seanessay.com From gathering on Free Fall Friday, with prompts
prompt- she had something to tell him
There she was, in the cutesy ginger snap café with her cute blue beret that brought out her eyes. She was about 18, sometimes jiggling her knee, more often moving her toe up and down. The chairs were more cute than practical, otherwise she would have surely been swinging one leg.
My heart went out to her when I saw she had some dog hairs on her blue blazer—anyone who prioritizes hugging her dog over being impeccably groomed is a person I want to know. I mentally revised her age up to 21. Surely she was living on her own—parents don’t understand a true love of dogs. If you want to sneak your dog into your bed, you have to be sneaky, if you still live with your parents.
I was over at my own table, trying to look cool and thoughtful with my propped up textbook of Philosophy of Emmanuel Kant: Made Simple. If there is such a thing as a boys-only college, it went broke before anyone had a chance to hear about it: That’s my philosophy. So of course I glanced over at the—I mean, cherchez la femme.
Now the third person to this triangle appeared. It was a young man who looked like—if you have a brother or a cousin you don’t like, in an occupation you don’t like, then that was him. His personality was easy to spot: no slow hello, and how are you doing, and a slow warm up to test the female waters—no just a barge right in with his own agenda. I could see her toe moving even faster. Obviously she had something to tell him—… if he would ever shut up and look deeply in her eyes. I don’t mind being a callow youth myself, but I hate callowness in other men. Hate it.
Normally I love to spy, but somehow, this day, I made no effort to focus in to hear anything. I just watched with the sound off, giving the girl her privacy. She looked less responsive and more glum. He looked oblivious. Can oblivious be a look? If she had something to tell him then—here it came. She put both hands flat on the table. And he stopped talking. Made a fitful start, stopped again. Oddly enough, my respect for him went up when he didn’t try to beat her back with a wave of verbal “I know best for you…” He got up and left and that stopped the madness.
…
prompt-after the parade
I stepped out onto the street, hungover, wearing my cleanest dirty shirt. Blowing in the wind, all along main street, was strips of confetti, coloured paper, and gum wrappers. Gum was all I could eat, right then. A few cars eased past, now and then. It was Sunday, and I had missed the parade.
I had missed all the happy normal people, with their straight lives and straight jobs. I had missed seeing the bouncing little children, missed the floats so lovingly decorated with a thousand flowers, missed the rotary club band, the girl guides, the legion pipe band and the baton twirlers. The straights had their world, and I had mine. They had the light, and straight sunbeams. I had the dark, and crooked alleys leading to crooked smiles. In that dark were people who tried to look tough, but actually were merely mean: they’d run away in battle. In those doorways off those alleys were people who took pride in their drug highs and sex, really good sex… but not good enough to catch and keep a straight John with a straight job.
It was Sunday, and I’d missed any chance at church, and so I wandered down the gritty sidewalk. The parade must have been yesterday, and surely the sky had been bright blue, that’s what it looked like the last time I’d looked up. This mid morning the sky was grey, cold, and clouding over fast. Maybe I should head back and open my only window to air the place out before the rains swept in. Maybe. I kept walking, keeping my eyes open, although they were sore and somewhat bloodshot, no doubt. I couldn’t see myself, and maybe that was just as well. I knew I had brushed my teeth, because the autobrush had made such a racket. Now I was beginning to wish I had shaved.
I straightened up, raised my arms, and unwittingly took in a lung of good air. Umm. So I stretched up both arms and felt my back obligingly pop. Umm. In fact, I could—And I bent over, feeling my back and my legs. And I just hung there, looking at a red clown balloon. Everyone loves clowns.
My boy had loved clowns, before I left my goddam pistol in the goddam closet. My wife had once loved clowns, dreamed of children. Now she was on another continent and I would never see her again in this lifetime. Now that I was half awake I started back to my room. Ahead of me I saw some sad optimist tug at a bicycle lock as he passed by. The difference between me and others was that I could remember what a straight life was, back when I felt certain I could hold down a straight job.
If I wanted to, I could rejoin the parade. I could be awake and clean for next year at this time.
…
…
Sean Crawford
July, 2021
Editor’s Note: The last paragraph took a leaf from Stargate: SG1. As for observing life-challenged people, you might like the essay Art Eases Life of December 10, 2020, as it dwells at length on a tragic figure on Stargate Atlantis.
