Silent Night in Detroit
Common Ground
She’s leaning on the wall, pulling at her miniskirt, nervously.
She’s new. Leyman can tell.
She doesn’t have that shell they get yet.
As they get closer, Leyman realizes she wasn’t born a woman, doesn’t care.
Mitfeldt is in a bad mood, a lash-out-and-Leyman-can’t-stop-him bad mood.
It ain’t withdrawal, really, he’s still tox, it’s just a combo of comedown and cold, hustle fatigue.
Leyman is horny. He’s not much for street head, but nothing else is coming his way.
He’s just gotta make sure Mitfeldt doesn’t snap.
Can’t exactly offer him anything.
Leyman figures he’ll be nice. For next time.
“You good, sugar?”
The person in the blue skirt looks up.
She gets the inflection.
In this neighborhood “you good?” can mean twelve things.
The way Leyman meant it was a greeting. In a foyer with a fancy rug it would be the same as “How are you this evening?”
“I’m straight, doll, thanks,” the person says, meaning she’s fine, okay. But she’s nervous.
Two dudes, deserted street, bars full of horny men not roaming yet.
Leyman can feel Mitfeldt snarling without even looking.
Leyman pulls his stem from his down vest and hands it to Mitfeldt.
Might be enough residue to soothe him for half a block.
Person in the miniskirt says “Sammy Leyman?”
Leyman freezes.
He says yeah because he can’t think of anything else to say.
The person in the miniskirt lifts their hand to their face.
Sammy swears he sees tears start to form.
The person’s mouth moves and those are tears, but a smile is there.
“When I was fourteen, you adopted my family for Christmas. Ohhhh…”
The hand in front of the face flutters, and then the person rushes forward and hugs Leyman.
“The fuck?” Mitfeldt says.
“The biggest turkey ever,” the person in the skirt says “… and the prettiest tree, and you got me a Captain America and an Ironman and a Hulk…” A laugh comes from the face and it sounds like music to Leyman.
“The fuck?” Mitfeldt says again, but this time to the empty stem.
“My momma never listened to your band, but then you adopted us for Christmas, and then every time we heard your song, on the radio, wherever, my momma made people shush, outta respect.”
Leyman looks at Mitfeldt holding the spent stem.
The person in the skirt follows Leyman’s eyes to Mitfeldt.
“Y’all get high?”
Leyman nods the same way he nodded when Blue Thunder management told him he had to go to rehab or he was out of the band.
The person reaches into their sweater, into their bra and pulls out a metal mint container.
They move, without a word spoken, into the bay of an abandoned oil change place.
The lighter comes out.
Leyman remembers sponsoring the family for Christmas.
He remembers getting choked up when the tree he bought them lit up for the first time.
They pass the stem around, and for a moment, no one is in danger of getting beat up, and no one is thinking about paying for head.
***
Wow. This is dark and bright, ugly and beautiful all at once.
As someone who loves the shadows, the shock of recognition would only be compounded by being named. Naming Sammy Leyman removed the cloak of anonymity and humanised what both parties anticipated would be a a mechanical transaction.
A wonderful, if bleak story Jimmy!