He hadn't even noticed her walk in front of him, willowy and hushed. She was taller than most men, and stooped because of it, making her look old- too old. Her fingers clutched at the skirt of her green dress desperately. He rapped his cane on the deck, hoping to frighten her away the way one would frighten off a snake  in the woods. Cocaine Charlie doesn't appreciate company. She stayed.

 Cosima lives alone. Cosima makes lace in the room under the stairs, and at 8:48 every Tuesday night leads her mystic cult in song and sacrifice. They adjourn at 9:48 for water crackers and munster cheese. Cosima collects wind in Cambells soup cans and thinks the yellow taint around bruises is beautiful. She stands at the end of her driveway at 12:37 every Sunday and laughs at churchgoers driving home. She loves no one. And so naturally, Cocaine Charlie loved her. He loved the mean street cat when he was seven, even though it scratched his ear and he had to get six stitches. He loved Amber Mashpolluck in the eighth grade, even though she told him (in front of the lockers 5th period) that she thought he was a skinny boob. He loved his roommate in college, simply because he knew that his roommate would not love him back. He wanted to run one finger down her arms, to count the length. Cocaine Charlie self-destructs. 

Cocaine Charlie hadn't always been called that. He tried his hand at names like Shots, Chevrolet Sal, Threads Martin. None of them stuck like Cocaine Charlie. They all fit him like loose latex gloves- sweaty and uncomfortable, sticking in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.  He knew the name didn't come honest. Like, if you go to Panama for the year to look through tiny binoculars all the way to the other side of that great blue tube, you might come home and your bartender might call you Panama. Cocaine Charlie made up his name, and forced it to stick which made him walk a little stiffly, and so he took up an ivory cane. 

Who did this woman think she was? He hated her and loved the looks of her. So thin, so tall she didn't look real. Sitting in the rusty seat close to him, she had to fold herself in half, delicate and wispy. River nymph. No, a sylph. He could just see her taking flight and cutting the sky with her sharp body, free and cruel. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and wriggled it around in his stumpy fingers, finally pulling one from the case. Cocaine Charlie smokes two whole packs a day. What the hell, he'd never see her again.