thinktry

RELENTING
© Hilts 1997

Drivin' the heap across Broadway
Pedestrians are nonchalanting their entitled little selves against the light
Pissed off, hiphop blasting in my grandmother's '78 Volare
I'm a dumb fight waiting to happen - a lead pipe for protection, a hanger for an antennae
Think I'm tough, but crackheads still dented up my trunk trying to get in last week

So/but I glance sideways at this handsome and reasonable-looking man with a ponytail
He's some kind of comfortable Nuyorican who doesn't need entitlement and street rudeness
He's crossing illegally but considerately
Right beside my window I catch the corner of his comfortable eye
I don't look long enough
So yeah he can tell I saw him but we can pretend I'm just as shutdown as you'd expect
From a lost cowgirl in a car that's cool just 'cause it's still running

But I look again and he's still crossing and he looks at me
Not like a rooster man who likes the blond thing
He's just a man at home with himself and this crusty stretch of street
I'm just a woman in the car he's passing by
He's not a big sexy this'n'that
He's not an overbearing attitude or a slidin'-into-you-sideways slicko
Not even really a specially-beautiful-thing kinda man
He's just got big clear brown eyes and a ponytail that's not representing anything
A big old gentle face and a walking grace that looks simple and true
I'm just an Arizona girl
Never learned how to be social on the street since I always drove everywhere

And I'm still driving
But paused here as he's crossing over to the record store maybe
Or maybe on his way to buy cigarettes
Or call his girlfriend or visit his Mami who always lived on Broadway
Or going to the deli or just there for no reason, even though he lives in the South Bronx
And me, I'm just generally tight around the lips, you know why
Well, maybe it's also a leftover defense from my early days in the city
Or because before he got here, there was some silly young high-heel girl taking up my crosswalk
Maybe I'm just needing to get somewhere
Or I haven't had enough work lately, or maybe some big thought in my head just faded away

But he's still gliding past and I only looked at him once or maybe that was the second time
But he caught me both times or I caught him
And third time we look straight at each other like two human beings who will maybe never meet again
Or maybe we'll fall in love there and then and have Chinese food and make babies
Or we'll run into each other at a sidewalk book sale and discover mutual friends
Or just pass and not even admit we looked
Or speak
Or wave
Or pick a fight
Or defend ourselves
Or submit in any of a thousand possible ways
But he's frozen there in that moment and so am I
We relent, and and both of us smile like the war is over