Una buona notte
As the tour guide paused to give historical details to her group, she ran her hand along the old wall.
A sense of deja vu hit her vividly, powerfully.
All at once she was laughing, running hand-in-hand with her love along the moonlit cobblestone alley. The night air was warm and fragrant with jasmine blossoms. He breathlessly twirled her around to face him. They did not have much time tonight, but it was all either of them had been living for. Her hands went to his head, fingers grasping his thick, wavy hair as they shared kisses that tasted faintly of berries and chocolate. He fumbled beneath her long skirt for a moment until her cheeks were cradled in his hands. He lifted her purposefully to him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She felt the stone wall against her back while a much more welcome and heated hardness pressed into her eagerly. His sounds of pleasure were muted as he buried his face into her collarbone exposed by her disheveled peasant blouse—
“Signorina, stai bene?”
The tour guide's concerned query brought her back to the present. She had been slumped against the wall with her eyes closed and she was moaning. The other members of her group were gathered around saying she must have fainted from the heat. One stranger fanned her with a magazine. Another offered her a bottle of water.
“No, no I'm fine.” She embarrassedly waved away their assistance.
As the tour moved on, she quickly fished a pen out of her fanny pack and made a notation on her map. She needed to do research and learn everything she could about the history of this place and the apparent connection to her distant past.
Draw First
I cut through the alley leading to Mc Naughts lane, the moon a crescent in the sky as daylight faded, as distant jazz music filled the air.
Missy Mill was waiting for me I wasn't just a client her and me had found each other and tonight I would take her away.
She was a dusky beauty of old New Orleans and loving me came as no burden to her a river boat captains son whose roots went back to Africa and Ireland and wherever else.
Nearing the end of the darkened alley the street was in sight when somebody hit me from the side knocking me against the wall, looked like a hobo to me and a knife appeared.
He weaved it back and forth saying..Give
Me Your Money Or You Die Boy.
I slung my gun and clicked the trigger at his squinted eyes...and misfire.
Then the impossible happened or maybe the inevitable, a sharp pain entered my chest where he drove the knife, and then nothing.
Nothing at all ever again. A beautiful girl to mourn me at my funeral though I had no way of knowing it.
A life gone in the brittle streets of a lost American town.