Bohemian Avenue #8

I am very happy in my new neighborhood. Highland Park has a unique feel to it. I think of it as a laid back version of Uptown over in Minneapolis. I’ve started to spend the spring out and about. With the change in season, the new neighborhood, and a couple of suspicions I have about the unseen things that happen around here, I have a new lease on life.

A guy from work suggested that I check out the teashop just up the street from the Highland Theater. I never knew there were so many kinds of tea. It will take quite a while for me to sample something from each jar that lines the back wall all the way to the ceiling.

I’ve started to prefer tea to coffee and spend a couple evenings a week on one of the shop’s sofas with a good book. Now you’ll find me there every Saturday morning as well.

Most of the time, there are two lovely young ladies behind the counter who brew the tea. I like to ask a question about tea to tap their knowledge. They seem to have a passion for tea. Once I get them talking, our conversations continue onto other topics and we have a pleasant time of banter and learning from one another. I am so glad that many people I have met are so friendly. It makes me glad I didn’t remain a hermit as I had during the winter. Next winter will be different.

I still go into the video store where my friend the bird girl always engages me in long pleasant chats. I want to take her to the teashop one day, but I haven’t gotten the nerve to ask her. Her smile seems to intoxicate me.

One morning in the teashop I heard about this park called Hidden Falls. I knew about Minnehaha Falls. That was just across the Ford Parkway Bridge into Minneapolis. This place was supposed to be on our side of the river. I decided to take a bottle of water and walk to Hidden Falls.

It didn’t take long to find the park. From what I had gathered from the overheard conversation, if I walked the natural lane far enough, I would find the hidden falls.

Along the way, I noticed many dressed in stereotypical “hippie” clothes. It looked like a Ragstock convention. I saw one man dressed as some sort of Scottish Highlander. These people were pouring lines of dirt or powder and stationing potted flowers around in several different places. I thought it was unusual to see occult practices so casually out in the open. It must be a special day on the Wicca calendar or something.

After my experiences of seeing the elven girl, my bird girl and now this, I was convinced there was something mysterious about the area around Highland Park. I wasn’t about to join a cult or swallow any witchcraft nonsense, but here was evidence of a superstitious acknowledgment of the mystery.

When I found the falls, it was actually anticlimactic. They were a few smelly trickles falling about six feet to form a stream that didn’t seem to go anywhere. It smelled of phosphorus much like the polluted river in my hometown where I grew up. Disappointed, I began to walk home.

A bird landed on the grass not too far from me as I headed out of the park. It was a red winged blackbird. I was sure it was my bird girl.

My friend the Goth video clerk and I never brought up the possibility of her being my bird girl, but I wanted to see some results of my efforts today, so I called out to the bird. “Hey, cutie, why don’t you meet me at the Tea Source at eight o’clock tonight?”

None of the “hippies” even looked up when I spoke, but there were a few others that gave me a strange look before going about their business.

The funniest thing about the whole day is that my bird girl showed up at the teashop that evening.

Bohemian Avenue #7

It wasn’t just a video store. It was one of those buy, sell, trade places where you could sell the tired old videos you no longer watched or even had a desire to put in your VCR ever again. You wouldn’t get a whole lot for your trade, but it knocked a little off the price of your purchases at the cash register. This place really isn’t important to what I wanted to tell you, but it’s the first place I ever saw her.

When you first walk in the door, you are ambushed by the cloying smell of incense. If anyone still lived with me, they would know I had been there because I would smell like the incense of the day.

After the smell of the place sort of calms down, you see the CD bins, movie racks and many useless or otherwise unnecessary items such as the concert t-shirts and accessories to burn the incense.

In light of all this, I wasn’t surprised to see the Goth girl behind the glass counters full of toes rings, earrings and other piercing doodads. She was manning the cash register and called out a greeting to me as I entered.

I took a good look at her because she looked to be the most exotic young woman I’d seen in quite a while. She wasn’t a Goth in the strictest interpretation, but she had the blackened hair with the thick eye makeup, but without the white usually put on the face. She also had a streak of red through her hair.

She drew on her eye liner so that the outside corners of her eyes had two curly lines that one might call crow’s feet, but made me think of ancient Egypt. I’m too old and out of circulation to know what that is called.

