A Dead Dog Would've Got Up and Run

Last night, I stopped by my favorite bar. I wanted to crawl behind a table in the corner and not be oppressed by people having fun. But someone wrote a review of the bar--a nice new place with great food--in a paper this week. The place was packed with happy people and there was something with a bossa beat on the sound system and I walked over to the bartender, who's a friend, said "Hello" and left. I needed Tom Waits and whiskey and solitude not happy people.

That feeling dogged me all day today. This evening I stepped out into the rain to get some take-out, cigarettes and coffee. My usual coffee shop had a line ten people deep with one barista working. I stood in line for a moment and listened to the customers talk in that Saturday-night-buoyant-after-dinner way. If I really wanted that grande americano, it'd be a ten-minute wait. I walked out the doors. At the restaurant, a Thai place I love, there were couples, gay and straight, bundled in scarves and sweaters waiting for tables. I couldn't take too much of looking at that. I found a waiter I know and ordered something to go and walked back into the rain. I tried the coffee shop again, but there was an even bigger line of happy people. So I walked down the street to another coffee shop. It had a long line, too. I sat in a chair outside and smoked my last cigarette, waiting for my take-out to be ready. A couple of friends of mine from the neighborhood walked by me, one made a half-wave, and they kept walking.

Yeah, I am sure I had that poisoned look to me. A dead dog would've got up and run for sure.

I paid for my curry-fried rice and tom cha soup a few minutes later, then went to the corner market to buy smokes. The owner's son, a cute seven-year-old, was there and he started in on me. "Batman's not real! Batman's not real!" He and I have a running argument on this topic. I usually say, "Batman is as real as a heart attack." Tonight, I looked at him as I paid his father for cigarettes, and told him he was right. "What about Superman?" he said. "He's dead too," I said and walked back out into the rain.