the streets like he owns them
and he seems to know everybody. Except you. You don't even know his name,
but think he just goes by initials, JT or JB or JC. Something like that.
And since you really don't know anyone yet, there's nobody for you to ask
about him. You're not sure you want to know.
You have no idea where he works, or if he even has a job, but you suspect that if he does, it's something that is on the edges of legality, at the very least. He looks like the kind of guy who has a knife in his boot and sleeps with one eye open. Even though you've never gone for bad boys, this one turns you on. You think it's that weird angelic quality that flashes about him every now and then, like the sun briefly peeking out between rain clouds. The phrase 'fallen angel' makes more sense to you these days, and you play it over in your mind sometimes when you see him.
Although he's usually in jeans and t-shirts with the sleeves torn out and wifebeaters that show off wiry arms that could be a junkie's except for the lack of track marks, you saw him all cleaned up once. His angular face freshly shaven, his hair uncovered by one of his usual hats, a long curl flopping over one eye, and his long lean body draped in a perfectly-fitted dark suit, he strode down the street in front of your apartment building with an especially cocky walk. Maybe he was going to a funeral or a trial or maybe a wedding, whatever made him look like that didn't matter as much as the effect it had when he caught you staring at him from the doorway. And smiled. At you.
In all your nearly-thirty years, you had never once felt the urge to apply the word 'beautiful' to a man, but it was the only word that fit. You smiled back politely and he continued walking. You let yourself into your building and didn't stop until you were safely locked inside your apartment. Leaning your head back against the door, you seriously considered moving to a new neighborhood. Then you thought, Chris, that's stupid.
He's just some guy. A beautiful fallen angel of a guy and if you moved away you'd never get to see him again. You're staying.
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