Bop Addict

She clutched my hand deciding to worry about how to deny having done such a thing later. It was Sabbath's first time leaving Brooklyn and she was nervous. Of course I was all right, I had been until we were well under way and past the point of no return. Passing through customs had been fine as it could have been anyplace crowded by humanity for some kind of holiday sale or concert and did not feel of being somewhere else. Not until we cleared customs did it really hit me. She had completely put herself in my hands, flying back with me, this was my city, my people, the magical land she had so often heard about all the way across the ocean. She would forgo being bad as she was entirely in my hands, so anything that happened, any fight would totally be my fault. She had, in completely surrendering, won.

We rode the train back, at each stop I told her what was there to go back to and see once she got adjusted. I was not used to seeing her nervous, once or twice I saw her silently moving her lips, gauging the time in between each stop and telling herself what stop it would have been at home. Here the deli she so liked, four minutes and two stops from there the record shop where the boy behind the counter was sweet on her and who always gave her a discount.

Walking down the end of the long street which lead to mine, she saw all the bookstalls and record stores. From one of the open doors ways which was shrugging off its coat of blue paint in flakes in time to the music came snatches of Bird and then Bud Powell. Hearing this, she felt better. Good enough to stop for drinks, humming as she stood in the street to pick a place out.