a busboy, a clear thinking one, opened wide the slightly sweltering glass door of the greasy spoon when i was on my way home this morning. i went inside and was immediately funked by the grating gasping of the ac.
coffee, it seemed, was 86'd from the menu today. the counter mushroomed with sweating bottles and tetra paks of cold drinks. so, i asked for a toasted bagel, cream cheese, no jelly, and, instead, a diet peach snapple, the coldest, i told the waitress. she glared at me like i was the most splenetic customer around.
across the diner, a woman wearing a linen skirt that showed most of her prodigiously long legs contemplated crossing the street. it was only eight in the morning, and yet, the woman seemed to flutter in the heat.
before i got to my building, two men, their arm holes choked by irascible sweat rings, were arguing, something about an unpaid gas bill. their exchange quickly escalated to screaming at each other familiar invectives. but somehow their vituperation was as venal as the summer sun. a mother with two drowsy kids, a dirty aproned butcher's assistant and i quickly passed by the two like a plague.
it took me a while to open my building's door as i couldn't find my keys. they were lounging at the cooler bottom of my backpack.
after i closed the door, i could still hear the shouting men. you don't want me to get postal on you, mike. oh yeah? fuck you, too. bring it on. their vitriol bristled in my head like shortwave radio transmissions during a severe solar storm.
