Steele

          Steele could feel history in the hands touching his face
 repeating themselves.

They touched his body without touching him.

  A kind of hollow indulgence Steele had become accustomed to

 in his marred, drunk mind

 which he had long ago permitted to thrive in the absence of 

true affection.

  Both could not recall the others name

 but remembered how to unbutton pants with one hand

 and unbutton with the other

 the shirt of their nameless partner.  

          Steele met this one after finishing a 2 am. meal
at Little Orphan Andy's Diner

 chicken fried steak being his favorite meal 

 Little Orphan Andy's being the only diner
in the Castro still serving it after midnight.

  He went threw the kitchen down a small flight of stairs

 to the bathroom

 unaware that a virile Indian man was quick behind him.  

         "Sorry I didn't see you there,"  said Steele

 they both reached for the once copper door knob

"you can go first." 

          They looked each other up and down

 after a short time deciding to go in together

 to leave together

   to sleep together.  

          When they finished

 the caramel colored man was fast asleep

 leaving Steele sitting on the strangers bed

 the only light coming from a dim lamp on the edge of a night stand

 which casted a red loneliness on the walls and on his skin.  

He could see hand prints on his torso

 stamped with warming lube

 he pretended for a moment that the lingering sensation was a real hand

 extending a warm touch.  

          Finding himself in these types of situations often

 Steele would pass the quiet hours in which sleep never came

 picking out nicknacks tenderly placed about the room

 by the strange men who invited him in.

 He looked for a long time at a picture frame

 beneath its glass a photo of the sleeping man snoring beside him

he was standing next to an old woman 

dressed in traditional Indian garb

.

          The woman bore a bendi on her forehead

 her hair turned gray by sun

 thinned by age

her teeth fiercely perfect

 broke from a smile backed with a lifetime of love

for the man which her arm rested upon.

  Steele noticed in the picture 

that the man sleeping next to him

 was slightly older than the one in the photograph

 his jaw line less jagged and more plump.

  He imagined the old woman to be the man's grandmother 

that the picture was taken during a religious ceremony.  

Pulling from his memory

 the sounds of Indian music he had heard in Bollywood movies

 and Indian restaurants

  he imagined himself there dancing with the women 

behind the two smiling faces. 

          Steele also noticed that by an old oak desk in the corner

 scattered on the wall it faced 

were hundreds of sticky notes with English words and their definitions

 written on them in fantastic swirls of handwriting not from this country.

         

       One of the sticky notes read;

         Withdrawal:
        noun
           removal; retraction.

          Steele carefully and quietly dressed himself before sitting at the oak desk.

  By red light and the sounds of snores 

 morning street cars passing by a dawning window

 he picked up a Hindi-English Dictionary

 resting on a pile of unread male. 

Translating the words "thank you, goodbye" 

the best he could into Hindi, on a blue sticky note.

          When he had finished writing the note reading,  

"शुक्रिया नमस्ते," 

Steel stuck the note to the photo of the old woman and let himself out.

          

Not a sound was made.