Seattle Crosswalk on a Good Friday

I join the surge that crosses the street as signals shift from red to green at this oil-stained crucifix of Pine and Fourth. Our soles hammer notes on the spit-blotched pavement, playing our part in an anthem that screeches like Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring Behind me a blonde woman dressed in navy blue screams repeatedly: My life is in danger and I’m sick of being threatened! My life is in danger and I’m sick of being threatened! Her ruddy face a fist. She clutches her belongings in bags that read Bed, Bath and Beyond. We must seem like vermin from Macy’s roof above us, driven by our appetites, scuttling toward West Lake Center, Starbucks just in front of us. Mounted policemen watch the plaza, waiting for someone to cross a line. The signal’s red palm begins to flash before I reach the other side. I smell bagels and urine, perfume and gasoline. A voice grabs me by the sleeve, eyes that stoop with toothless words: Mister, Can you spare some change?

George Such teaches part time in the writing program at Rutgers University and is also an independent personal fitness trainer. In a previous incarnation, he was a chiropractor for twenty-seven years in Washington State, but then retired and returned to school, earning an M.A. in English from Western Washington University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana. His creative writing has appeared in Arroyo Literary Review, Blue Mesa Review, Cold Mountain Review, Dislocate, The Evansville Review, and many other journals.