Sweet cheeks don't say 'babe'
When I found him, he was looking a little flustered, his usual tense self, shuffling a sheet of paper into his notebook.
He'd rung me when I was coming down in the lift, and I had to say, "Just on my way, in the lift, see you in a few seconds." I didn't know why I felt embarrassed saying that. There were only two other people in the lift.
"Guess what happened today?" He slung his bag over his shoulders, and proceeded to pour out the day's drama. But such is the way we are - it never seems to take too long for words to come, discussions creep out of discussions like blossoming vines.
"... so I haven't even eaten yet," he concluded. We headed out into the main street.
"Where are we going?"
He muttered something I didn't hear. In fact, I asked that several times during the night but never got a direct answer. I supposed it was not so important - we would end up somewhere, eventually.
The waiter was quite obviously gay and called everyone "babe" indiscriminately. He considered calling the waiter "babe" in return, but he thought he might be asking for trouble.
"Sweet cheeks," I said.
"What?"
It was noisy. I was tired. I repeated myself, and he eventually got my meaning. But no one was being called "sweet cheeks" that night. There might have been a couple of "daahlings".
I was in French mode. I thanked the waiter in French, several times. English took a backseat and smirked at my confused mind.
We talked. It was good having someone who could understand whom you seem to understand too. So we talked.
Back in the streets, the night failed to swallow us as the neon lights declared one thing or another, one name or another, blaring out subliminal messages in coloured brass notes.
"Oh," I said, out of the blue.
"Huh?"
"We'd just passed the alley we took some pictures in on Saturday."
"We were all around here on Saturday."
"I know we were, but I was lost."
"You were lost?!"
"Uh, yeah ..."
"Geez, you obviously don't get into the city much."
Last Saturday afternoon, we went around in circles within circles, slipping from one sidestreet to the next, armed with cameras and trigger-happy index fingers. The weather was not great, we lamented over the lack of adequate zoom and the lack of adequate light, but it seemed not to matter in the end - memories become all packed in a box, some rolls of films get used, and there is a little less available space on my camera's Flashcard.
11 April 2002, Thursday, 11:15 PM
Alter ego of dandruff
Does this site look a little ugly? Try a Web standards compliant browser.
all material © 1999-2004 sniffles