TBT #43: Unclaimed

The rain streaked down the taxicab window and I knew that this wasn’t how I was supposed to end it. The car lurched forward again and again, fighting the traffic and I knew — I just knew — as I watched the shops and the stores and the rain drenched people go by at a snail’s pace that this was not how I was supposed to end it. I remembered how she looked: how her eyes fell and her forehead creased, how her lips made the shape of a thousand different words but remained utterly silent, how she let her hair fall across her face and stared, so intently, at the ground. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t the right ending. Everything I saw through that car window seemed to confirm it. The scatted pattern of lights in the skyscraper above me, the steam erupting from the grating on the street, the couple huddled under the umbrella rushing down the street towards home…

So I did it. I left. I threw some bills at the driver and opened the door and took off down the street. The raindrops stung my face and my open jacket caught the driving wind but I could not stop. I would not stop. My lungs started to ache as I crossed city block after city block, but at that moment everything I had was singularly focused on her. And so when I entered her building and tore up the flights of stairs, I barely heard the squishy sound my wet shoes made on the stairs or my own deep hoarse breathing. I drowned out all sound, wanting only to hear her. At that moment, there was only her. There wasn’t a great job far off and a family who needed her. There was simply us, and as I slammed through the door into the hallway on her floor, I knew that that was all I needed.

So I knocked on her door and she answered and, wordlessly, she was in my arms. And I kissed her and held her and whispered a million stupid senseless things into her ear as we melted down to the floor against her door.

It was The Best Thing for May 23, 2005.

A Phone Conversation

I had been on hold for a few hours, listening to what seemed like an endless loop of John Waite’s “Missing You” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” When someone finally came on the line, she caught me singing the last few lines of the chorus of the former and I couldn’t help but find it amusing when the operator had to mute her headset to conceal her soft giggle.

“Hello,” she started. “Airport Lost & Found. Marcie Speaking. How may I help you?”

“Yes, uh,” I stammered, never too great on the phone, “I left a couple of bags in a cab the other day and, uh — I don’t have them.”

“You left your bags in a cab, sir?”

“Yeah, just downtown.”

“We’re the airport, sir. Did you try with the cab company?”

“Did I try the cab company..” I said, under my breath. “Yes, I tried the cab company. They told me that, since they’re an airport cab company, they just dropped the bags at the airport.”

“Huh,” she intoned, unimpressed. I heard the sound of quick typing. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have any bags on record as having been left in any of the terminal buildings.”

I sighed deeply. Behind me, the sheets on the bed began to stir in the morning light. “Is there anyone else at the airport I could call?”

“Hmm,” she said, overly enthusiastic. “You could try Security. They tend to pick up unattended baggage.”

Interlude

A groggy voice behind me spoke from beneath the sheets. “Heeey,” she said, “are you on the phone?”

I thanked Marcie quickly and hung-up. “No, sweetheart,” I said. “I was just thinking aloud.”

The Second Marcie

“Good Afternoon,” came a chipper voice. “Airport Security. How may I direct your call?”

I had been on hold for 40 minutes, using my cellphone on the apartment balcony. I was not happy.

“Yeah,” I said roughly. “I was directed over here from Lost & Found. I’m looking for a bag I lost.”

“Did you try Lost & Found, sir?”

“…Yes.”

“This is Security, sir.”

“Yes, I know…. — I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Marcie,” she chirped.

“Okay,” I began, then stopped. “Wait, are you the same Marcie I talked to earlier?”

“Which Marcie did you talk to, sir?”

“The one in Lost & Found.”

“No,” she corrected, “this is Security.”

Below I saw the familiar light blue coupe pull up to the parking garage. “Look,” I said flatly. “I left my bag in a cab. The cab company said their driver left at the airport. Marcie — the OTHER Marcie — said she didn’t have it in Lost & Found but that maybe you guys had picked it up.”

“One moment please,” she said cheerily, and the hold music kicked in again. I sighed and watched the car disappear into the garage below me.

Marcie came back. “I’m sorry, sir. There’s no record of a bag being picked up. Maybe you could try Lost & Found.”

I let a few seconds pass.

“Thanks, Marcie.”

I hung up and put the phone down.

Interlude II

I heard her keys in the door and re-entered the living room. She came in carrying a couple of paper bags in both hands.

“Hey,” she smiled. “I got food.”

“Aww, you’re my favourite.”

I took the bags from her and set them on the table. She pulled her coat off and hung it on the rack in the corner.

“So,” she said, “what have you been up to?”

“Oh not much,” I said quickly. “Watched some TV. Relaxed.”

“Mmm,” she said, moving towards me. “Sounds nice.”

