blondie vs darky 3
3.
you spend days alone on the park bench tossing the birds bread and meat stolen from the corner diner where you have so often run out on your check, though you have also overpaid many times or left money when you ordered nothing (though you did linger in the booth for hours pretending to make up your mind, reading the menu with different approaches and degrees of attention) so that you hope eventually your payment and unpayment even out. From what you can tell it doesn’t seem to bother the waiter who is always the same though he never looks you in the face anymore (perhaps he looked you in the face originally with a stab of curiosity (though curiosity is so quickly extinguished these days the more so when the unpredictable is involved)) he now though does not look at you especially because you are short and girlish like a child; though you are by no means young depending on what young means and though you feel that like a child you elude the adult radar as it were; by leaving the restaurant without paying you are being no more than a child, unpredictable as a child, too young to have consistency demanded of you, perhaps he considers it that you have never left at all left per se, left in a permanent way that is, always in the process of entering as much as of leaving. but rather it is all a matter of whim on your part, tedious for him perhaps yet he rolls with it, lets you come and go, greases the revolving door knowing it is no more than whim on your part, you are an impulsive child) and perhaps he is right, you are not sure yourself of your age, and though you are say (let’s say for argument though you have no way of knowing this yourself with any certainty) let’s say you are in your thirties let’s just say, only because you like people in their thirties and perhaps you identify with them more than with other age groups (of which there are sadly too many) though in fact you don’t identify with people in their thirties at all, any more than the others, they being engaged in activities and concerns so different from your own, but enough of this chatter, you may for all you know be a child in fact so let us for argument's sake say this is so and that he may be right to treat you as such by never looking at you his gaze always fanning out over your head so that you feel you could sit and watch him and that he might simply freeze there standing over your table, ask you what you would like to eat, his politeness never failing, rude as you are to him. +++He sets the water down before you in the usual way careful not to leave a trail of water over the formica table as other waiters are wont to do though at the moment it is hard to remember ever having had a waiter other than this one, this handsome if sallow one, middle-aged perhaps, his face showing age and perhaps wisdom, +++ a certain maturity at least the sort of face that grows more handsome with age no doubt, his having been nondescript in youth handsome but not enough to be noticed, neutral hair neither blond nor brown, potential for great form, perhaps a noble structure under skin but possessed of too much baby and indolence fat for the angles to show through, he not being one to exert effort toward a goal or even toward having a goal which is why no doubt he is now a waiter; youth and ambition were lost on him when he was young so that he is your opposite the unchild never having been young enough as a boy to be a boy, adulthood claiming him as its own at last, a drab sort of adulthood it’s true but adulthood nonetheless, one must give acknowledgment where it is due. Adulthood claimed him and bestowed upon him those qualities that ultimately perhaps he deserved, haggardness taking the place of exercise in revealing the form in the face the angles a certain chiseledness an aquiline profile, round glasses making more handsome his eyes that would no doubt be nondescript, and his adultly boredom which suits him better than his youthful confusion. No doubt this faraway expression of his as he waits on you perhaps not an expression of wisdom but merely one originating in boredom a profound kind of boredom nevertheless reached with the full heart the full soul earned as it were though without effort only by being what he is.
