Midnight Somewhere

Lucia Finkelstein

“What brings you to Omaha,” the man named Phil asks Like one of those old timey taxi drivers in movies he is looking at me through the rear view mirror. He has green eyes and missed a spot shaving this morning— Both these things stick out like a sore thumb. Even under the somber geometric shadows cast back through the car window I can’t help staring at the nucleus patch of greying hairs under his chin. He tells me that his daughters like strawberry ice cream From that place down the block. But it’s closed tonight because the owner’s dog passed away and she’s busy planning the funeral. His daughters are sad, he says The dog’s name was Gracie. Nepalese Street Food 2 Go Saturday Hours: 2pm-12am I wait for my order in the sports bar next door; It smells like onion rings and loveless marriages and tender pats on the back

when the bartender finally kicks you out at the end of the night. The TV blares on about climate disasters and as I get up to leave the eyes of a bearded man tell me to be careful.

Farnham Douglas Locust I taste these new streets on my tongue and swish them around like mouthwash. Outside a purple and red nightclub, A man in a leather jacket lights his girl’s Cigarette and she looks at him all seductive.

Loosely, effortlessly She positions it Between her teeth, pursing her crimson lips around the filter. She has practiced this move in the mirror at home. Tonight she will get him into bed. I hang my head and stare at the dying Grass trying with all its might to grow up through the pavement. To grow up. To walk the streets of a foreign city In a dress bought for plans that fell through. I am so angry I feel Like crying But halfway back to the motel I stop And I call myself a cab.

Phil is five minutes away.