Bodies and Souls

  (Miss Burstyn, make three copies of this draft, I'll have to revise it substantially.)” Click.

  Officer Weston waited in his car. The shifting sun glared into his eyes. Out of the white blaze he saw the familiar car drive past him and park a block away on the opposite side of the street. Then the driver emerged.

  He was medium-sized, younger than middle-age; he walked briskly and sat on the same bench where Officer Weston had first seen him, that afternoon. The man carried a magazine and pretended to read—but his attention was locked on the school hardly a block away.

  Along the street, tall palm trees leaned away from the wind. Strawy leaves, the kind that hang limply from the bottom of the green-fanned trees, littered the lanes. Officer Weston saw one of the branches crashing down just ahead. For a moment he allowed his eyes to stray toward it, to pull away from the reflection, in his rearview mirror, of the man sitting on the bench.

  The man on the bench set the magazine aside, his hand planted on it. Officer Weston looked across the street. School was out. Children moved in all directions along the gusty streets. They didn't walk or run—they seemed to push each other along, stagger, even fall, skip, bounce, hop, tangle on their own legs. Then they broke up into clusters, individuals. Several got into the cars of parents, others jaywalked to meet waiting, familiar adults, some paused at the crosswalks.

  Three girls—perhaps nine, perhaps ten years old—moved in that jagged running, skipping, stumbling way toward the bench where the man sat, his hand pressed on the magazine. At the corner, one of the girls got into a car with a woman, the other turned into another block. The third one—dark-haired—shuffled playfully along the street, across it. On the bench, the man arranged himself rigidly.

  Officer Weston's eyes were clouded with sweat. He mopped them with an already-soaked handkerchief. The man on the bench leaned forward.

  Officer Weston opened the door of his car, stepped out into the heat and wind, and closed the door—loudly.

  The man stood up from the bench and looked in horror at Officer Weston staring at him from across the street. Moments before the little girl would have passed the bench, he rushed away.

  Abandoned, the magazine surrendered to the grasping wind. The man got into his car, not looking back.

  Officer Weston saw the car back up into an intersection, and then drive off along the lanes of palm trees.

  Back in his own car, Officer Weston made a U-turn in the same direction.

  Alone, the dark-haired girl moved jauntily despite the wind. She kicked one of the dead yellow leaves away from her path. A rush of wind tugged at her legs. She pushed down her dress.

  Officer Weston parked his car a few feet ahead. He slid over to the passenger side, and he unlocked the door. He arranged his rearview mirror. The little girl replaced the man who had sat on the bench. Officer Weston leaned back. He stretched his legs. His hands dropped between them. He undid the buttons of his pants. They opened on a hairy V. His hard, urgent cock pushed up.