Reggie Biggs (originally written for one of the now defunct Urbanfiction profile's contests)

And if on a moonlit night

A touch, a glance should slide my way

Slide right on down into my hands, into my heart

if on a moonlit ni–

"Hey, how much is this one? I don't see a price tag."

Reggie Biggs, one long leg tucked up under her, the other dangling loose in front of the stool she's been sitting on for hours, looks up from her silver-swirl notebook. She sees a young man, Tyrell Johnson is his name, in an oversized basketball jersey pinching one of the T-shirts, pulling it out slightly from the rest on the rack so she can see it.

"The Welcome To Helltroit? Twenty-eight."

Tyrell Johnson's eyebrows shoot up, almost colliding with the brim of his baseball cap, and he clucks his tongue in disapproval.

"Twenty-eight bucks? For real?"

She smiles and nods, but silently agrees with him. Twenty-eight is too much and she's said so. But the artists at the Collective have a death-grip on their professional pride. Twenty-eight dollars for the sweat of their creative brows is practically giving it away for free, they insist.

Reggie Biggs gives him the speech. "All these shirts are exclusive, straight-from-the-artist designs. You ain't supporting big business by buying one. You're supporting the community. The black, artistic community of this city."

She knows her words won't make too much of a difference. They almost never do.

Tyrell nods a few times, thinking that's as good a gimmick as any. "Right. Still, twenty-eight bucks." He clucks his tongue again and turns away from the T-shirt cart, strolling farther down the long shopping concourse.

Where once a series of derelict, burnt-out buildings stood, now ice-cream vendors, clothing alteration services and Vietnamese manicurists occupy small booths sandwiched in between popular chain stores.

Tyrell's never been here before, but in twenty minutes he's got an interview at a donut chain for the job of floor assistant. He pauses in front of a window display full of expensive watches, wondering what else he can do to kill time.

Reggie Biggs takes a deep breath and turns her attention back to the scribblings in her notebook. She's part of the black artistic community, too. Not like the designers. She's a dancer. Recently, she's been trying her hand at poetry.

The slams she's attended in cavernous rooms with bad acoustics were cool, but the main thing seemed to be how loudly and aggressively the poets could shout their words. Like the participants were hell-bent on punching everybody there just on principle. That's why she's trying something more in tune with her own ideas.

She's trying some love poetry.

Which is difficult, she's been coming to realize. Because Reggie Biggs, long and thin as a drainpipe, hair tied up into two big afro pom-poms on either side of her head, has never been in love.

She tells herself she's too independent, too talented, too free-spirited for that. Still, she's smart enough to know that might be pride talking, and she just might melt like a surprised popsicle in the sun if that one special one ever came along.

She sets pen to paper.

And if on a moonlit night

A touch, a glance should slide my way

Slide right on down into my hands, into my heart

if on a moonlit ni–

If on a moonlit night. . .

The notion of a kiss brushes my lips

Safe in the knowledge that. . .that. . .that

Yeah, in the knowledge of what?

Reggie Biggs readjusts herself on her stool and struggles to find the next word. She looks up and around, as if expecting inspiration to be standing smack in front of her. She takes in the donut shop with its old-fashioned bakery look and then the sports shoe store next to it, futuristic footwear hovering in the over-lighted windows.

The people who stroll by the Art Collective's cart see a young, black woman writing in a small notebook or staring off into space, eyebrows knitted in concentration. Their glances pass quickly over the items on display and the colorful T-shirts hanging off the sides of the cart like banners from some underground African kingdom.

Some show mild interest, but they all drift on.

The shopping concourse is famous, but that doesn't mean big profit. Today, for example. It's almost lunch time and Reggie's only sold one pair of earrings.

She shrugs and focuses her mind back on her poem.

But it just won't come.

* * *

Reggie Biggs, green parka with the big fur trim, white earphones and purple sneakers, is walking home from the bus stop. She hardly notices the old brick warehouses smeared with artless graffiti, the abandoned ramshackle houses, or the yellow autumn leaves floating down from the intermittent trees along the road. She's in the world of her music and her own thoughts.

If she knew more about what this whole love thing was, maybe her poems would improve.

