Soft jazz in background the well-off leaning back sipping cocktails gin in my mouth down my throat thinking I would love to do this more often, to do nothing but hang-out with a cigarette between my lips maybe a drink in hand, waitress short and beautiful long blond hair chunky thighs whole thing perfectly organized like a gift from the gods, my friend laughs for no reason, for the fuck of it, for the sheer absolute bullshit of it all, long cool and graceful she’s insane with laughter, rich couple looking at us like we’re crap, office worker sipping Manhattans on corner barstool he’s looking tired and married and trapped,
“Strange what people do to each other” says my friend,
“How do you mean?”
“Well, they trap each other, don’t they?”
“I suppose...”
“Why can’t you have a completely equal relationship?”
“I don’t think it’s possible given what we are...too self-important on all levels, how else would you explain religion?”
“So what are you, a guru of some kind?”
We laugh cuz it’s funny, cuz I’m telling half-truths about myself and she’s digging it...under the dim light of the world lighting cigs with a vengeance sense of gray purpose madness and lost living, read book called “Siddhartha” I tell her, already have she says,
“It inspired me to make the heaviest commitment I will ever make”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“I promise (and she puts her fingers to her mouth when she says this) to never do anything I don’t want to, to not waste one second, not one second on anything I deem as trivial or inconsequential, not a job, not a lover, not anything”
She sits back holds my eyes in place with extreme serious, then she smiles, then she laughs, I laugh too thinking this is some classy bullshit, the balls, the sheer audacity, arrogance confidence grim beauty, classical music comes out of tiny speakers on the ceiling mixing with quiet talk about nothing, it hovers over the tables then dissipates into the ceiling like the shit it is my friend and I talking loud and boisterous wasting time like death in the afternoon with ambivalent desire trippin’ like hippies out of place and mind gray-haired couple to our right orders sushi “well done” laughs the old fellow “well done” somewhere in the room there’s a british accent asian lady dancing slowly towards the bar red-head waitress lights cigarette takes off one shoe teenage busboy wired and nervous hating all this as he should girlfriend at home smoking pot my friend returns from washroom seems electric motion as her hips rotate left then right throws me a glance I lean back cool and easy man like wallflowers and butterflies and rat scurvy and guitar licks and gypsy rose racing down the alley slow-motion-girl sits across from me adjusts turtleneck I start talking she leans forward hands on chin listens intensely...
Tony Nesca's novel, About a Girl, can be purchased as an e-book from Pulpbits.com or in print from Screamin' Skull Press, 504 Brock St., Winnipeg, MB. R3N 0Z1, Canada.