My husband doesn't me anymore, she said.

There was good music, rhythm and blues coming from the house band, sometimes when the chance presents itself I like to listen to rhythm and blues and there was a place on Central for that. I was at a table in the corner drinking soda water and they were good, those guys up there.

I looked at her, she was in her late forties, maybe early fifties, dressed nice and behind me at the next table. She had on dark glasses, "I have no where to go, he left me...he left me" she said.

I was there for the music and wanted nothing more. I turned back to the band and they finished their set...taking a ten minute break. Someone went to the juke box and Otis Redding started to sing.

My kids don't want me anymore, I am no use to anyone... anymore....She poured herself another drink of vodka from a bottle in her purse. Why do men do that...want young ones...

Maybe I should leave, there is nothing to do for her. She said to me....I have no where to go, he threw me out...

In ten minutes she told me a stranger about her life. She graduated in '69, married her childhood sweetheart even though her father had said he was no good, and now she wished she had listened to him. There were two children somewhere but not close. He left her for a younger woman and she left their place yesterday and did not want to go back.

Sometimes things like this are not really any business of yours so you want to turn away, to act like you don't hear anything. Some do this and on most occasions it is waht we do. In looking at her, she was sitting there and all alone. Where do you go when such a thing happens and the world has come crashing down around you. When you place all your hopes, dreams and life into another and then they don't want you anymore. It was not my problem.

She said, Can I go home with you...do you know where I can stay...

Far up north from here there is someone like you and she is waiting there for me. We have been together for a long time and at one time I almost left her, but she held on to me and we are together after all this time. I am tied to her and that is how it is.

She took off her dark glasses and her eyes were gray...I don't know what to do she said.

Things will work themselves out, but it is hard to get started all over again, to continue to go on. She said she got a job as a waitress and was supposed to start work the following week, she did not know how to do anything else.

A cabbie came in the door, and she went out with him. I sat there and though the band started up again, the music was not any good anymore. I walked out and stood there on Central in Albuquerqu, looking up and down the street. The cab and her were gone. I went back to my room and went to bed.

Passing ships in the night, travelling different paths, that is how it is. Sometimes everything we believe in seems to come crashing down. I wonder what happened to her. I did not get her name, but she is out there somewhere.....