Looks like I've been stood up again. Rhys should have been here half an hour ago. My mother's right, I should just kick him to the kerb, but he's kinda cute and that's what makes it so hard. So I'll just sit here and wait. Hey if I wait long enough maybe he'll turn up and in the meantime I'll have another latte, there's always someone to watch.
In the dimly lit seclusion of the back corner booth for example.
There's a gangly, mop-headed youth in skinny jeans with feet he’s still growing into and eyes that glint like polished obsidian engaging his girlfriend in a hormone-charged exchange of saliva which leaves a single silvery thread across the boy’s cheek as he breaks away. I fight back the urge to wipe it off and observe, engrossed as the dark haired girl entwines herself around him like bindweed.
She's staked her claim with a slender leg tossed across his knee which chafes a teasing provocation into his groin while she puts her hungry mouth to work chewing on his ear-lobe and exploring his ear with silver-studded tongue which darts in and out of his ear with an occasional reptilian flick. I wonder can he see where he's going through all that hair, or does he just guess?
Does it hurt, I wonder, when that stud hooks-up on delicate flesh? The thought makes me wince, yet watching them is oddly mesmerising, if not a little stomach turning. I just can't rip my attention away and try to rid my mind of the image which is forming, unbidden, of a gecko cleaning its eyeballs with slender silver studded tongue.
A phone rings intrusively, at first I think it's mine, that Rhys the jerk has remembered, but it's not my phone it's a lone road-warrior with depthless eyes and sallow skin occupying the corner table. He wears a grey face with matching suit, and the buttons on his shirt strain against a diet rich in saturates. Tie askew, jacket thrown over a chair trailing cuffs on the floor, crumpled shirt sleeves rolled back a couple of turns, he beats feverishly on laptop keys―click-clack, click-clack―while slurping coffee in noisy gulps from a cup grasped between thumb and stubby yellowed forefinger. His face is a road map of deeply etched lines and I can almost feel the soreness of the blotchy razor-burns on his neck.
He snatches up the phone and speaks in staccato monosyllables. Cancelled order? Client upset? Targets not met? The phone and laptop slam shut with perfect synchronicity and he leaves thumping his chest with a tightly clenched fist.
He reminds me of my dad and it's almost more than I can stand to watch as he walks off towards his car.
I wonder, does he have a wife at home who loves him, who hangs on his every word? Or is he just like my dad, as he breaks her heart a piece at a time, in brittle little snaps like ice cold chocolate straight out of the fridge.
I wonder if he remembers his kids, or is he just like my dad too busy with his work to even remember he has any, or remember their birthdays or attend their graduation?
I wonder whether he pays attention to that ticking time bomb in his chest that he was thumping on the way out of the door, or does he ignore it just like my dad and pass it off as occasional indigestion?
I want to run after him to tell him what it feels like, but already he's in his car and on his way, peeping his horn and gesticulating. It's too late to say,
tell him, nobody is going to adorn his gravestone with the words:
"I wish I'd spent more time at work."
No, my mother insisted it should say:
"Loving Husband and Father." I'm not sure I agree but I know Dad would have liked it.
Copyright © 2008 Rob Richardson. All Rights Reserved.