She wrapped her arms around me and let her face rest against my chest.

The Cab Company

The Cab Company was housed in a big warehouse-like building. Inside were row after row of taxis. In one corner of the room there was a mechanic station where a couple of middle-aged guys tinkered away under the hood of an old-looking cab. In another corner, there were a few makeshift offices set up using dividers. A woman sat at the desk there and, as I approached her, I realized she was on the phone.

“Yes,” she said into the receiver. “Yes. Yes, I understand. But, no, sir, we don’t offer limousines. No, especially not ones that long. No, sir. Yes. Our cars are normal size. How long EXACTLY? I don’t know, sir. Normal car length. I will not get someone to measure, sir. I’m sorry. You could check your phone book for a company that does limousines.”

Seeing me approach, she held up a finger to indicate that I should wait a minute.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. We will try to make our advertising clearer in the future.”

She hung up and looked at me. She was a reasonably attractive young woman with clear green eyes and long wavy hair that spilled down her back. “I can help you now, sir.”

“Yes,” I said. “Um, I called the other day about some bags I left in the back of one of your cabs. I don’t know if I talked to you or someone else.”

She looked at me blankly and didn’t say a word.

“Yes, okay. So I left my bags in this cab and this person I talked to told me that the driver left them at the airport but the airport has no record of them so, well, I thought I’d come down here and try again.”

“Try what again, sir?”

“To try and… find them again,” I offered.

She turned to her desktop computer, typed a few words, and then frowned.

“I’m sorry sir. We have no passenger bags in the lost and found.”

I sighed too deeply. “Can I see it?”

“See what, sir?”

“The Lost and Found.”

“Ummmm,” she intoned. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Wait, uh…. — what’s your name?”

“Sir?”

“It’s not Marcie, is it?”

“Did you want to talk to Marcie?”

“God dammit,” I said quietly. And then louder, “God dammit!”

“Sir, you’re going to have to calm down.”

“I’m calm! I’m calm! Now why can’t I see your Lost and Found?” I demanded, forcefully.

“Um, well, sir — ” she was speaking slowly. “There isn’t really a Lost and Found. It’s more… conceptual than it is physical.”

“Your Lost and Found is CONCEPTUAL?!” I yelled, my voice echoing in the warehouse.

“Sir, calm down,” she said. I could hear footsteps in the offices behind her. “There is no Lost and Found in the sense that there’s no box or room where we keep lost items. They’re just registered in the computer and put somewhere in the offices behind me.”

I didn’t care about her explanation. “Jesus Christ,” I said simply. “Jesus. Christ.” My hands gripped the edges of her desk. “The airport lost and found doesn’t have it, airport security thinks I’m an idiot, the lost and found here is fucking METAPHYSICAL or something and everyone I talk to is named MARCIE!’

“Sir…” The mechanics from the corner were beginning to make their way over to us.

“GOD DAMMIT!” I said. “If I knew it would be this hard to find my bags I never would have ran from that cab in a spontaneous romantic expression of LOVE!”

Interlude III

It was dark. I sat at the desk, working at her laptop, looking up every now and then to watch her sleep. She was stretched out across three quarters of the bed, the moonlight lightly kissing her exposed skin. She barely made a sound in her sleep.

I made a simple poster offering a reward for my lost bags. It declared “REWARD FOR LOST BAGS” in a giant bold font and then underneath gave a description of the bags, and where I lost them. As I hit the print button, I realized too late that the sound of the inkjet roaring to life would probably wake her up.

“Hey,” she stirred as the printer whizzed back and forth, “what are you doing up?”

“Nothing,” I said softly, “just checking my e-mail. Go back to sleep.”

“Whatcha printing?” she asked, still half-asleep, but sitting up in bed.

“Nothing important,” I said, watching as she scooted closer to the printer.

She grabbed the page as it finished and held it up to the faint light to read it. I sighed heavily.

“You lost your bags?” she asked groggily.

“Yeah,” I said matter-of-factly. “In the cab. When I came back.”

“Oh wow,” she said. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“Yeah,” I said simply.

“Was there anything important in them?”

“Just, uh…. just clothes and stuff,” I said, truthfully. “It’s okay. I don’t really need them.”

I took the page from her hands and lay it on the desk. Then, with a quick jump, I was back in bed, holding her in my arms.

“I don’t,” I repeated. “I don’t need them.”

She wrapped her arms around me.

“You know why?” I said, as I kissed her forehead.

She moaned soft. “Why?” she smiled.

“’cause I got you.” She giggled and laughed and we cuddled into sleep.

The next day I made 50 copies of the poster and put it up all around town.