|
Seagulls and Teenage Girls before/after "I'm thirty!" she said with a lustful, excited look in her eye. How had it come to this? Not more than a few scant hours ago, I had been feeding the seagulls in the park, minding my own business, and now, here I was absorbing the attention of pert, horny teenage girls like some dirty old man. I don't like seagulls as a rule, scavenger's don't sit high in my estimation. Nature's garbagemen. I understand their importance, but seagulls are shrill and stupid. Annoyances. I went to the park to eat my fast food. I didn't plan on feeding the birds. Didn't even think about it. And there they were, in Hitchcockian fury, advancing on me and giving me the evil eye 'en masse. It was one of the few times in life I was thankful I was not high. They put tomatoes on my tacos, which I requested without. So the gulls got some nutrition. One was rather shrill, as the others flocked to his turf. He screamed incessantly at the others, who waited paitiently. In the distance, skate kids watched my every move as I sat in vintage leather jacket and blue shades, feeding, and intermittently chiding the birds. "Easy now." I would admonish. I tried to feed the distressed bird, mostly to quiet him, and some because it was his territory, and thus, his payday. To no avail, he shrilled until I left. Which I did soon. I lured the birds in, with the last scraps being taken by birds on the wing directly from my hand. As the last scrap was devoured a skate kid flew by me on his board, scaring the birds away, ending my reverie. I can only imagine what he thought he was doing, or how this fit with his socialization, having watched me with the birds. And I decided to play the coffee shop again. Why not. No more booze and drugs in my life anymore, I must adjust to new patterns of behavior. New ways to be on a saturday night. This is tougher than one would suspect. So I went down to the coffee shop. I packed em' in last time, drawing them off of the street and the bar a few doors down. This time I drew some in, but not nearly as many. I suspect there was just fewer people out that night. I didn't sing as much, just played mellow blues, flopping my guitar cases on the floor and grabbing a coffee. I sat on stage and played next to an exquisitely polished black piano, replete with padded bench. A young couple, likely on their first date plopped down at the couches across from me. People filed in and out. I got little appreciation, which wears thin. I am used to much applause, but those in attendance had their own agenda, psuedo budding spring couples, guys on the make with little or no confidence. And the one couple across from me sat and listened attentively for an hour, not once giving me any sign of appreciation. In filed a pair of seventeen year old girls wearing skirts and tight shirts. One girl smiled at me. I waved. Over the course of the next few songs one girl flashed her legs at me repeatedly, so much so that I saw every bit of her legs but her panties. The other stared sheepishly off, looking unsure of herself in the extreme. She had large ankles, and I noticed this while I played. I finished a medley and they applauded. "Well, I liked it," the cuter one said. They both came up and put dollar bills into the elegant jar ontop of the shiny black piano. "Hey, thanks." I said, and meant it, "Its good to be appreciated. Especially since other people are sloughing off in their appreciation responsibilities." I looked at the couple across from me, and said in a funny voice, "Not naming any NAMES or anything." The girls laughed. The guy piped up, "I don't know what to say to that." "I'm just messin' about, just kidding." I said. "I really don't know what to say to that." he said again. "No worries, just kidding." He slammed down his coffee and left, taking his girl who had been eyeing me with him. It made me feel bad. I didn't want to bum anyone out. Later on, I took him to be passive aggressive, who perhaps caught the edge of seriousness in my voice and used it against me. I don't know. If you like a performance, clap. Say so. Or don't. Tell them its terrible. Have an opinion. I could just sit at home. I'm not a fuckin' radio. No accounting for who's out in the human murk on a saturday night. Yet somehow he gets laid with that girl, and I don't. Then again, if he's that weird and insecure, he probably didn't get her, either. I got down off the stage and talked to the girls. They were a mixture of lust and excitement. I didn't really need to talk a whole lot, which is fine by me. They were interesting to watch, in their fresh newness and wide eyes, chewing on their cell phone attena's, text messaging each other, chirping at each other, transitioning from relative normality to pink faced, flush'd lustful excitement in instants. Their energy was amazing. Lilly, the cute one, the dominant one of the pair, whom I called 'Scab-picker', was a cute, tan, part indian girl, with excellent legs. She talked a lot about a guy who seemed to have gotten the goods from her, three hundred dollars, and wore bright orange pants and a blue shirt every saturday. The look on her face when I asked her if she slept with him was priceless. I told 'scab-picker' to forget about the guy, tried to tell her how everyone gets hung up on their first. I don't think she listened. "Have you ever been to johnsonville?" she asked. "No," I said. "Lets go. Its about ten minutes from here." "Does this have anything to do with the brats?" I asked. "No. Its a pretty stiff town." she said, then giggled. Cute. The guy gave her a pick up line. A pretty lame one, too. I called her on it, and told her so. The guy sounds like a loser. Fuck, I never got three hundred dollars from a girlfriend. Maybe I should take lessons, buy orange pants. But no. Her friend, melissa, was addicted to salt, and drank two gallons of water a day. Thus the swollen ankles, and her doctor's admonishment to stop eating salt. In addition to putting it on every thing she ate, she also ate it straight out of the packets. I told her to get a salt lick and put it on the night stand. I felt lecherous, but not enough. So I articulately bid my farewell, and went home alone.
|
