made my way down the street towards Central Square.
  It wasn't quite 11:30 yet, so there was still a good chance that there would still be a bus waiting. I decided that even if the narcs were busy busting up the rave, it was still better to follow their instructions. Downtown was littered with surveillance cameras and probably more that were hidden. It really wouldn't take much looking to see if I had been a good little citizen or not and whereas they took enough interest in me to tag my passbook, I figured I better not rock the boat.
  Besides, even if I could drive, Andrea's car would most certainly be impounded with just about every other vehicle in the vicinity.
  I thought about the inspection and how they poli-narcs seemed to be getting worse. At least it seemed that there were a lot more "inspections" in the last six months than I remember before that. Or maybe I was just going to a lot more places they tended to hit. Since moving in with Andrea, I had been to more raves, underground parties and at least one very odd strip club, where the strippers, male and female, were painted like cats and tigers. They even purred.
  So maybe it wasn't getting worse, maybe I was constantly in the wrong place.
  Man,I thought. I wish that hadn't driven Myra away.
  I really had no way of finding her.
  Wrapped up in my thoughts, I wandered up the street and under the commuter-rail overpass. Normally, this isn't a good idea, not this late at night. The train comes in overhead in two distinct bridges that diverge here. So one goes North and the other South, but the actual bridges form a sort of "v" overhead creating a widening triangle of coverage over the road below. There are too many dark hiding spots for a mugger--or worse--to jump you at night. And it's not an exaggeration, there is all kinds of crime within a single block of the downtown station. How screwed up is it that DDP has enough resources to raid raves, but can't police the downtown area?
  I heard a rumbling overhead; the train was leaving. It slightly startled me to realize I was just about under the center of bridges before noticing it. I looked around quickly.
  Wide, cracked cement columns, sometime missing whole chunks with rusted rebar showing like veins, were spaced out in intervals along the underside of the bridges. To the left, covered in graffiti, a cement wall ran up to the Northbound bridge and those columns made for dark recesses and I could smell the stale piss from a few feet away. There were few working fluorescent lights under the bridge, but not enough of them to do anything more than create stark shadows falling back to areas of pitch blackness.
  For a second, I thought I saw the shadow of cat move from one dark area to the other. But it shifted unnaturally, twisting in and out that it must have been an optical illusion. I felt a wave of fear rise slightly that maybe it wasn't a cat, but some confluence of shadows from other places of people watching me.
  I started moving more quickly to get across the street.
  As I passed the last column against the cement wall, a figure jumped out at me. An arm stretched out and a hand clasped onto my left wrist.
  Instantly, my right hand balled into a fist, a swing starting to come up before I could even see the mugger or junkie. I shifted my weight to get better leverage, and I stopped cold.
  It was Myra.
  "Jack," she said with some slight tone of desperation. "It's me."
  "Oh," I said, my hand unclenching as it dropped to my side.
  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
  I blinked, not really knowing what to say. "You're hiding? Here?"
  "I'm sorry to have abandoned you like that."
  It clicked in my head, "Ahh," I said. "No papers."
  She nodded slightly, "Yeah, I forgot you needed papers."
  That was the kind of statement that should have sent up a flag. How can you forget that you needed papers? But I think now that I heard it differently. That I must have heard it as an agreement she had forgotten her papers. Perception, and thinking about it later, I realize how messed up it can really be.
  "Whew," I said. "For a moment back there, I thought you might have set me up for some reason."
  "Set you up for what?"
  I shook my head, "I don't know."  
  Myra looked around, "This doesn't feel so safe."
  I nodded, "Oh it's not. We should go."
  "Is your place nearby?"
  I was suddenly very happy. Not only had I stumbled across Myra again, she still seemed to be in the mood to at least come back home with me.
  "Well, sort of. We'll have to take the bus, but it's a short ride."
  "Okay," she said and I started walking for the bus terminal.
  Myra came up beside me and I noticed she still had that heavy bookbag on her back. Our hands brushed once, and then she lightly grabbed my hand and held it.
  I felt a little better when we came out from under the train bridge. The bus depot was nothing more than a small, greasy spoon diner (how cliché) at the end of a short, narrow, one-way street that the buses lined up along. At least they did during the busy time of day. Now, this late, there was only one bus, it's light dimmed, but the door open. On the front it read: Cliftondale Center 503.
  I looked to the diner, it was built a few years ago in a style to mimic the classic streetcar diner. Big square windows and a door that folded to the side. The red paint was faded and chipped and a block on the corner probably covering up some graffiti.
