floating in a tin can

For two days there's no word from Lee.

She told Michael earlier that week that on Friday she had a thing to go to, a friend's birthday. She came for Shabbat dinner like she always does, then left around eight or nine. He decided to stay. He had work to do, hates bars, sometimes she goes to these things without him, they're not that codependent. Lee said she would be back in the early morning, maybe one or two, he'd probably still be up but he shouldn't wait up for her.

That was two days ago.

In the early morning hours on Saturday, the riots started. Living in the Village, it was impossible to miss them; word started spreading even before they'd reached a fever pitch that could be heard blocks away. Saturday evening on Christopher Street, it happened again — people gathering, at first just to talk, but it soon led to shouting, protesting, jeering the police who showed up. Bystanders and tourists surrounded the area, mingled in the crowds. Everyone staring at the burned-out remains of the Stonewall; it looks like they dropped a bomb on it. People are saying they had agent provocateurs in the crowd, trying to goad people into further violence so the police had an excuse to let loose again with their batons. The first night the police were taken off guard, they didn't expect a bunch of homeless kids, street hustlers, and drag queens to fight back; the next night, they come prepared. People are saying they had seventeen people arrested.

No sign of a blonde head towering over the crowd. No hint of a Middle Eastern accent shouting with the rest.

Finally, finally, Monday evening, someone called. “Hey, man — hey, is this uh, Michael...?”

The address he was given is on the other end of the neighbourhood. It's one of those pay-by-the-hour fleabag hotels, the kind where the walls threaten to come down around you as you stand there, God forbid you should breathe too hard and blow the asbestos out of the walls. Someone waits to meet him outside, just to make sure he's cool, he's not a cop, and then leads him upstairs into a small rented single room with a crappy stained bed that is wall-to-wall packed with people milling around, some still in the remnants of Friday night's drag, most nursing some kind of injury.

There's Lee, finally. Her back to the door, laying on the bed. There is an impressive rust-red stain on her back, leaking down from the neckline, but her hair is clean, her head unbandaged. When she turns around, her pale face is clear, no contusions, no dark marks, no bloody wounds. Her slightly unfocused eyes fill with tears. “Michael,” she says. People quickly clear a path.