Details in the dark
The faint scratching of dry leaves along the pavement stopped me in my tracks for a moment as I turned the corner onto Bolton Street. I pulled the collar of my coat more tightly around my neck. Hardly any point, really; there was no breeze to protect myself from. The street was a hollow, empty void. The sky above, an unadulterated black. The flickering streetlamp burned about as brightly as a tea light candle does during a blackout. No wind, no car tires bumping across the rails at the crossing, no slurred yells or off-key singing from city kids staggering back home from the club. The only footsteps echoing from the four-story loft buildings that loomed over the disused rail line were my own. I looked over my shoulder and tried to look poised and invincible. Don't look like you have a lot of money, don't look like you're lost. As if I could protect myself from muggers just by looking like I could see them coming. But the emptiness of the street was uninterrupted. Every intersection I came to just opened the street up to the view of another empty block.
If anyone had been walking down the street with me that night, they might have convinced me that this wasn't worth the free parking spot. I was on my way to the edge of downtown Brockton where my cousin was playing piano for a "leather and lace" themed revue at Der Teufel. Der Teufel was a decrepit old Biergarten only months away from being closed for good. To my knowledge, not a single German worked there, or for any other business in Brockton for that matter. But the owners needed a place for screaming metal bands, cheap lager, and fetishist parties, so naturally, they thought German. My cousin did not fit the bill at all. She was a cheerful, witty, unassuming young woman. Small, thin glasses for reading sheet music, dark hair tied up into a small bun, and casual black clothes. She looked the part of an accompanist for hire. Even her serene, focused smile at the piano declared, "I'm here only because they needed a good pianist, and I'm in the book." We had grown up together, and although we hadn't seen much of each other in the past few years, I felt I should tell her I hadn't forgotten about her and that I could come to show support for family whenever it occurred to me. So I would endure mingling both with the friends of hers I'd never met and the clientele for Der Teufel just for the privilege. The paid-parking lots in the nightclub district were outrageous and the air was neutral enough not to leave any frost or dew on my windshield. I could afford to walk.
If anyone had been walking down the street with me that night, they might have convinced me that this wasn't worth the free parking spot. I was on my way to the edge of downtown Brockton where my cousin was playing piano for a "leather and lace" themed revue at Der Teufel. Der Teufel was a decrepit old Biergarten only months away from being closed for good. To my knowledge, not a single German worked there, or for any other business in Brockton for that matter. But the owners needed a place for screaming metal bands, cheap lager, and fetishist parties, so naturally, they thought German. My cousin did not fit the bill at all. She was a cheerful, witty, unassuming young woman. Small, thin glasses for reading sheet music, dark hair tied up into a small bun, and casual black clothes. She looked the part of an accompanist for hire. Even her serene, focused smile at the piano declared, "I'm here only because they needed a good pianist, and I'm in the book." We had grown up together, and although we hadn't seen much of each other in the past few years, I felt I should tell her I hadn't forgotten about her and that I could come to show support for family whenever it occurred to me. So I would endure mingling both with the friends of hers I'd never met and the clientele for Der Teufel just for the privilege. The paid-parking lots in the nightclub district were outrageous and the air was neutral enough not to leave any frost or dew on my windshield. I could afford to walk.