Mar 2014
I ask the waitress for scrambled eggs and wheat toast. She nods as I mull over buying a fruit salad. ***** it, I think, I just got a tax return and the grass is green on the other side. She nods again, slightly annoyed this time, when I stop her after she turns her back to order the fruit salad. Though her pink and white skirt crinkles as she frowns, she is beautiful this morning like I'm sure she's beautiful every morning.
"What to see," I say to myself, "What to see and what to read." The paper I'm holding feels a million pounds in the palm of my hand. In my pocket, I feel the weight of my phone and remember the call I received yesterday. Not a call back, even when I asked for one. Doesn't bother me. Why should it? Really none of my business. Perhaps the bother comes from curiosity? Maybe boredom? Maybe both? No matter. No worries. No troubles. All that worries me is what is going on in the world, I think, Just me and the world and this golden brown mud bucket of coffee. Just you, me, and the world.
I look out the window at the saturday morning sun. It's high in the sky, a few inches if I put my fingers up and measure it from the center. What could it be? Eleven? Eleven fifteen? Passing over the great yellow ball of molten mystery is a wisp of nicotine altoculumus smiling as long as the Mississippi flooded and turned over with no rescue.
Two eggs presents itself in front of me. The sounds of rushing wheels and roaring engines shakes the cafe windows. Imagining an earthquake, I grip my coffee, peering over at the waitress to see what the hell she's doing. Nothing. Not a wink out of her. She's standing by the grounds machine grinding away. Too much pressure on her top hand, I ponder, She looks tired and weary, though her eyes don't look teary. No weather on the western front except for the fog of war and the prince of the wild boar. We've nothing to lose but our expendable lives. A prayer leaks from the half and half carton as I spill a little into my coffee for a second time. The brown packet of Sugar in the Raw feels like tree bark in between my fingers and I spill it out in the light brown surface, watching the crystals dissolve as if they never existed.
After I eat, I take myself outside. Penny - the waitress - nods at me before I leave and says something I can't make out. She talks *****, behind and in front of the counter, so I figure it's something as such. I like her, she does her job and she fills me up and she cooks well, never charges too much. She's one of those old waitresses, the kind that knows what you want before you want it and brings it to you without apology or questioning. Knowing a man before they know themselves is a gift only women have.
I wait twenty minutes for my bus as a dark cloud of grey and off white gathers over my head. My phone hasn't rang all morning. I feel relief. I don't know what I would say if someone had. I probably would have just looked at the face, looked at the name, and thought of everything I had ever done with that person in my life, the phone vibrating and ringing like mad in my hand. I'm glad that didn't happen. Penny'd never let me in again.
"What to see," I say to myself, "What to see and what to read." The paper I'm holding feels a million pounds in the palm of my hand. In my pocket, I feel the weight of my phone and remember the call I received yesterday. Not a call back, even when I asked for one. Doesn't bother me. Why should it? Really none of my business. Perhaps the bother comes from curiosity? Maybe boredom? Maybe both? No matter. No worries. No troubles. All that worries me is what is going on in the world, I think, Just me and the world and this golden brown mud bucket of coffee. Just you, me, and the world.
I look out the window at the saturday morning sun. It's high in the sky, a few inches if I put my fingers up and measure it from the center. What could it be? Eleven? Eleven fifteen? Passing over the great yellow ball of molten mystery is a wisp of nicotine altoculumus smiling as long as the Mississippi flooded and turned over with no rescue.
Two eggs presents itself in front of me. The sounds of rushing wheels and roaring engines shakes the cafe windows. Imagining an earthquake, I grip my coffee, peering over at the waitress to see what the hell she's doing. Nothing. Not a wink out of her. She's standing by the grounds machine grinding away. Too much pressure on her top hand, I ponder, She looks tired and weary, though her eyes don't look teary. No weather on the western front except for the fog of war and the prince of the wild boar. We've nothing to lose but our expendable lives. A prayer leaks from the half and half carton as I spill a little into my coffee for a second time. The brown packet of Sugar in the Raw feels like tree bark in between my fingers and I spill it out in the light brown surface, watching the crystals dissolve as if they never existed.
After I eat, I take myself outside. Penny - the waitress - nods at me before I leave and says something I can't make out. She talks *****, behind and in front of the counter, so I figure it's something as such. I like her, she does her job and she fills me up and she cooks well, never charges too much. She's one of those old waitresses, the kind that knows what you want before you want it and brings it to you without apology or questioning. Knowing a man before they know themselves is a gift only women have.
I wait twenty minutes for my bus as a dark cloud of grey and off white gathers over my head. My phone hasn't rang all morning. I feel relief. I don't know what I would say if someone had. I probably would have just looked at the face, looked at the name, and thought of everything I had ever done with that person in my life, the phone vibrating and ringing like mad in my hand. I'm glad that didn't happen. Penny'd never let me in again.
