Vania Porreto knew she was never gonna get what she needed, in large measure because she wasn’t sure what that was.
Anthony Van Leeven at Gallian’s ShowBar said she had a voice like a cherub’s wing with God’s tears of joy dripping off them and her last employer, whatshisname, said she had a mind like an old breaker box in a hotel the city forgot to tear down.
She had been arrested before and would be again tonight, more than likely, unless something radical and luxurious and made of all the smells she liked whisked her to another place she knew existed and had visited before, all the times they said she was crazy.
Vania had a sandwich sliding around on her head under her knit hat, though in that special place she was never hungry.
She shouldn’t have done what she did but they didn’t know she couldn’t help it.
At some point in time someone would say restitution, and she didn’t define it like they did, so she made her way to one of those places she had friends, another place someone had angrily dragged her away from.
The sun was setting, or leaving, she wasn’t sure which, but she knew that at Blandon Convalescent Center they’d be closing the windows and locking them soon, because that used to be one of her jobs there.
Vania hurried, more afraid that windows would be closed than she was that the angry people across town would catch her.
There were just things about her that could not be caught.
Her voice was one of those things.
When she got to Blandon she leaned against the sign, the sign with the fluorescent light inside, a place where bugs congregated and died, in the corners, in the cracks of that sign and others like it..
She leaned until she had full breath, then stood tall, filling her lungs with love and fury, and began to sing Amazing Grace to the elderly, the chronic, the dying and the lost.
As the staff went room to room, shutting the windows as was their job, a few hesitated, and a few residents fought back.
If you were in the area of the nursing home that night, you’d have heard Vania Porreto singing. You probably wouldn’t have noticed old glass windows on aluminum tracks sliding closed, and being slid back open. That was happening, but all you would have heard was Vania.
You would have heard her sing the line Bright Shining as the Sun over the percussion of cruiser doors slamming, and heard that cherub’s wing voice launch We’ve no Less Days into the stratosphere before her voice went silent and the only thing left in the air was the click of handcuffs and a few more windows sliding shut.
***
Wow.
A little slice of city life every morning. I agree with Patty. Wow.