dig

Michael
by Hetre Z

Michael tap danced, never where anybody could see him. He did the train shuffle, his feet slipping over the floor and clicking chug-a-lug chug-a-lug on the wood boards. He swung his arms out, back and forth, snapping his fingers in time. The walls picked up the sound and threw it back to him.

Michael always stepped over cracks in the sidewalk. He loved his mother.

He wished, in general, that he were someplace else. Anywhere, Guatemala, South Africa, Israel. Someplace savage or painful or just different, someplace to not-belong. He wanted to live where he could miss it, the city and the people, the harsh faces and the blank stares. If I were in Antarctica, he thought, New York would look so beautiful.

Michael never looked for her. He always thought she'd come to him, so he never looked. He stood outside the subway station, his feet tapping rhythm with the click of high heels walking past. He sat in a coffee shop, the warmth from the cup like an invitation, sweet on the pads of his fingers.

Michael knew he wasn't full, wasn't all himself, just like trumpets weren't a whole brass band and blue wasn't nearly green enough, but he didn't try anything. He waited, counting out the beat in his head and dancing it where nobody could see.