Chapter 1

Red brick streets and gray skies that sizzle the stars, wherever they happen to be tonight. The night is bright; air kissed by street light, swinging in circles around the frozen lamp posts, drunk, Audrey and I. In the morning I am leaving our rooted memories behind, shipping for London even though she thinks I am leaving for Florida to visit my starving grandparents (bored with life, starving for the sweet kiss of death). For this night is bathed in whiskey and laughter to wash away the coming dreary eyed future; the teary eyed (no doubt) morning with coffee to subdue Audrey's hysterical cries. Yes, I am going to miss this French eyed Mademoiselle of Mystery in the March Mist, but my soul is being tugged across the Atlantic by dreams my heart conjures mid-sleep. Dreams that I believe will turn into realities very soon.

Into a bar we go, outta another one, we stride arm in arm along the cobbled streets through the fog. Our breath expires along with our voices declaring the everlasting love for each other (which we both know isn't true, even though we both want it to be), and we trade innocent kisses only which can be appreciated by the moronic youth of New England. On the pier we shout Atlantic phrases to the impossible pulsing bladder of this globe, inviting waves to spray us with its frigid breathe, and scream in romantic, drunken delight when it does (a foul breath, the Atlantic, one that is laced with millions of lives it has consumed throughout the years, and even more recently by the Germans).

The moon guides us to Audrey's home, to the little cracker-box home built by her parents in the twenties, and we part like gum on a shoe. It is a long, slow goodbye, our affairs and memories and lustful vows are paragraphed between our warm kisses and suffocating embraces. Anything we can get off our chests before the night opens its eye for the coming morning, the lies, the truths, a slap in the face or a slap on the behind. Time is consuming the both of us, we can both feel it. The vibrations in her breathe before my very face are threaded with uneasiness and haste. She tells me she will always love me, and will even when I get back, a year from now. I know that she will forget about me in a month or two, this thought forms in my mind right after she says this with deep eyes that want to tell the truth but can't, and I forget about reciting the poem I wrote her specifically for this evening, my farewell to Audrey, my French maiden. After she disappears into the black mouth of her home, forever, it seems, I walk home with my own private inebriation, and I toss the folded, love drenched bullshit over the bridge. It becomes lost forever. Forever lost, lost, lost in the salty banks of time and my cobwebbed memory; lost forever like Audrey.

The whispers stuck in my ears are the only post scripts of the previous night, a tangled haze of routed conversation and laughter aroused by what I cannot recall. In my bed, silent in the early morning, the cold wraps itself around me, and I think of Audrey and the fact that I will never see her again. A tear escapes one eye, dribbles down my fresh, cool morning cheeks. A laugh follows, and dissipates long after the tear does.

Mother's tears are the first sight I see in the bleary eyed kitchen, reluctant of my departure. The thick cloud of coffee fills the entire house, the windows are fogged over, breathed on by the Cold itself, I force a breakfast down into my core, chase it with a cup of boiled coffee, say goodbye to Mother and Father, and catch a bus to Boston. The ride was long and congested with souls like mine, thirsty for departure, long over due escape. None of their eyes were set on return, and I know this for a fact. 

Once in Boston, I located Hartford Port and gasped at the glorious sight of the ferry docked before me. The M.S. Washington would be my motor to cab me across the frightening sea. People all around me shuffled and scurried with their baggage, some horse drawn, great leather cases with private personals, all to be dropped off somewhere far away. I look around at all the fancy dressed individuals, they all have the same look in their eyes, a mixture of fear and hope. They all carry the same expensive cases, branded and strapped and locked, and then I look at my single cardboard suitcase with the three dress shirts and one pair of pants beneath the broken handle (no lock).

The skies are clear and the wind blows, good sign for a sea departure, the wind will push us right outta the port and set us on our way to England. A young boy with one eye near me sells newspapers, and I buy one for a nickel and read it while I am in line. While waiting, the misty breeze dampens the newspaper and I scratch my eye and obliviously rub ink around my socket and a red-lipped blonde gives me a funny look which I interpret as a How Do You Do, and I continue to give her the eye (black) but she laughs and turns and disappears in the swarm of passengers.

After checking in and proving my legal documents for travel, I locate my room, set my bag beneath the bunk bed which I will share with someone, and walk around to look for that blonde.

Author's Note

December 1943