Jersey was sick and tired of her old leather jacket. She got it as a gift a few years back from John her old college boyfriend. Three years have pasted since graduation and she was no were near to where she thought she would be back when she was younger. She could still recall those days at the University of Pittsburg, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes in the area outside of the so called Cathedral of Learning. Only three years have pasted and already all hope was washed away. Jersey planned on becoming the great American novelist. That was always what her father hoped for. He loved literature only slightly less than he loved his own daughter. When she was born, her mother thought about naming her Emily after her mother but he her father somehow managed to convince her to name the young girl Jersey after his favorite author Jerzy Kosinski. Jersey never liked her name. Like all children she wanted to fit in.
That all changed after the fall of the Soviet backed government. That’s when her father quit his university position in the Hungarian University of Fine Arts where he taught world literature and moved his family to the United States. Jersey could still remember that flight to New York. She never set foot in an airplane before. She was simply petrified as the plane flew into the atmosphere. She recalled how her father held her hand while reading to her. Till this day, she could feel that ease that came to her as her father read from the short stories of Anton Chekhov. He always knew how to encourage her no mater how sad or alone she felt in this world.
Three years have past since she graduated from her undergraduate studies. Four painful years since her father past away. And what did she have to show for it all? An old jacket given to her by another disappointing man and a handle of short stories. That was pretty much it.
Jersey walked into that old Salvation Army store where she traded her old jacket for one that seemed even older. Never minded how much she paid for that old rag, at least she was rid of that old memory. She walked into the connivance store for a pack of cigarettes, there she ran into Dylan. He was also a student in professor Kinder’s American literature class. He too was named after a famous writer. Most people always assumed that he was named after the famous Bob Dylan. Few ever knew that his mother wrote her dissertation on the hidden Catholic themes in Dylan Thomas’ famous work Under Milk Wood.
Dylan was all smiles as usual. She never saw the guy sporting a frown. At first she thought of him as a fake. Nobody can ever be all that happy. That all changed after professor Kinder read his short story “Being There” about Dylan’s days growing up in the heartland of Indiana. Her words rang with genuine humility. He clearly was a good guy.
And then, on that day, after he asked her out for coffee, as he held on to that box of Malbero lights, she felt so alive if only for a moment. She carefully smiled in his direction, turned back and slowly walked away.
A newspaper on the coffee shop counter must have been left behind by someone who had no use for it. Jersey picked it up and smiled. The headline on the front page read the following “New Jersey Abolishes the Death Penalty”.
Jersey smiled for a moment with a sense of irony. Thinking back to Dylan’s smile, she could if just for a moment once again feel somewhat alive.
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