"Fish and chips for tea"

by Lianne Olive Hennig

He stood in the fish and chip shop
Staring up at the menu board, 
The back of his head uncombed - 
Lank slivers of dull brass.

My eyes moved downward over
A mantle of stretched and flattened wool,
Caped over his shoulders and back with
A graduation of ingrained dirt, as if
He had stood in the rain and
It had slowly taken the grime earthwards
But dried out before it had finished the job.
I wondered if the ends,
Taken between forefinger and thumb,
Would crumble like flakes of dust.

He seemed to have grown in his clothes, though
P’raps his clothes had grown on him -
Each shoulder and buttock firmly imprinted in stamped cloth.
Yet, his trousers bagged at the top of his legs,
Pocket corners frayed and open so nought could gather there;
Their seat, a khaki yellow no longer recognisable as denim;
The legs, swinging inwards with spiralling creases,
As though they could no longer
Resist the momentum of the
Pendulous material, held to his body only at
His hips with a sturdy leather belt.

His heels peeked out at the bottom, no longer flat,
dusty, worn to odd angles possibly by some
Fashionable kick and shuffle footstep.
I could imagine him
Slothing along a footpath,
Back and shoulders sensuously dancing in a
Slow gorilla rhythm, his
Feet catching in its concrete surface as if
To remind him to keep his knees bent for the
Best freedom of movement.

He turned slightly.
I noted with surprise a well-filled belly beneath
A well-worn and linted T-shirt -
Linted, not from washing, I imagined but from
Some sort of constant abrasion
P’raps, like rubbing his forearm across his chest to
Scratch a wandering itch or
Rubbing vigorously at stray drips of food.
Slept in - that was probably enough.

A belt supported his belly - 
Tough, strong, dry from neglect and age-darkened;
Held together by a massive steel buckle
Still shining from obvious use, since
The pants would have had to be removed at various times
For the relief of one thing or another.
A fair-sized bulge below the buckle
Attracted my eye and caused me to wonder whether it was
Created by a paralysed zip or
Something more varying in solidity; and, 
Next to it, a large frayed hole displayed, I surmised,
Sweat-stained underpants.
The knees of his pants bagged like the buttocks, so 
I could guess at his most constant position.

Another frayed hole further down the leg led,
Inevitably, to his shoes - 
Once some kind of leather:
Lived in, lived in, and lived in again, 
Though it was likely he took them off
Occasionally.
Perhaps his only shoes - he may have used his socks for slippers -
Their leather, broken away at the toes and
Along the soles as though they had
Had enough of being shoes, yet
Held securely at the instep by
Fairly new laces, bonded to their slavery;
The soles, some kind of solid plastic a 
Thin distance from the ground.
What a marvellous idea - shoes and sandals in one!
Yet I supposed, in wet weather, that
He might need to walk on sloped pavement where
The grounded rain would
Only scale the least percentage of the
Millimetres in his soles.

I wondered what he did with his money
Besides buy fish and chips.
Was he on the dole?
I imagined him lounging in a friend’s bed-sit,
Smoking marijuana;
Hitching rides to some new scene:
Parties/girls/sleeping in his clothes/
Travelling around/smoking bongs/just plain smoking/
Drinking/sleeping/buying fish and chips for tea/
Missing breakfast/eating brunch at a friend’s place/
Buying fish and chips for tea…

Free is life with nothing to do!
What could he do with himself?
He seemed so intoxicatingly exciting in his lived-in clothes,
Delightfully interesting, and tantalisingly sexy in an off-beat way.
He turned around to look out the window.
Shock! How young he looked!
His face bland:
All his character in his clothes.