Love.

Love for your people, yeah.

Love for your country, yeah, that too.

Love for the whole world and everything in it, getting there, getting there.

But love for one particular person? A type of love that has you feeling like you've got malaria and are sniffing glue at the same time?

Aw girl, please.

Reggie's roommate, Destiny, has left a note behind on the kitchen cork board that her manager called and wants her to work the night shift at the restaurant, so she won't be home until late. She's sorry, but Reggie should go ahead and eat dinner without her.

"Yeah, no problem," Reggie says to the note, but she's disappointed. After spending all day alone with her thoughts and the cart, she was looking forward to some company. She makes herself the easiest meal she can think of out of fridge leftovers as dusk darkens the world outside, and eats alone at the kitchen table.

Reggie Biggs, with an angular face that makes her mouth seem bigger than it really is, and a nose sprinkled with freckles like cinnamon flecks across the top of a cafe au lait, has nothing better to do than sit in her room and stare out the window at the night. The lights on the street below highlight strangers passing by on the sidewalk, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. She can feel her thoughts echoing off the walls of the apartment like she's in a cave a mile underground.

Love. A significant other. What would that be like? Especially now, with Winter in its gray chinchilla coat stalking through the city alleyways, glittery, cold powder fluttering in its wake. Magic powder that makes you want to hold on to the person next to you and not let go until spring?

That's a good image, she thinks. It's doesn't have a whole lot to do with love, but she writes it down anyway.

* * *

The next day, Reggie Biggs, pen in one hand, a purple-sneakered foot resting on a blue jeans-clad knee, is studying the people as they drift by the cart. The elderly, families, little kids, teens, tourists and locals -- but especially couples. She's watching them, looking for clues, details that she can steal and spin into her work.

It's the girls who look like they're working overly hard to be in love, she's noticing. Giggling, rubbing their hands up and down their guy's arm, putting a fake pout on their lips, play slapping and fluttering their eye lashes.

The guys just seem to be chilling, nothing big going on. Is that an idea? Chillin' in love?

Reggie is thinking, pen tapping against her mouth as she stares at the donut shop across the concourse, not really seeing it. She's chasing an idea that's just started to form in her mind, moving like a bouncing ball a few feet ahead of her, and, try as she might, she can't quite reach out and catch it.

But that's not what Tyrell is seeing.

* * *

Tyrell Johnson, idiotic paper hat on his head, metal tongs in his hand, is learning the hard way that there are more kinds of donuts in the world than he ever imagined, and he has to know what they're all called by the end of the day.

Boston Cream, Spudnut, Maple Bacon Bar, Old-fashioned, Long John, Wonut, French Cruller, Twist, Cake, Raised, and then all the specialty toppings. He's never tried even a tenth of them, never knew most of them existed. Glazed church fund-raiser donuts in the twenty-pack are what he knows, and he wonders to himself who would pay two fifty for one fancy donut when they could have twenty for six.

The girl at the overpriced T-shirt cart across the concourse is staring at him. Staring like she's logging in her notebook every time he picks out a Bavarian Creme when he was supposed to grab a Boston Creme, and it's making him jittery. It's making him mess up even more, and he catches Yvonne, the cashier, rolling her eyes when she thinks he's not looking.

Tyrell feels a strong urge to turn around, wave the tongs and shout at the T-shirt cart girl to cut him some slack, it's his first day, he's still figuring out which damn donut is which. But she keeps staring like she knows.

He feels like a fool by time his shift is over and he rips the paper hat with the logo of smiling, dancing donuts from his head.

* * *

Tyrell Johnson, kinda on the short side but not useless on the basketball court, big black jacket and red baseball cap cocked to the side, is walking home to his mother and younger brother from the bus stop. Smelling sugar all day has taken away his appetite but he's sure he'll be starving by time he gets through the front door.

He hardly notices the apartment blocks with the broken swings and merry-go-rounds, the shards of glass glinting in the weeds or the yellow autumn leaves floating down from the intermittent trees along the road. He's thinking about how tired he is and how he hopes he can find a better job than bagging two-dollar-and-fifty-cent-a-pop donuts for eight hours. Two fifty for a donut. He still can't believe it.