Enough of this drivel though we get the idea let’s go on rather as we were talking about his gaze over you not that it’s particularly interesting but it is part of the story nonetheless and must be told though the story itself need not be told at all it’s true still once it’s begun one must do it properly tell it for itself as itself for what it is which at this moment concerns how that gaze of his that bored gaze forms a plane over your head, under which you apparently can travel freely coming and going as though it were a shelter (from what rain you don't know but a shelter nonetheless) so that you can put down your food in mid bite and leave the café to wander for hours for no other reason than to prove to yourself and to the waiter that you can, coming back to see what’s been done in your absence finding to your own childish horror and rage that your table has been cleared and wiped and reset and there is even a family at the table or perhaps a professor over an obsolete laptop scrutinizing a manuscript so that in rage you approach the waiter who neither looking at you nor speaking disappears into the back of the restaurant and reemerges with a brown paper bag hands to you which you grab with self-righteous ire and take to the front stoop not deigning to eat at the lunch counter though he has chivalrously or perhaps merely automatically pulled a stool back for you (was that a sigh he made) which you refuse, you take your bag to the front stoop and sit so that you block ingress of patrons until one rudely grabs you by the shoulders and lifts you and sets you to one side as if you were a mannequin, a sensation you rather enjoy noting that gravity does not affect you, your limbs do not bend midair you open your bag to find your lunch carefully foil-wrapped which despite your wishes lights a warmth in your belly so that you do eat a bit of it after all before throwing the rest of it away
Or in this case (to bring us out of our long digression) you do not throw it away at all but take it the long block to the park and cast your sandwich to the pigeons first as a whole sandwich without tearing, then after noticing little pigeon interest you pick it up and toss it again in pieces albeit pieces too large for them to manage so that they fight each other for chances to tug at your indigestible diner food as inwardly peacefully you seek to define your relationship with him your lover or whatever he is. It’s an adult activity, it seems to you to define adulthood perhaps that is why you enjoy it you have spent many days happily at it without success or anything else redeeming except for the pleasure that knots of worry at the pit of your stomach can bring you, wan pleasure to be sure but of a cutting blooded kind that reaffirms you have bowels left still to wrack unmercifully
Upon reflection it may be that you don’t know him in fact though standing in the way of this idea it would seem is the fact (apparent) that you have lived with him for three years a thousand days many of which you did not see him and perhaps were in another place another city in fact it’s difficult to say for cities seem all the same to you now though it is difficult to travel having no car or money so that most likely it was this city where you have lived so long that you would guess if provoked (though there is no telling for certain for it bears no familiarity but this is foolish for we need not clarify all inclarities merely for the sake of argument or accountability, accountability to whom?) so let us say then that you were in this city perhaps let’s say as a compromise in another part of it one you would not recognize we will be benevolent to you and your inadequate memory there are many parts of the city you don’t recognize perhaps for never having been there and no sooner do you pass from one part to another than the one you passed from changes and it is difficult to take for granted that where you sit now was where you sat yesterday…
In this manner then you establish that he may or may not be your lover. it would certainly help to ascertain this fact (help what) though it’s difficult to say. you must first decide why you care whether he is your lover it can only be from hate that you would choose to tether him so with such names spend such time wanting such definition greed perhaps impurity of heart
you spend days alone on the park bench tossing the birds bread and meat stolen from the corner diner where you have so often run out on your check, though you have also overpaid many times or left money when you ordered nothing (though you did linger in the booth for hours pretending to make up your mind, reading the menu with different approaches and degrees of attention) so that you hope eventually your payment and unpayment even out. From what you can tell it doesn’t seem to bother the waiter who is always the same though he never looks you in the face anymore (perhaps he looked you in the face originally with a stab of curiosity (though curiosity is so quickly extinguished these days the more so when the unpredictable is involved)) he now though does not look at you especially because you are short and girlish like a child; though you are by no means young depending on what young means and though you feel that like a child you elude the adult radar as it were; by leaving the restaurant without paying you are being no more than a child, unpredictable as a child, too young to have consistency demanded of you, perhaps he considers it that you have never left at all left per se, left in a permanent way that is, always in the process of entering as much as of leaving. but rather it is all a matter of whim on your part, tedious for him perhaps yet he rolls with it, lets you come and go, greases the revolving door knowing it is no more than whim on your part, you are an impulsive child) and perhaps he is right, you are not sure yourself of your age, and though you are say (let’s say for argument though you have no way of knowing this yourself with any certainty) let’s say you are in your thirties let’s just say, only because you like people in their thirties and perhaps you identify with them more than with other age groups (of which there are sadly too many) though in fact you don’t identify with people in their thirties at all, any more than the others, they being engaged in activities and concerns so different from your own, but enough of this chatter, you may for all you know be a child in fact so let us for argument's sake say this is so and that he may be right to treat you as such by never looking at you his gaze always fanning out over your head so that you feel you could sit and watch him and that he might simply freeze there standing over your table, ask you what you would like to eat, his politeness never failing, rude as you are to him. +++He sets the water down before you in the usual way careful not to leave a trail of water over the formica table as other waiters are wont to do though at the moment it is hard to remember ever having had a waiter other than this one, this handsome if sallow one, middle-aged perhaps, his face showing age and perhaps wisdom, +++ a certain maturity at least the sort of face that grows more handsome with age no doubt, his having been nondescript in youth handsome but not enough to be noticed, neutral hair neither blond nor brown, potential for great form, perhaps a noble structure under skin but possessed of too much baby and indolence fat for the angles to show through, he not being one to exert effort toward a goal or even toward having a goal which is why no doubt he is now a waiter; youth and ambition were lost on him when he was young so that he is your opposite the unchild never having been young enough as a boy to be a boy, adulthood claiming him as its own at last, a drab sort of adulthood it’s true but adulthood nonetheless, one must give acknowledgment where it is due. Adulthood claimed him and bestowed upon him those qualities that ultimately perhaps he deserved, haggardness taking the place of exercise in revealing the form in the face the angles a certain chiseledness an aquiline profile, round glasses making more handsome his eyes that would no doubt be nondescript, and his adultly boredom which suits him better than his youthful confusion. No doubt this faraway expression of his as he waits on you perhaps not an expression of wisdom but merely one originating in boredom a profound kind of boredom nevertheless reached with the full heart the full soul earned as it were though without effort only by being what he is.
