[no entry today]
———-
H. promises to print the first round of circulars while I attend to other business. I find her by the window upon my return, she smokes and blows smoke out the window into the alley and jokes with Henry G. She cuts a fine figure. She glows with life as always, it is as if she stands under a streetlight and the rest of us are cloaked in dusk, the color of pavement.
I see just a few circulars on the table next to the printing machine, some smudged and crumpled and I look for boxes of others but find none, I ask her where are the others and she tells me the machine broke hours before. It is an old machine a donation from the Z.O.A. but it works and I ask her why she didn’t ask someone for help and for her reply she tells me you work in a factory so shouldn’t you be the one to fix it? She smiles at me and then talks to Henry some more. I fix the machine and when I am done she prints some more flyers, not nearly enough but she goes home tired.
I know she has no use for me because she is elegant and graceful and I am what I am but what am I to do? Our work is for the betterment of our lot, it is my honor to work among my colleagues but I am unsure why she visits the Dist and why she offers her help. Jack tells me she is not interested but why is she there? Do I dare to dream I am the reason?
At home I find her telephone number in my book and I see I left one number off. The last number, I never wrote it down. I don’t remember what it was. It doesn’t matter any more, she doesn’t live in the same place but how did I call her when I did when I had only part of the number? I stare at it and I think for some reason of a box too heavy to lift.
I hear the familiar grinding screech from across the street, the projectionist at the Clinton pushes open the door of his booth at the back of the second floor. He does this three or four times at night, there are two doors but he opens the one on the right each time and I can see the glow of the machinery behind him. He stands out on the fire escape and lets the door close, it looks to me like an eye, a wink from a face of brick. He smokes a cigarette and drinks from a bottle and I watch him from my window across the street and I wonder again if he would like me to wave to him.