  I fished out some change from my pocket and made sure there was enough for the two of and stepped onto the bus. I cupped the change in my hand and rolled it into the coin funnel next to the driver seat. I lead us back to about the middle of the bus. There was a dark haired kid in the way back and an older, Puerto Rican woman a few seats down. She had a nurse uniform on and sat looking out the window.
  We sat down.
  It was quite, except for the low rumble of the idling bus. Myra looked at me then cautiously clasp my hand again while looking outside. It was dark out there, the tinted windows muting the florescent lights over the bank on the far corner.
  A few seconds later, the bus driver climbed aboard. He was a big guy and the bus lurched slightly as he got on. He looked back and counted the number of people. As he sat down he hit the coin machine sending the change rattling through the machine and he watched the counter. When he was satisfied that nobody was getting a free ride, he closed the doors and put the bus in gear lurching it away from the sidewalk.
  "How far?" Myra asked softly.
  "About fifteen minutes," I said.
  Her hand gripped mine slightly more tightly and, still looking out the window, she lightly rested her head on my shoulder.
  The ride was relatively quite for a bus ride.
  At the hospital stop, the nurse got off using the rear door and an older man and woman got on. The man was somewhat disheveled, like his clothes were not really his. The woman was much younger, but they seemed to be together. He sat in the first forward seat and the woman in the side seat closest to his.
  I felt Myra stir, her head turning to see the couple. For an odd second she seemed to be staring at them, her grip tightening.
  "You okay?"
  "Mmmm," she hummed and her hand relaxed.
  A few minutes longer and I leaned forwards slightly, moving Myra's head, "We're almost there."
  I hit the rubber padding that signaled the stop, an audible ding up at the front and the driver glancing in the mirror at us.
  "Come on," I said. "We're here."
  Myra stood up behind my, blinking her eyes as if she had been asleep.
  We made our way to the front of the bus as he came to the stop, the bus's air breaks blasting out a sharp hiss. The doors opened and we climbed out. The air was cooler than on board, but nothing like the shock of coming out of the rave earlier.
  "This way," I said, gesturing down the sidestreet.
  "Far?"
  "No, that blue three-decker," I said, pointing across the street.
  "Good," she said. "I'm tired."
  "Oh," I said, slightly dejected.
  Myra smirked and grabbed my hand, "Not that tired."
  With that she pulled me across the street and I dumbly followed as we walked up the short hill to the stairs. On the porch she swung around, the knapsack causing her to turn widely and the boards creaked slightly. The dim light above us illuminated just enough features to see she was studying me. At least that's what I liked to think.
  I fished out my keys and unlocked the front door. It squawked against the wooden threshold, and the old glass shook reverberating in the hallway.
  "Upstairs," I said, swinging the door closed again. I tried lifting the doorknob to keep it from squawking again, but that never worked. I'm not sure why I still do it.
  Myra stepped in and around to the stairs.
  "You want me to carry that?" I said indicating her knapsack. I instantly felt stupid.
  She smirked, "No, I've got it."
  We walked up to the second floor. I unlocked the front door to my apartment and opened the door for Myra again. She stepped in and I followed.
  I flicked on the living room light. The room was pretty bare. A futon a TV and a rug were about it. Andrea had tried to set up some plant over in the bay window, but she couldn't seem to keep them alive for very long. There was a rack with several pots of dirt there.
  Myra stepped in and let the pack drop lightly from her back onto the floor.
  I closed the door and locked it.
  As I turned around she was right up next to me and a split second later her mouth was pressed against mine, her hands griped at my sides, pulling me in.
  It surprised me again, but I let it flow and kissed her back.
  She still smelt like vaguely of alcohol, now without the citrus.
  A few seconds later, she pushed back from me. Again, a bit like I was the aggressor. I'm not sure why that turned me on.
  I could feel myself smirking. A sly smile broke across her face and she almost lunged at me again.
  In our embrace, I started maneuvering us toward the futon.
  As we were about to fall onto it, she broke her embrace to look back.
  "No, no, not here," she said breathy.
  "What?" I said even though I knew exactly what she meant.
  "Bedroom," she said and started kissing me again.
  I broke away and said, "This way," and started to move towards the doorway that led to a short hallway with Andrea and my bedrooms at opposite ends, a bathroom in the middle.
  Myra stopped and kicked off her shoes and then followed me into my room. She pushed me down on to the bed and kissed me hard while pulling at my shirt.
  I grabbed her around the waist and pushed her shirt up while feeling around her skirt for a zipper or clasp. On the side, I felt a couple of buttons, which I quickly undid.
  She rolled to the side and I felt a hand trying to unsnap my jeans.
  I pulled her skirt down and off.
  A few seconds later we were both mostly naked.
  Then it turned into some of the best, and loudest, sex I've ever had.