PADDY’S CORNER, 11 July 2003 *

 

 

                 The coffee house bathroom smelled of coffee and poop.  The walls were scrawled with ideology and raunchiness.  There were one sentence summations of the most complex of international issues.  "The war is just about oil" and "Kill Bush."  I washed my hands, made sure my hair was acceptably disheveled and walked into a smoke hazed room.  At one table drunk teenagers were disturbingly loud, to which adjacent tables of sweatered grad students scowled discreetly as there lectures were drowned out.  One dude had a stylish stocking cap on in the 95 degree humidity of a Milwaukee summer.  Me, I had on a pair of khakis and my face reddened.  I took a seat.  Pulled a cigarette and struggled with matches.  I inhaled and coughed.  I looked around.  Books were being read.  Important ones held up proudly with titles in perfect view.  I had a magazine and read a Radiohead review.  The guy with the stocking cap winked at me as a drop of sweat rolled down his cheek.  Why?  I do not know. 

               Transvestites sauntered in proclaiming that I was not worldly enough.  Was it rude to purposefully not stare with the intention of avoiding being rude by staring?   I went back to the magazine but had already read the articles that interested me.  So, I turned to the letters to the editor.  Some charged journalistic un-integrity.  Others lauded Prince on the cover.  Still others were printed because they were just stupid.  I had written to the magazine once.  A long email applauding Roger Waters' bass playing.  It was not printed.  What was the point if my name were not to be immortalized in the magazine. 

               Everyone in the room was white.  With my pasty skin, I perhaps was the whitest of all.  I smoked an all white Marlborough that sometimes gets lit backwards.  Turkey on wonderbread with a side of New England Clam Chowder and a cream puff for desert was being served.  Some were scrawling on lined notebook paper.  Does it matter?  Who really cares?

                I really had no reason to be there except for the Clean, Well Lighted Place factor.  I wasn't nowhere.  I was somewhere.  I was anywhere except home.  I was still by myself.  Just me, the smoke, the magazine, the stocking cap, the drunk teens and grad students, transvestites,  the coffee and the poop.  That's all anyone needs, right.  Than a transvestite approached me.

           "Hey, sorry to bother you, but do you gotta cigarette I can borrow?"  Sure you can "borrow" a cigarette.

            "Yeah man."  I reached for one.

            "Thank you so (italicized) much."

             "No problem man."   I'm nice.  I give away cigarettes. 

              Actually, I borrow cigarettes as much as the next addict.  But my nonchalant and even excited succumb-ation to cigarette bummery conveys that hey, I am a nice guy. 

             I welcomed the bumming.  Anything to interrupt my smoky pondering.  Then, however, the bum left and lit my cig at his table and I sighed.   What to do now.  Meet someone?  There plenty of people here.  Yeah right.  I already know some people.  I guess I should just stSay the course and pass the time thinking about the concept of passing time.  Look at these (italicized) guys.  They are having important conversations that will ultimately save the world.  And, me, I am just passing the time.  Maybe I should become a transvestite and challenge societies perception of gender.  Nah.  Too time consuming. 

              I think I am just going to get the great nachos this place has.  Man are they delic.  I am gonna eat them and get the hell out of here. 

 

* All new.  The new and improved perfect cure for boredom.