Let’s Face It

Cancel that, he told the waiter when she came back to check on us; it’s not that we had been waiting too long for our pancakes and potatoes, or that we were tired, or that we had anything to do: his canceling the meal was just a throw of the wrench in the gears of the day, his wanting to go hungry a little longer than expected, then walk back, perhaps the way we came, perhaps a different way, to the house to do more, empty-bellied, of the same.  Sure, the waitress said, nonchalant–she seemed to be busy otherwise, her section full of diners arguing over coffee and flapjacks or flirting over coffee and flapjacks or laughing over coffee and flapjacks–these tables seemed to be the messiest as, inevitably, some minor food fight would break out at the table, a man or lady would flick specks of the syrupy things at their fellows on the other side of the booth, or, when they laughed, all four of them would lose a piece of their cake from their fork onto the table or onto the flowered carpet beneath them, or spatter a few hot drips from their coffee mugs onto the table or into the carpet to stain–or making some business deal over the meal, consisting, again, of coffee and flapjacks; so much going on in such a tiny place and at such an early hour–she smiled as she was trained to smile, or as she thought best to smile for the best tips, or simply because smiling was her forte, she always did it best, and serving in the diner just happened to be where it was best exploited and utilized to make some quick money, either for school–she looked too elderly for school, but you never know–or to save for her children, their own meals, their own flapjacks and juice, or their own schooling, she smiled, nodded, said Sure, then brought us the check for the coffee, which she had already filled three times each during our short stay.  Thanks and come back or something like that she said, then walked away to laugh and flirt, or compose herself with straight back and etiquette, for her other guests, each table getting a dimension of her shown only to them, or to voyeurs, like us, who wanted to see her in her multidimensionality and followed her, for a moment, around the rows of seats and stools and counters to watch the improvised show.

            So we said Thank you in return, because she was attentive to us, even if for only coffee, paid the 4.89 and stepped out, without any rush, into what was already a hot day, eight in the morning and already the sun was making the plants, not thankful for their limpid nutrition, but cry out in whispers like a dying elderly woman, who can barely speak but has so much to say, saying in their own case Can’t a cloud come by and screen your awful stare?  We’re not saying we want you to leave us or permanently darken just yet–we would never say that, we would be scared, we would be terrified, we would not be, at such a lack of dawning–but give us a little break, can you?  You would think, taking us from our comfort in this way, taking our stroll on an empty stomach to the house, putting on a performance of indifference back there at the restaurant–the manager could be seen making her way to the counter just as we were leaving, probably to ask us why we were leaving, if everything had been alright, if there was anything she could do, if we would come back to visit, The next meal on me, she was wont to say–that he would say something to me but he didn’t, the memories, the whimpering plants, the cars spewing out emissions in the morning traffic, the choking birds poking fun at one another in the air and poking fun at us, poking fun at humanity–the thought had come to me before, when a crow, perched on a lamppost in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Arizona, could do nothing but laugh at me and a different friend, laugh at the bustle there, laugh at his own and his fellows’ demise, the elimination of scarecrows, with a laugh that sounded as if he knew, above anyone else and higher than everyone else on his perch, that the joke would finally be on us, poor wretches–the lonely whiff of a cloud up above, which tried to help us for the trek and block the rays for five minutes or so, but evaporated as soon as it approached near, that only cloud, after the death of which the sky was blue, blue blue and white, and yellow and orange and something like a stretched-out powerful grey, the insane children playing ball before the bus picked them up for school–though it seemed a bit too late for that, and I suspected that they were playing hooky, but just so obviously, playing ball right in front of one of their parent’s house!–sweating profusely through their bright-colored diminutive garments, their shorts and shirts, shouting to one another when the ball went off course or when someone was out of line, when she didn’t know the rules or there was some foul play, the rambling of the English grasses in the divided yards in the tropics, separated by hedges of bougainvillea, or painted fences or walls, as though the walls of a compound, some castaway tropical compound, the shot of a thought going through me This is enjoyable really, although I’m ignoring so much else and cannot even see the ocean now, and, when I do, when I make it there–it’s amazing how landlocked you can be on an island, and a teeny one at that–I cannot see any further than my eyes are equipped, walking with you, sweating alongside you, is something I wouldn’t give away for an airconditioned room and flapjacks towering to the sky, endless fills of coffee, or anything else in the resplendent world: all these things, things which were more affects than anything else, they made up an atmosphere, a charge as we walked along, said more than he, or than I, did, or could, let’s face it.