“No, bobo. I cannot do that. You eat it. But speak to it first.”
“Speak to it?”
“Yes”, she said, “out of respect. It has died for you.”
I looked at her to see if she was kidding. She was not. She looked earnestly at me as she chewed. I held the turkey in my hand. I stopped and bowed my head for a few moments, saying nothing. When I looked up, she was smiling. It had been enough.
I had bought too much food. Because of my large breakfast, I had not been all that hungry in the first place. And although she ate heartily, she did not eat a great amount. We sat with the remainder of the food spread around us. I was curious about many things and finally decided to ask her.
“You spoke as if you are not from this town. Where are you from?”
She looked at me with a tentative smile, and said “I am always asked that. But I am not really from anywhere. And at the same time I am from everywhere.”
Since she didn’t seem to mind the topic, I pushed on. “Well, if you’re not from anywhere, how about telling me where you were before you arrived here.”
She leaned back, putting her arms behind her to support her on the rock as we sat there, and thought a few moments. “The last place I was ….. she thought about it … was much like this place. I found water as always. And I … as you put it … bathed.”
“And did you eat there, as we are eating now?”
“Oh yes”, she said, “it is always like this”. She laughed out loud. “I have to eat, bobo!”
“But where did you get your food then? Did someone come by and buy it for you at the last place you were?”
“Of course, silly. Someone always buys my food. Sometimes they are like you and buy it for me when I ask. Sometimes they want to have sex first. But either way, someone always buys my food.”
“People demand sex for food?” As soon as I asked it I regretted it because it sounded like I might have been making a judgment about her. But I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t offended.
“No one demands anything from me. I want food. They want sex. Usually I want sex too. So it all works out. Right?” As soon as she finished saying this she tilted her head and looked at me for a moment and then laughed. “I’m not going to have sex with you though, bobo. I don’t want sex now. And you brought me food without it.” She smiled at me. She reached over and patted my hand. “Thank you, bobo”.
We sat that way for a while. At some point she turned to me and asked, “did you bring the paint,bobo?”
I pointed to the bag. She reached in and took out the paint and smiled. Another big smile. She got up and walked to the concrete bridge apron. She reached up high and pointed the can down at the concrete and slowly drew a large P. The letter was at least three feet tall. She turned and looked at me. I simply watched her, and thought she was done. She was not. Painstakingly, she painted more letters, first an A, then an N, and so on. She took her time on each letter, careful to get just the shape she wanted. When she was done, she stood back. In large white letters it said “PANDORA”. She came back to where I was sitting and stood next to me, looking at her handiwork. She made a sudden movement as if she had a second thought and went back to the concrete, bent down, and wrote below her word, first a B, then an O, then another B, and last, another O. Bobo.
Without saying anything, she gathered the remaining food into the bag and hoisted it to her side. She smiled at me and I at her. She gave me a small wave, the kind of wave that a child makes when they say bye-bye, moving only the tips of the fingers up and down. She went up the same path I had used. Gone.
It was a long time before I stood up. I looked around. The river burbled on, unchanged. I looked at the painted words. They were still there, the only evidence that she had been there except for some footprints in the soil.
I like to hear the sounds of the diner. Dishes clattering, the juke box. In the kitchen, they’re always playing some other music that isn’t on the juke box. You can hear the kitchen music when a waitress pushes open the swinging doors, her arms full of dishes. Of course, there’s a ripple of excitement if somebody wins a few bucks at Keno. The sounds of the diner. As I sit among them, I think sometimes of the girl in the water. A few times, I’ve walked down and looked at the names. PANDORA. BOBO. Somebody since that time has added a few words, scrawling on top of the names a bit. I wonder if she’d mind that somebody added to her work but always decide that she probably wouldn’t. I wonder how many other bridges in how many other places have those same two words carefully painted on them. And I wonder how the other bobos got the can open. Before I leave, I always turn around and look at the river. In the darkness, I peer at the large pool near my side of the river. I don’t know why I would expect to see anybody there. I suppose I don’t really expect anything.