The Magnolia Hotel lobby was empty on a Wednesday night, and so she had decided to escape the dreariness of the clinking and shallow whispers of the hotel to take in the night air. Few people walked the streets of downtown Denver and although they were few and far between, she enjoyed their company. Her neck was bare, and her hands remained in the pockets of her long dark coat as she stared out across the street to the bank building, whose flagpoles waved in the breeze and allowed her to focus her eyes.
As she stood on the sidewalk she heard footsteps approach from her left but made no move to react since several people had already circumvented her without issue. She absentmindedly waited for the footsteps to pass and furrowed her brows when they did not. The sound ceased alongside her and she prepared to turn but paused when she heard him whisper.
“You’re long and leggy. I like it.”
She sighed and collected herself, but kept her gaze on the street.
“What?”
“I said I like you and I like your legs. They’re gorgeous, girl. Absolutely beautiful.”
She turned and looked at him. His face was long and gaunt, his neck stretched tight. Long cords of sinew sloped down from the bottom of his skull to his shoulders. His eyes looked into hers but abruptly wandered away, unable to settle on any one thing. He leaned back when he saw her shoe slide a few inches away from him.
She finally said, “I’m not interested.”
“Oh, but I’m interestin’. Ask me a thing.”
“Do you usually come up close to women and objectify their legs?”
“Objectify? What’s this, objectify.” He scoffed and scratched his neck. A couple passed them and he smiled as they did, though once again not toward her. He seemed to be smiling for the sake of the couple and once they passed he looked at her with a different kind of smile. It was sharper and reached out across his face toward his ears. His teeth were brilliant beneath the lamps and moonlight but beyond them and into his head there was only darkness.
“I don’t objectify. I admire.”
“Same difference.”
She noted that the foot traffic on the street was thinning and though she needed to wait for her taxi to arrive she did not feel inclined to oblige a stranger’s madness. She turned away from him and was near the door to the hotel when he called out.
“What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“So I can know what to call you when I talk about the girl I fell in love with.”
She both laughed and scoffed, then turned to him. “Seriously?”
“It’s true,” he said. “You’re the girl I been lookin’ for.” He remained in place and reached out with his hand. His sleeve pulled back to reveal a thin wrist, also white and stretched so that she could see the ridges of his tendons extending into the palm.
She breathed in and looked at him. Her brows were lowered in contempt, but a wry smile remained.
“Explain this to me while I wait for my cab.”
“I mean it.”
“Explain it.”
Her amused smile remained hidden beneath the shadows cast by the street lights to the right and left sides of the hotel entrance, and she watched him from the doorway. The man began to walk toward her and then stopped and turned to the curb a few feet away. He lifted his cuffs and sat on the ground with his back to her, and then removed his black coat and laid it out to his left, then patted it with his thin hand.
“Am I supposed to sit now?” she asked.
He remained silent, placed his hands on his knees, and looked up toward the top of the brownstone building across the street.
“Them are some amazin’ stars, up there.”
“I’m not sitting on the curb.”
“Up to you.” He rubbed the back of his neck and resume staring at the top of the building.
“But like I’m sayin’, them are some amazin’ stars. I look at ‘em a lot, not for no good reason, nothin’ poetic or beautiful about ‘em, I just do. They’re somethin’ different, somethin’ we don’t got here on the ground. It’s like I can look up and see somethin’ I can be, somethin’ I can’t be now. It’s what keeps this whole damn thing goin’. It’s what makes a lot of what happens down here tolerable.”
“Is this your explanation?”
“I’m just talkin’. Listen if you like.”
“You’re not saying anything worth listening to.”
“You ain’t listenin’, then. But I can tell you hear me. It’s a start.” He turned back and smiled to where she remained standing. His eyes quickly darted to hers.
“I ain’t so bad, am I?”
“I don’t know you.”
“Then sit down and we’ll have ourselves a chat.”
She fidgeted and looked to the end of the street, seemingly expecting her cab to appear. The evening air blew around her, and the silence of the empty sidewalk surrounded them both, creating a bubble in which the two of them were forced to look at one another. She kept her wary gaze on his.
“What’s your name?”
“I asked first… but I’m also a gentleman. Damnable thing.”
He turned to his left and extended his right hand toward her.
“Gregorio.”
She walked toward him and shook it.
“Jane.”
“Well, Jane. Will you sit?”
“My cab will be here soon. I’d rather not.”
“As you please, darlin’.”
She frowned and stepped away from him, and he turned to the street again.
“So, you’re the one.”
“What?”
“You’re the one. The girl I been waitin’ for. I saw it when I looked at your face.”
“You said that. Why?”
“I had a dream about you.”
She chuckled and covered her eyes with her hand.
“Okay, fine.”
“You shouldn’t laugh at a dream, darlin’. Dreams show us things we can’t ever see.”
“Like the random girl you find in front of a hotel whose legs you decide to admire?” She mimicked quotes in the air with her fingers.
“Maybe.”
“So what happened in this dream?”
“I took your soul.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because you’re the one.”
“The one what?”
“Girl I love.”
Lights appeared in the distance, and both she and Gregorio turned to the end of the street to see a car approach.
“Your coach, darlin’.”
“You don’t love me,” she said. “You can’t. This is all just bullshit to hit on me.”
“Oh, but I do, darlin’, I surely do. I love you like the fox loves its kin and the way the bullfrog loves the dragonfly. I love you more than I love myself, and I love myself more than anyone, except you. Your soul’s meant to be mine.”
The lights appeared closer now, nearly upon them.
“And who are you? The devil?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. I am the best man you’ll ever meet. I am yours, darlin’, to the end. Your soul needs protectin’. I’ll protect it. I’ll nourish it and love it until the day you die. Your soul’s got nothin’ to worry on about when I’m around because, darlin’, your soul’s gonna be just fine. Your soul’s with me now, and where ever your body goes and whatever it does, your soul’s gonna be the happiest soul you ever seen.”
“Stop bullshitting me. Just shut up.”
The taxi stopped short of Gregorio’s legs. He stood and picked up his coat, not bothering to dust the side of it that had rested on the ground. When he turned back to her she noted that his hollow eyes glistened with tears, but none that had emerged and flowed down his shallow face.
“This is all bullshit,” she said. “Say that it is.”
“I don’t lie, darlin’. I don’t do that.”
The taxi driver honked the car’s horn and caused her to turn toward him for a moment. When she turned back in Gregorio’s direction he had already placed his hands in his pockets and resumed walking in the direction he had been going, his head craned up toward the sky.