The three of them sit, not even a half block away. They sit on the back steps that hug the small house, a house that is almost swallowed whole by the brick three and four flats that stand tall around it. The three women are older, in plain skirts of blue and beige and oversized short-sleeved tops. They lean against earth-toned bricks fashioned from stacked and stapled asphalt. All three face wooden posts that support the growing tomato vines in the small square garden where there was once a tiny yard.
These round-bellied women, who look as if they’re straight from the old country, are watched by me while I sit, inside, on my overstuffed chair with my overstuffed and aching belly. They, on the other hand, sit outside and for hours. I keep glancing over, sometimes stealing long looks during commercial breaks from the shows on TV, a TV that’s been perpetually on for the last two weeks. “They’re bound to go in soon,” I think, since the clouds that are rolling in are a much darker grey than before. “How can you sit there this long?” The question, directed at them, stays trapped in my head. I try to ignore its reverberations.
Another sitcom ends and they haven’t moved. Midway through the next mindless show, I hear the slap of rain and smell the mustiness of the first drops on the hot pavement. I turn my head, a little too hopeful, only to find an oversized blue and white umbrella being held by one of them as cover for all three. I watch this umbrella, with six legs and three skirts poking out from underneath and my mind drifts to my bills, my writing, my job, the house that is in dire need of a cleaning, the calls to friends I should be making — yet none of it pulls strongly enough to move me from this seat. Just food, and for that I get up as often as every 30 minutes. Otherwise, I live in this green chair with fabric that scratches my skin in this heat, living vicariously through soaps, sitcoms, and movies. Too many movies. I guess I’m making up for lost time, but all that I feel is that I’m losing time.
Those three women down the street seem to have all the time in the world. They sit on splintered, narrow, grey steps, lean against rough asphalt, and stay through Life with Bonnie, through According to Jim, through About a Boy and Six Feet Under, through a dinner of popcorn, chips and frozen wings. Through beers, water, and Advil. Through the calls I can’t bring myself to make. They sit together, outdoors. I can only manage to roll my head in their direction, never fully lifting it off of the back of this chair, to steal long looks at them. Their positions are unchanging, a bitter relief from the two second scene changes of the commercials flickering in the corner of my eye.