99 Red Balloons. Memphis 2014. Anon. (photo credits: Karen B. Golightly)
Shoulder Dancing
Geoff hands his list to the agoraphobe in the flower shop. Carnations for Laura, baby’s breath going to his mother. A bouquet of marigolds as well. “My sister’s here tomorrow,” he says, days off the wagon. Spider plants cling to his shoulders like epaulets, eighties music dances through cindered felt, the speakers having danced themselves out stations ago. Agoraphobia surging (it makes a terra-cotta of his shoulders), the florist cuts a dozen stems. Living takes more than breath – a bookstore today, a movie theatre tomorrow. Afternoons are safest, just the concessionaire’s bouquet and wreaths of film running their bows. A quiet illness, shutting in, watching the parabolas of deadbolts dance. He’ll cash his check at the bank tomorrow, the teller with church-window acrylics, soothing to an agoraphobic. Geoff signs the card “To Laura,” vermouth stranded on his breath. Better luck nailing billboards to the sun than shouldering “Love.” A sometime drummer, he thinks music should err on the side of Devo, men with heads halfway to bouquets, synthetic lyrics trellising their breath. He mistakes the snapdragons for sobriety chips – pendants in partitioned rooms, an agoraphobia support group two walls over. Last week a doctor told Geoff he was cirrhotic. The follow-up tomorrow, these hours too narrow for the scrutiny of shoulders. The flower cutter steels himself against the phobia of shopping after work. He’ll choose Fry’s on Twenty-Fourth, safety in its second generation doors, in its bouquets of fruit, self-preservation an ungainly dance. More cauldron than dial, the radio slips into The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” Good decade, bad demons, he thinks, breathing impatiens through glass. Group meets at a restaurant tomorrow. He hasn’t held a menu in years. Hierarchies of forks, that’ll be a dance. When in doubt, order soup. Vie for a booth. No brushing of shoulders. Geoff digs for his wallet, scrapes a stowaway flask. Even the bouquets drink – life in a vase as alluring as it is agoraphobic. Clematises unravel in his breath as he shoulder- dances past the man with agoraphobia. In the backroom a botanist’s silhouette, lilacs on the counter for tomorrow’s bouquet.
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Jonathan Riccio