Ned is walking with his girlfriend, walking her home on the late-night streets. The city's atmosphere is thick and quiet; bright in the way a street is bright when you are sleepy and walking past two in the morning. At Ned's place, they just finished watching a television movie about a ghost, a lady ghost trailing gossamer sleeves. A ghost, who wails and mourns for her lost daughter. Ned's girlfriend Carolyn has long blond hair; it brushes his arm, as they walk towards a group of people, silhouettes clustered under the El. The buzzing lights of a bar and grill transform them to shadows, as Ned and Carolyn advance, and the shadows advance—Ned recalls flashy supernatural novels he's read, novels of vampires and how they feed: it's like making love, but better, more intense, closer to death.
Ned and Carolyn walk closer to the people of shadow, close enough to see they are all dressed in black, close enough to see that one at least is a woman, her skirt is mini, tight and high, and the skirt and halter top bulge, under strain. Brown legs, fleshy and sassy, punctuated with black spike pumps. She laughs, and Ned sees the gleam of hairspray on her waterfall curls, and breathes the clotting scent of her lilac perfume. Eyeliner, eye shadow, and points of mascara dotting her cheeks. The he notices something in the jaw, in the line of the throat, and knows that this strumpet in a tight black skirt was not born a woman; she is reborn every evening at her dressing table mirror.
Ned sees every woman in the group is a man. He sees it in the width of the neck or span of the shoulders. A hint of whiskers under foundation make-up. Beautiful women, their hair is all their own, and flows like the legends of a locked-away princess. The walk is all theirs, a walk where they sway the hips they don't have, and glare at Ned and the woman he is with. Ned can only guess why they glare. Maybe because he and Carolyn are intruding, outside their own time and territory. Maybe because Carolyn, by virtue of fate, was a woman when she stretched and woke up this morning. Their angry gaze and muttered threats follow Ned up the street. Ned places his hand on the back of Carolyn's arm. He feels as if he's passed a dangerous gang, the kind of people who might curse you, turn on you, take all your money and stab you after.
A half-block later there is someone else, a middle-aged woman, someone's fat-bottomed aunt. She wears a yellow dress with a red flower pattern. Her red purse sways on her fat smooth arm; her feet plump over the tops of her shoes. Ned imagines an office party run late, or a midnight bowling league, or simply a woman in the city looking for laughs, a little too tipsy to be afraid. She wobbles at the curb, and calls out to a passing taxi.
And Ned and Carolyn hear the man in her voice. They know in that deep voice she is no one's chubby aunt, and she never pushed from her body, with breath and blood and pain, a wailing baby to call her own. But her breasts rise. Like pale loaves of bread they shine at her collar. It is only her voice that gives her away.
Ned hurries past. Ned and his girlfriend. 'Were those men?' Carolyn whispers, though no one else is near. 'Those were men,' Ned whispers, with nervous giggles.
Then they are quiet. They reach the courtyard of Carolyn's building. 'Do you want to stay? It's late,' she says. 'I have to get up early. Errands,' Ned says.
'Oh. Well.' Their good-bye embrace is awkward. Ned has never let himself linger, kissing in a doorway, lips against lips while the taxi driver waits. He kisses her once, touches her cheek with his hand, and waits until she's inside and he's heard the deadbolt turn. Ned chooses to walk the long way home. He doesn't want to pass those women again.
He's had a glimpse into their realm, a wild realm, with no closed borders. Appearance as a choice, and a female art. Where there's a will, and a mirror, and a palette of makeup, there, Ned thinks, is a woman, maybe, smiling to herself and pursing her lips. Ned walks, blocks and blocks out of his way, through quiet greystone neighborhoods and leafy parks. He walks, until he hears sparrows and starlings chattering in the trees, and when he's home he paces his apartment. When he tries to lie down he cannot sleep. He imagines untying the laces of a corset. When he closes his eyes he sees legs step, his legs, or someone else's, smooth muscled legs, stepping free from a blossom of silk and lace undergarments.
By the time the sun rises Ned has shaved his face twice. His cheeks and neck are red, and smooth as a boy's. His reflection in the mirror above the bathroom sink looks itself in the eye, and licks its lips. He imagines his lips puffy and red, fat with kisses. He kisses the mirror. And remembers scenes from the movie they watched. A Victorian ghost, her dress a soiled wedding gown, her hair tangled with fallen leaves. A ghost who sweeps through the dry autumn woods, keening, mourning for her lost daughter.
Robert McDonald's poetry and fiction have appeared in a lot of small journals and zines, including The New York Review, The Red Cedar Review, paragraph, Mudfish, Southern Poetry Review, Oyster Boy Review, and New American Scurvy, among others.