Daydream, Actually

I have this strange daydream...

I visit some event in the area. I am with friends, different ones at different times.


Lately, I daydream this friend is Marco. We visit Eastern Market on some random late summer or early autumn Saturday morning when it's cool enough to smile in the building sunshine and yet it's still warm enough to walk around in my capri pants and a regular T-shirt, a stunning no-frills combination.

We saunter, taking pictures that we both tell ourselves might someday be something others want to buy. Contemporary images of a time-honored tradition. Off-center, color-saturated, deep and meaningful in a way that we have to argue to lay claim on some starving artist notion of what beauty truly is. We collect our imaginary money and thank imaginary people for their accolades.

We goof around, climbing stacks of pallets and other debris with our arms raised high in triumph, sampling a few of our agricultural finds, laughing and making faces at each other with dabs of blueberries on our teeth. Sometimes, it's grapes. Sometimes, I peel the grapes and spit chunks at Marco. And then, we laugh some more. I talk wildly with my hands, finally giving in to who I am and loving that I talk wildly with my hands. My playful teasing only bringing on more laughter and discussion of what a beautiful and perfect day it is because it is just that.

We visit the meat and fish market. I share that I'm a vegetarian, but we watch the men throwing fish into the ice inside the displays. We watch as men cut chunks of beef and pork and throw them on a scale. I pretend that this does not excite me. I pretend that this is offensive but Marco needs this moment.

I imagine this entry into Detroit is a kind one for Marco, who seems timid but curious about this city that is so near but still so scary in its almost foreign sensation to an Ohioan.

There is only a new friendship found over commonalities in failed relationships. There is only a new friendship where nothing existed before.

I sometimes picture running into Julie, a girl from a graduate reading class I took last fall. She is blond and beautiful and everything I'm not. I see her and approach. She smiles and asks me my name again. I respond, "Alicia, Actually" calling her "Actually" as a condescending tribute to the fact that she can use the word actually more times in one short conversation than I have used the word in my entire lifetime.

Marco walks toward us quietly, waiting for his introduction to someone who will inevitably ask if he was in our class, too. She doesn't notice that he is staring at her, seeing how beautiful she is. She doesn't hear his small utterances and minute contributions to the conversation. She means well and wants to connect with me.

While he is watching her, I tally how many times she utters the word actually. Eventually, her parents call her to leave, and she makes a strange statement about leaving all the "blacks" and heading back home to a "good area" - her random, innocent inappropriateness never failing her and going unchecked by others who are never quite quick enough to respond.

I tell Marco the story of how I began to call her "Actually." He laughs, and we begin to wind down as her sun-bright hair bobs into a minivan already peopled with two stable and comfortable-looking individuals who only wanted to share the Detroit they knew growing up with a daughter whose intelligence trails far behind her compassion and dedication to others.

That's where the day ends. There is no further adventure into the city. There is no return to the car. There is only a moment, sometimes advanced to a sunset that feels misplaced while we sit on a park bench with nothing left to discuss.