Beat

   I met one of those Beat poets once. He said his name was Erik and I told him that my name was Eva, and after that, names didn't really seem to matter anymore. We became the type of people who were together whenever we needed each other.
   Magic can happen at any time of day, week, month, year, but our type of magic always seemed to occur by night. Dancing on a bridge, under the spotlight of a street lamp, in the middle of the highway. We would sort of just groove on those neatly painted white lines on the asphalt. We'd weave in and out of them, spinning, leaping, rocking. True artists, great artists, we'd tell each other, never colored inside the lines.
   One night, there was me and him in my room. The bed was unmade, the lights were off, and the blinds in my huge window were open. He was propped up against the headboard of my bed and I was leaning on my elbow at the foot of it. We were staring out the window at the city. The bridge lights were glowing, the highway was teeming, and everything was blazing with color and light. If I squinted, everything would kind of just blend and melt and blur until I could hardly recognize it anymore. I looked at the high rise apartment building nearest to me, counting the number of windows as lights were clicked off. There was a waning orange-gold half moon hanging in the sky. Erik exhaled cigarette smoke and I took a sip of whatever it was he had brought over in a dusty old bottle. We just sat there, kind of high off life and being young and being here.
   I was Erik's muse, even though all his friends claimed they didn't need muses. All they needed was a stack of good literature, a bottle of absinthe, and a few packs of cigarettes. But Erik said that just being with me was enough to inspire him to write pages and pages of poetry to rival the works of Woolf and Keats and Wilde and Shakespeare. All I could do was smile at his socked feet, rolled-up pant legs, and soft snoring.
   I was Erik's muse, but he was my Beat. My beat, my rhythm, my tempo. He didn't really have a particular tune to him, but he was sort of frazzled and meandering and burning and wonderful all the same. Erik's friends were wilder, more "artsy" than he was. They'd drop acid and get high and hold poetry slams that involved a lot more than just poetry. He was different somehow; hesitant, trembling, gentle, quiet, intense, strange, and so beautiful.
   Once, Erik slid the oddly feminine ring he was always wearing off his pinky finger. He took my hand, unfurled my fingers, and pressed the cold silver band onto my palm. He stood back as I studied it. It was old, with little delicate, swirling carvings winding around it. There was a small square emerald set glittering in the center. It was fragile-looking and incredibly lovely.  
   I shyly tried the ring on the middle finger of my right hand, but it didn't fit. The ring was too big for my index finger as well as my thumb. Erik chewed his lip nervously but I unhooked my plain silver chain from around my neck and threaded the ring onto it. Erik grinned and helped put it back on, the sleeves of his partway unbuttoned, tattered old oxford brushing my neck. I haven't taken the necklace off since.
   
   Yes, our type of magic always seemed to occur at night. But one day, week, month, year, the spell broke. I wasn't his muse anymore.

   Every so often, I'd hear news about Erik. I'd read in the paper a long time ago that he'd tried to OD on a certain illegal substance and sent to recuperate in some place in the middle of nowhere like the seaside. I guess he realized that what he wrote could never rival Woolf, Keats, Wilde, and Shakespeare. Or maybe it was the critics and declining sales that made him realize it. It hurt me and I cried for him, even though I knew he didn't even remember me anymore.
   Years and years later, I passed a tattoo parlor. The sky was dusky and the guy inside looked like he was about to close up. I went in anyway. His back was to me, but then he turned around. I reeled; he had Erik's eyes. I always remembered his eyes. Not so much the color, but the expressions and the depth in them. The man told me he was just about to close, but could he help me? I asked him if he knew Erik. He said no. I asked if he could possibly squeeze in one last customer - I'd even pay him extra. The good man agreed and got out his tools. He sat me down in a chair and asked what I wanted. I bent to study the examples he proffered, then felt the ring around my neck bump against my collarbone when I sat back again. I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted.
   By the time the man-with-Erik's-eyes was finished, I was grinning. He gave me a few last swipes of rubbing alcohol, some soothing antibiotic ointment to rub on my new tattoo for the first few weeks, and a glowing smile. I paid him, apologized for holding him up, and exited the shop.
   Magic can happen at any time of day, week, month, year. It can happen dancing in the middle of an empty highway, in a dark bedroom full of cigarette smoke and light from the city and the moon, or in a small tattoo parlor downtown. But my type of magic always seemed to occur at night. I walked uptown, towards my house, beneath the dark sky and lit streetlamps. I looked carefully at my inner wrist. It was slightly red and stung looking from the tattoo needle, but I felt wonderful. Erik had always said that my inner wrists were sort of pale and vulnerable and one of his favorite parts of me. I touched the slight, rhythmic pulse in my vein, then traced what was now inked into my skin:
BEAT.