Enough of this drivel though we get the idea let’s go on rather as we were talking about his gaze over you not that it’s particularly interesting but it is part of the story nonetheless and must be told though the story itself need not be told at all it’s true still once it’s begun one must do it properly tell it for itself as itself for what it is which at this moment concerns how that gaze of his that bored gaze forms a plane over your head, under which you apparently can travel freely coming and going as though it were a shelter (from what rain you don't know but a shelter nonetheless) so that you can put down your food in mid bite and leave the café to wander for hours for no other reason than to prove to yourself and to the waiter that you can, coming back to see what’s been done in your absence finding to your own childish horror and rage that your table has been cleared and wiped and reset and there is even a family at the table or perhaps a professor over an obsolete laptop scrutinizing a manuscript so that in rage you approach the waiter who neither looking at you nor speaking disappears into the back of the restaurant and reemerges with a brown paper bag hands to you which you grab with self-righteous ire and take to the front stoop not deigning to eat at the lunch counter though he has chivalrously or perhaps merely automatically pulled a stool back for you (was that a sigh he made) which you refuse, you take your bag to the front stoop and sit so that you block ingress of patrons until one rudely grabs you by the shoulders and lifts you and sets you to one side as if you were a mannequin, a sensation you rather enjoy noting that gravity does not affect you, your limbs do not bend midair you open your bag to find your lunch carefully foil-wrapped which despite your wishes lights a warmth in your belly so that you do eat a bit of it after all before throwing the rest of it away
Or in this case (to bring us out of our long digression) you do not throw it away at all but take it the long block to the park and cast your sandwich to the pigeons first as a whole sandwich without tearing, then after noticing little pigeon interest you pick it up and toss it again in pieces albeit pieces too large for them to manage so that they fight each other for chances to tug at your indigestible diner food as inwardly peacefully you seek to define your relationship with him your lover or whatever he is. It’s an adult activity, it seems to you to define adulthood perhaps that is why you enjoy it you have spent many days happily at it without success or anything else redeeming except for the pleasure that knots of worry at the pit of your stomach can bring you, wan pleasure to be sure but of a cutting blooded kind that reaffirms you have bowels left still to wrack unmercifully
Upon reflection it may be that you don’t know him in fact though standing in the way of this idea it would seem is the fact (apparent) that you have lived with him for three years a thousand days many of which you did not see him and perhaps were in another place another city in fact it’s difficult to say for cities seem all the same to you now though it is difficult to travel having no car or money so that most likely it was this city where you have lived so long that you would guess if provoked (though there is no telling for certain for it bears no familiarity but this is foolish for we need not clarify all inclarities merely for the sake of argument or accountability, accountability to whom?) so let us say then that you were in this city perhaps let’s say as a compromise in another part of it one you would not recognize we will be benevolent to you and your inadequate memory there are many parts of the city you don’t recognize perhaps for never having been there and no sooner do you pass from one part to another than the one you passed from changes and it is difficult to take for granted that where you sit now was where you sat yesterday…
In this manner then you establish that he may or may not be your lover. it would certainly help to ascertain this fact (help what) though it’s difficult to say. you must first decide why you care whether he is your lover it can only be from hate that you would choose to tether him so with such names spend such time wanting such definition greed perhaps impurity of heart
posted by bl at 2:44 AM
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