His mother is busy in the kitchen when he unlocks the door, shrugs off his coat.

"That you, Tyrell? Wash your hands and come on! It's as ready as it's gonna get." She's glad he's home because now she can find out how his first day went. She's been wringing her hands all day about it, hoping it'll work out. They need the money.

Bent over his plate, Tyrell tells his mother and his younger brother, Jamal, about the hour of training, the paper hat, the sissy-looking company shirt he has to wear, and all the confusing donut names. When he mentions the girl at the T-shirt cart and how she's staring at him, making him mess up, his mother says, "Fine looking young man like you, I don't doubt she's looking."

"Not looking like that. Staring like you so stupid staring."

Jamal giggles into his meatloaf and their mother gives him a stern look while making a swipe at his elbow.

"I'm sure that's not true at all," his mother says, hoping she's right. "Maybe she's just interested in talking to you, who knows? Maybe you should go over and say something. Make a friend."

"I did talk to her before I went --"

"I bet it ain't Tyrell she wants! I bet she wants his stupid pink shirt! " Jamal laughs and clutches his stomach. "Why don't you buy her a dorknut, bro! She'll be your shorty fo' sho! hahaha."

Tyrell just shakes his head and keeps eating, lets his mother scold Jamal. He's thirteen. He'll have his own minimum wage job in a few years, and then who'll be laughing?

Tyrell Johnson, broad shouldered but far from chiseled, whose smile is one of his best assets, his tiny feet his biggest drawback, is lying in bed later listening to music and trying to fall asleep, but the girl at the T-shirt cart keeps coming up in his mind's eye.

"Aw, leave me alone," he says and pulls the blanket over his head.

* * *

Reggie Biggs is on a roll. She's caught that poem and she's not letting it go. She's twisting and turning it, flopping it this way and that, squeezing it, hugging it. Occasionally, she looks up and stares over the concourse at the donut shop, lets her gaze be caught by a passer-by, follows them until they're out of sight, and then returns to her silver-swirl notebook.

It's been another slow day for the cart, but a red-letter day for Reggie. She's gotten down five pages of love love love and she starting to feel it herself. She's slipping into that mode, getting into that groove.

It's sliding on down for her.

Yeah, she can feel it, those waves of wanting to get close, to snuggle up. She's there, dancing with it. Just like when she's on stage and she stops thinking about acting and just becomes the character. She's not Reggie Biggs anymore, she's LOVE.

That's what she gushed at LaDonna when she stopped by the Collective to pick up more merchandise for the cart, going on and on about the chill and the warmth, about how the falling leaves and the wind off the lakes is stirring up something. Something that's shimmying her insides.

"Sounds like you're gettin' into cuffin' season, honey," LaDonna says, a chuckle jiggling her generous frame. "I'm feelin' that a bit myself, gotta admit. Always nice to have somebody to snuggle up with when the blizzards roll in and you both in the dark 'cause the unemployment check don't cover the juice for the tree lights. Ha!"

Reggie Biggs, love poetess, has never thought of it that way. She doesn't really think she's down for a relationship, it's just the theme she's working with, but she makes a mental note of the image anyway.

* * *

Tyrell Johnson is peering over his shoulder at the girl by the T-shirt cart as he bags donuts. She's still staring at him and then writing in her notebook, but it's different somehow. Something is different about the way she's looking at him, but he can't quite put his finger on it. Is her face softer? Eyebrows less knit together in a scowl? Is that a smile? No. Yes?

He tries to forget about her, get his Twists and Crullers right, but every so often he can't help but look up and throw her another glance.

* * *

Reggie is having a busy afternoon. A few people show interest in the Collective's "Urbanned" hair band. She demonstrates the different ways it can be worn by slipping it over her own head, and sells three. A tourist from out of state buys two of the psychedelic "Free Angela" T-shirts without batting an eye at the price.

Right after lunch, a young girl with cornrows and a bitter expression buys a "Gettin' Outta 'Troit' bracelet and says that's her life's dream. Getting out of this hell hole. Reggie gives a nod of solidarity and says damn right, sister, although she herself has no desire to be anywhere else but on her stool writing poems.

