Dory and George

Dory and George: Two Tumbleweeds

They sat in postures of thought. She with her head tilted, resting on open palm, fingers dawdling, tapping on cheek, palm on chin. He with back on wall, legs in backwards V, sneaker covered feet on booth cushion. His wrist limp on knee, fingers losing blood and going numb. They’ve been sitting here for hours. Talking. About life and science. Stars and politics. Common acquaintances and schools.

"Sunday was a bad day for me," he says sticking his straw into the last of his vanilla shake.

"Sunday? Why Sunday?"

"It was," he rubs his face without thought of look. "It was just a really rough …"

"Why?" Her eyebrows raise and as soon as they popped they dropped. "I mean do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to."

"No, yeah. I’d like to, you know. I mean, I just really wanted to drink." She has heard about his alcoholism in generalities. Like ‘I had a drinking problem’ and ‘I used to drink all the time.’ "I really, really, really wanted a shot of whiskey. From the moment I woke up to the time I went to sleep. Which wasn’t really a sleep." He fumbles on which way to begin the next sentence, then pauses when he decides to not start it at all. The nightmare that was his life this past Sunday. It felt like years ago and at the same time, five minutes before they walked into the pizza shop.

These seconds of silence in between words are like entire nights. He and she are lost in thoughts, all to their own and many shared. They both go to speak. They stop at syllable start and smile, sigh and surrender to silence.

A Klein from Richmond and a Thomas from Yonkers sit in a small, diner booth in Mountainhome, Pennsylvania. The American Revolution makes complete sense now. It was for them, their ancestors still in Poland and Ireland, not knowing of colonies in the continent of North America. Their ancestors may have been unable to read, to speak, to see, to think. And in all they come from, their blatant and blaring difference, as stark as Klein is from Thomas, as Richmond is from Yonkers, as Poland is from Ireland, nothing makes more sense than these two sitting here at this booth, on this night.

How did they come to be here sharing stares and thinking things that they’ve never had. Maybe all of the past, from ancestral roots to now, was all meant for them. For them to sip coffee and swim in each other’s eyes.

And she says it: "I’m a tumbleweed. I feel like I get swept up in a wind and I blow this way and that way, then the wind stops. I stop for a while and take in that place, those people, and then when the wind comes I go wherever it takes me. And I’ve never met another tumbleweed until I met you. Our paths crossed, somehow. You know?"

He knows what she means, but he doesn’t know how they came to be who they are, where they are, why they are and what will be. But he knows. "So what do two tumbleweeds do when they meet?"

"They say, ‘hey, I like the way you look. I like your moves.’"

"So Dory Rose."

"Yes, George Ian?"

"I like the way you look."

"I like the way you move."

"But it’s getting kind of windy out there, you know?"

"I know," she says and looks around. Her beauty never more bountiful and irresistible. "Hope we don’t get swept away from each other, fellow tumbleweed."

"So let’s hold onto one another." He swivels in booth, faces her, leans forward, places forearm on table, hand open and empty. She lays her hand in his like it’s delicate. It is. She thinks she is a tumbleweed, but she’s a flower. A rose. He cups the hand. She lets him caress. She lets him kiss. "I like the way you look."

She laughs with gush. "I like the way you move."

They are stuck in silence and stare. Without a flinch of movement or an ounce of care. They like what they say, who they are, what they wear. "Nice shirt," Dory says.

"Nice shirt?"

"Yeah. I think that whenever we have a moment like we just had, we should end it with ‘nice shirt.’"

It’s doesn’t really make sense, but with all that has gotten them to here, it really does. The more it doesn’t make sense, the more it does. Dory Rose Klein and George Ian Thomas, hand in hand "I agree. So, nice shirt Miss Klein."

"Nice shirt, Mister Thomas."

He doesn’t let go of her hand until the wind blows them in front of her cabin and he must let the forces of nature take her away. He lets go and she leans her entire body into his. We wraps his life around her shoulders. She sighs, breaths slow long breaths on his neck, and at the same time, they exhale:

"Nice shirt."