So I’m sitting here in the nice little café an easy stagger from where I live. The bartender strikes me as having gypsy blood – raven hair and striking blue eyes. It’s a good look. I could be wrong about the gypsy thing. I don’t even know how to ask. At the table next to mine is a blonde, taller than I am, I suspect, watching me write as she drinks her wine. Even though she can’t see the screen and even if she could she wouldn’t understand the words, I am self-conscious.
I think she knows I am alone, the same way I know she is alone. As long as the laptop is open, that’s all it will ever be.
Closing up the laptop now; maybe there’ll be another episode later. (Yeah. Right.)
Er, even as I typed the above she packed up and left. Timing, man, timing.
Skip forward. I’m still here in this bar, and there’s a german shepherd at my feet. His mistress is yet another beautiful woman, who is smoking right behind me. I have thoroughly won the dog over. I’m good with dogs. They rarely smoke. Owner of big dog attempted to speak with me when I had moved big dog to heights of ecstasy, but I just wimped out and talked to the pup. Lame. She knows now I don’t speak czech worth a crap, but I closed the door on any attempt to communicate. I’m such a dork.
It’s funny. I can ignore almost any human distraction in a bar, but when it’s dogs I’m sucked in. Another dog has arrived and that dog is barking love sonnets to my new best friend. Best friend’s owner has made it clear that she doesn’t want new dog anywhere close. “Let them play,” I thought. It seemed to me the iron-discipline chick was being a hardass, but then it dawned on me. The bitch is in heat. I’m referring to the dog, of course. When I wrote ‘he’ above I was mistaken. Never was too good at that stuff.
So the evening rolled on and I actually did talk to the girl and her friends more, but a lot of the time I was just smiling and nodding. I’ve never seen the little place so busy – it was still jumping at closing time. They have an outlet so I can plug in while I work there, so there’s not much reason for me to leave. All told I was there for almost twelve hours, working for about ten of them.
Sounds like a good place to become a regular – esp’ if there are few americanos.
pL would know better than I, but I suspect “Are you gypsy?” as an icebreaker would be a no-no. Europe is pretty prejudiced agaisnt the romani, and nobody would take it as a compliment.
As far as the ladies? a good frienf once told me, “confidence.” Of course if you wer rich…..
You know,…I just noticed that your episodes have pretty good titles. This one especially. I guess being a writer improves all aspects of writing. You should title the sculptures of modern artisdts. I ‘ve seen many a contemproary ssculpture I really dig and then when I get to what the atisst names it I break out laughing. THey can do art, just not write.
I think it is in part the titles that bring Google searchers. Who can resist “Through the Valley of Fire to the Bosom of Bobbi” when doing a search on “stateline motel mesquite”?
I thought Gypsies had dark eyes — as in the opera Carmen. The dark hair combined with the striking blue eyes is something I have more associated with the Black Irish or possibly Northern Italians.
Perhaps Bill or Bob could elucidate, given that their family has the dark hair-blue eyes combination that I found really attractive way back in high school. Where does that sexy look come from?
Oops, once again, I seem to have become anonymous. I get a feeling someone’s been using my computer when I’m not looking.
Yeah, I don’t know crap about gypsy. I just know that black-black hair and blue eyes is a good look. I’ll tell you this, though. the family that runs that cafe is not Irish.
Apparently Bill and Bob are too busy drifting about the country aimlessly to answer questions about their gypsy-like features.