On this particular day, I was out walking the neighborhood I had just moved into that winter. I spent the days of snow just getting to and from the bus stop and the grocery store. Saint Paul is one of the coldest places I’ve ever lived. The snow is piled so high; I couldn’t always see the cars going by on the street. When spring came, I thought, “So this is Highland Park. I should look around and see what’s here.”

Speaking of riding the bus, I ride the 16 to Minneapolis for work. I may have told you that I recently saw a girl in a red jacket and that I suspect her of being an elf of some kind. Now, this girl in the video place is another one that I’m sure is more than she appears.

I didn’t suspect anything until one day I noticed a red winged blackbird on the lawn of a house I was passing. The bird let me pass by, but after a few moments, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to look and there was the girl from the video store. Right then, it struck me that the red in her hair matched the red on the wing of the bird.

I know, you may have found out about my girlfriend’s letter on my kitchen table telling me she had left me, and that I’m just a lonely middle aged man so desperate for companionship, I’m now having delusions. You may think I’m crazy, but a couple of other times after that I saw the bird and the girl soon after. That’s why I think it’s more than a coincident.

I think the reason she was a little careless around me is because she has taken a liking to me. I know, not only am I crazy, but I’m conceded too. Maybe living alone has gotten to me enough for me to start seeing fairy-folk or to be infatuated with a video store clerk, but I will be keeping my eyes open for more of the chance glimpses of a hidden world in and around the Twin Cities. I plan to enjoy this, delusion or not.

I remember all your grace
Now I look around to try and see you face
I’ve been alone for quite a while
Now I’m looking just to see your smile

When you smiled at me it made my day seem bright
But I could sleep all of last night
So now I’m going on my way
Maybe I’ll be gone for the rest of the day

I’m walking at dawn
Singing my song
Wishing you would come along

There Can Be Only One #7

While Daryl swept and mopped, Phil saw that the tanks, gaskets and fixtures of the ice cream machine were washed and reassembled. They were soon finished and were able to spend the remaining time before lights out as they pleased.

The night air cooled Phil’s neck and forehead as he watched for Debbie on the dimly lit campground. There were campers milling around and children running everywhere in the growing darkness.

He finally found her walking one of the main footpaths. They greeted each other at the same time. Phil matched his pace with hers as they walked together. Their hands occasionally brushed, and Phil took the opportunity to take her hand in his.

She immediately stopped walking and turned to him with a soft moan. She leaned into him and rested her temple against his chest. Her hair smelled faintly of strawberry shampoo.

Debbie lifted her face up to his and he met her lips with a kiss. He felt such a chemical surge in his body; he could have thought he had started to absorb another quickening. He didn’t begin to convulse, but it was a powerful feeling in a different sort of way. The feeling maintained itself as they stood together on the path. She ran her hands up the sleeves of his shirt caressing his arms.

About that time, camp leaders were calling out that curfew was now in effect as two young boys began pulling the rope to ring the camp’s bell.

Someone took it upon himself to try to separate Phil and Debbie, but Phil insisted that he would walk Debbie back to her campsite. It wasn’t very far away, and all too soon they had to say goodnight.

At his first opportunity the next day, Phil found Debbie. As soon as he took her hand, she began to cry. She told him of a boyfriend back home. She felt so guilty about wanting to be with Phil and what had happened last night that she was determined to call her boyfriend and tell him what had happened.

Since she had a boyfriend at home, Phil suspected that he should leave Debbie alone and not pursue a relationship with her, but he saw that she still wanted to spend her time at camp with him. His feelings for her were still strong, but he decided to try to just be her friend and find a romantic relationship with someone else.

It seemed funny that he would start a conversation with a pretty girl that afternoon and find that she was interested in him, too.

Camp employees were required to attend at least one of the chapel services a day during camp weeks. The one Phil had decided to attend was getting started, so he invited the girl to come with him.

The two of them occupied a place toward the back and while they sang in the service, Phil took sidelong looks at the girl singing beside him. She was brunette and lightly freckled. She smiled easily, especially with her wide blue eyes. Unfortunately, she could carry a tune in a bucket, and this grated a little on Phil’s nerves.

He was pretty sure his relationship with Debbie was about to fade, so this girl was a convenient possibility for easing his loneliness. After losing so much in his life; most of which he couldn’t distinctly remember, he was going to attempt keeping both relationships going for as longs as he could.

His sense of losing so much of his past was strong. He instinctively knew he had lost two precious parents and a rich family life that he didn’t know how to recreate. He realized that was exactly what he was trying to do.