3-D

I stand outside her door with my blind man’s cane and a bag of guilt. I know she’s in there because I heard the TV on before I knocked, then it suddenly went quiet.

“It’s me,” I say. “Look, I’m sorry if I did anything, you know, to make you feel…strange in any way.”

It stays quiet. And I wonder if she’s looking at me through the peephole.

A week ago she’d invited me in with my dime store items and I knew, right off, she was different. Not sappy with guilt, like so many of the others, handing out cash at the door, or leading me in by the arm for tea and lonely talk.

“The couch is to the left,” she’d said. “Watch you don’t bump into the coffee table.” She sat beside me; a hint of gin on her breath and the clean, damp scent of freshly shampooed hair.

“Whatcha got?”

I gauged from her voice she was probably middle-aged, maybe younger. But it was always hard to tell. I reached in the shopping bag and took out a small plastic microscope, two different-sized magnifying glasses, and my best seller, a colorful cardboard kaleidoscope, and placed them on the coffee table.

“Kids love ‘em,” I said. It was my hook. Everyone either had a kid or knew someone who did. I wondered about her.

“Wow,” she said, and I knew what she’d picked, was holding to the light.  “How much for the kaleidoscope?”

“Three bucks,” I told her.

“And the magnifying glasses?”

“Buck each. Five all together.”

I heard her unsnap a purse. She slipped a bill in my pocket and pushed it down deep. I heard the microscope tumble back into the bag.

“You sell much of this stuff?” she asked.

“I do okay.”

She edged closer. “An accident?” She gently touched one of several deep scars on my face. It surprised me. I stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” she said and pulled back.

“It’s alright,” I told her. “Vietnam -- a souvenir.”

“Fucking war,” she said. I found her hand and squeezed it. It was a little clammy. She leaned toward me, her hair brushing my arm.

I started to talk. She said, “Don’t say anything.”

I released her hand and she ran it back over my face, tracing each long gash; following one down nearly to my lips. I put a hand on her waist -- it wandered. She was wearing a nightgown; soft worn cotton with nothing underneath. When I reached to touch her face, she grabbed my hand. “No,” she whispered. I moved my hand back down.

She began gently kissing each scar in a path to my lips. But I needed to know what she looked like. I reached my other hand up again to touch her face. Nearly did. But this time she slapped it away, hard, and pulled back. I felt the sofa cushion decompress as she stood.

“What?” I asked.

“You should go,” she said. When I tried to speak, she said, “Please. Just go.”

I heard the door swing open and that was how it ended.

“I’ve got something new,” I say, speaking softly against the door. “Comics -- 3-D. It’s a big hit with the kids -- comes with these paper glasses. Makes the pictures pop right off the page.” I hear her padding about inside.

I’d given up trying to figure her out. Maybe her face was a train wreck. Or maybe she was a knockout or just plain, but married. It didn’t matter. I would fill in the blanks; imagine her any way I wanted. I was, after all, a master at filling in the blanks.

“Look,” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on. And I don’t need to. I’ll keep my hands to myself…okay?” I wait a long time and then the door clicks open. I take in every one of her fragrances -- hear her reach in the bag for a comic, removing its wrapping.

“They’re Japanese,” I explain. “But who cares, right? It’s the pictures that count.”

“Wow,” she says, flipping through the pages. I stand there with my arms at my sides. After a moment I feel the comic book slip past my hand back into the bag.

“Wow,” she says again and I know she is still wearing the glasses. I try to remember what it was like to look through them as a kid -- the tinted cellophane oddly coloring the world. I’m certain she will keep them on.

“Come in,” she says. “You know where the couch is.”

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