My Cardboard Balcony

The Witnesses by Belinda Roddie Two women with short hair tucked under baseball caps and jackets draping over their shoulders like winter cloaks share a cheap cigar by the fire hydrant in front of a dilapidated liquor store. Their cheeks are pink from the June gloom chill, and their hands are yellow from calluses that have swelled up like barnacles on a sea of weathered skin after years of using a hammer and power drill on new houses built in the bowels of the small Western town. The crackling of the burning paper is a perfect symphonic accompaniment to the sweet, sweet smell of the tobacco, aged like a jazz song on a tenor saxophone in a smoke-choked bar only a mile's walk away. Deeply, they inhale the shadows of nicotine-creased ballerinas swiveling across their imaginary island stages, wood and sand blending in polished mosaics beneath their cramping toes. A dance of ash and dust before an out-of-nowhere runaway sedan folds into the hydrant like a sli

Chris wore her shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top button undone, the blue collar parting just enough to expose the blunt collarbone underneath. As she opened up the toolbox and fished out the hammer, I watched from a distance, the power drill shaking somewhat in my hand. We had been working together on building this house for six months now, the only two females assigned to the task - and of course, like a fool, I was beginning to fall for her.