And that's what she's doing when business slows to a trickle. She's staring over at the donut shop, letting it slide on down. And it is. That cuffin' groove is sliding right on down through her mind to her heart and into her hands.

She clicks her pen and starts scribbling.

* * *

Tyrell Johnson is getting jittery again, but for a whole different reason this time. The idea that his mother might be right and the girl likes him is starting to squat in his mind like runaways in an abandoned warehouse.

Dislike he knows what to do with. Like is much, much harder.

Maybe she thinks he's cute? He clucks his tongue, and cocks his head to the side. Don't know about that. Maybe she wants him to talk to her? Ask her out? Does he want to talk to her? Does he want to go out? Maybe she's already got herself a guy and he'd be putting his head in a noose even flirting with her. Or maybe she's single and lonely. Wants somebody to warm her up now the days are getting colder.

He shakes his head to clear it, mentally chiding himself to concentrate on the task at hand, but peeks over his shoulder at her not two minutes later.

* * *

Reggie Biggs, watching people as she chats with a talkative lady in a loud dress she's pretty sure won't buy anything, suddenly notices something she hasn't noticed before.

A guy at the donut shop keeps looking over at her.

But looking in a way like he's trying not to let on that he's looking. Which just makes it more obvious that he's looking.

She wonders how long that's been going on?

When the lady finally doesn't have anything else to say and drifts on empty-handed, Reggie grabs her silver-swirl notebook. Ideas are whizzing around in her head like fireflies and she gets them down as quickly as she can, not even wasting time to sit.

Reggie Biggs, love guru, smiles to herself and nods a few times. She's got an admirer, no doubt about it. No more theoreticals, she's got a live subject she can use for her work. Get the real flavor of the experience finally.

She sits down on her stool and pretends to watch people, but in reality, she's watching the guy in the donut shop.

Every so often she clicks her pen, jots down a few interesting details.

* * *

Two weeks later, Tyrell Johnson can't sleep. He's lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, telling himself he's an idiot. He wonders if he's got a mild case of the flu. He feels hot and cold at the same time and he just can't keep his mind off the T-shirt cart girl. She's always there, somewhere, in his mind no matter what he's doing.

By now, he's mastered the donut names and the idiosyncrasies of the industrial coffee machine, knows how to refill the napkin dispenser and when to ask for the wooden coffee stirrers to be reordered. His manager is happy with him, but he's not happy with himself.

He's got this girl on the brain, wants to talk to her, take her out, but he doesn't even know her name. The idea of speaking to her again is putting butterflies in his stomach and making him feel like he's just shoplifted something he wants but doesn't need.

How stupid is that?

* * *

Reggie Biggs, fluffy scarf around her neck and a bright red Urbanned hair band on her head, is so happy that she's dancing a bit as she heads down the four blocks from the bus stop to the shopping mall, music floating out of her headphones.

The last two weeks have been amazingly productive. She's got almost thirty love poems down, and she's insanely proud of herself. Destiny says she should enter some contests, they're that good, and maybe show them to some of the people at the Collective who write. Reggie is tempted to do just that.

She's surprised the guy from the donut shop hasn't come over to talk to her yet. She's been watching him and she's sure he's noticed. She wishes he would. At first, it was for the poems, but now she'd actually like to meet him. Is he shy? Maybe he is. Or maybe he's just chillin' in love. The thought makes her giggle and grin into her scarf.

Chillin' In Love is the title of one of her best poems.

She does a quickstep and a bunny hop, right before the lights change to green.

* * *

The days are skipping on, the yellow leaves keep falling and the winds begin to gust like phantoms down the brick-and-glass canyons of the city streets.

Maybe Jamal is right, thinks Tyrell as he looks over at Reggie and bites his lip. Maybe he really should take her over a dorknut. Say hello. Nothing big.

He's nice-looking, thinks Reggie, maybe I should go over and order a coffee. Make some chit-chat. Say hello. Nothing big.

And at that moment, they both decide that they will.

And why not?

It's Autumn, and Autumn is sliding it right on down.