Roosterville
Next Tuesday
I’m invisible. In downtown Blair, all it takes is a ten dollar haircut and a sweatshirt with the logo of the nearby university. I sit in the dark corner of the coffee shop on a late Tuesday morning for hours. Waiting. Unnoticed.
Black coffee burns my lip and tongue with each sip. Pain is a welcome distraction. I tap on my laptop and pretend that I am not aware that my computer is twice the size and I am twice the age of most everyone in the building. Once I am gone, they won’t remember I was ever here.
Amber is late. I can’t help but worry that she is not going to show up again. She is the one. I have known from the instant I saw her walk out the door of the Arts and Sciences building four Tuesdays ago.
One of the baristas from behind the counter comes out and throws away empty coffee cups and wadded up napkins left on a table three feet away from a trash can. Some people are assholes that way. She comes within arm’s reach but never looks at me. Her black trousers are strewn with cat hair. That means she’s single. I can’t help but like the way her buttocks sways, just slightly, while she wipes down a tabletop. I too feel like an asshole when a disturbing thought crosses my mind. If it doesn’t work out with Amber, maybe the barista could be the one.
A television hangs on the wall in the opposite corner. The sound is off and closed-captions for the hearing impaired scroll the bottom of the screen, partially blocking yellow crime scene tape quarantining a section of wilderness. A body bag, strapped to a gurney, is loaded in the back of an ambulance. At first, I am struck with worry, but the footage is grainy. Aged. The show cuts to a news broadcast and I can tell from the anchor’s hairstyle that it’s not today’s news, it’s one of those true crime shows that use DNA tests and generations of insect larvae to solve cold cases. On someone’s front porch people hug and sob and cry.
So many of those shows crowd the airwaves these days that people have become desensitized to murder. You never hear about serial killers anymore. Not because fewer people are going around killing others, but because the ones you hear about have to be real butchers to get in the spotlight. The whole thing makes me feel like the hand I was dealt came from a deck missing a card or two.
Mocha-caramel-frappuccino-half-caff-soy.
I hear Amber’s voice and I can see our unborn children. The world seems fair again.
From where I sit, her back is to me. I have never seen her hair down before. She curled it too. I appreciate the effort she makes.
She sits down four tables away from me without even looking in my direction and keeps her back to me. No smile. No eye contact. No polite acknowledgement of a fellow human being in her presence. Typical. Chicks make me so angry sometimes.
If she would interact with me in any way at all, I could finally introduce myself. I really have to curve my arm and hand around to chew the side of my thumbnail that I like. I bite the corner. Deep. It draws blood. I can taste it.
Amber sends text messages on her phone while her netbook opens to her Facebook page. Her profile picture is different again. She always goes online before working on her Sociology. The second website she opens is more secretive. She glances back at the counter before opening her online dating page. I don’t even have to struggle to recognize it. I have done the 30-day free trial membership on all of them. And I am still alone.
Amber is admirable. She stopped for coffee and worked on her homework immediately after leaving her class. I was more the type to wait until the last minute to do my homework. What a pair we would make. I can’t stay mad at her.
I bet she is one of those people that doesn’t really speak up much. I bet in Sociology class there are students who can’t wait to share their view of the world. Amber seems like the kind of student that would only speak when called upon.
But a person can only bottle up their feelings for so long. I bet she has her moments where she really tears into people. Like if someone was going to cut a vegetable or a block of cheese directly on the kitchen counter. I bet she would shriek and pull the knife right out of their hands.
Amber checks her phone, finishes her mocha-caramel-frappuccino-half-caff-soy and packs up her books. I know my window of opportunity is closing. I can’t sit here like an idiot Tuesday after Tuesday waiting for her to make the first move.
As soon as she starts getting up I shut my laptop down, but keep gazing at the screen or just the top edge as I watch her go out the side door and walk back around the front window and down the street.
Once outside, I can’t find her. She has slipped away again. I curse myself and walk toward my car, crossing the street by the baseball stadium. I am so busy bitching at myself that I almost miss her when I walk past the vestibule at the bus stop. She’s inside, on the bench, her phone in hand.
I smile, circle back toward the stadium and occupy myself with the posters of the ball players while I wait. It feels like the first time I saw her.
Finally, the bus arrives and Amber gets on. The bus pulls away and across the marquee above the front windshield are the words “EAST BLAIR.”
That’s all I need to know. Next Tuesday, I will be on that bus.
Black coffee burns my lip and tongue with each sip. Pain is a welcome distraction. I tap on my laptop and pretend that I am not aware that my computer is twice the size and I am twice the age of most everyone in the building. Once I am gone, they won’t remember I was ever here.
Amber is late. I can’t help but worry that she is not going to show up again. She is the one. I have known from the instant I saw her walk out the door of the Arts and Sciences building four Tuesdays ago.
One of the baristas from behind the counter comes out and throws away empty coffee cups and wadded up napkins left on a table three feet away from a trash can. Some people are assholes that way. She comes within arm’s reach but never looks at me. Her black trousers are strewn with cat hair. That means she’s single. I can’t help but like the way her buttocks sways, just slightly, while she wipes down a tabletop. I too feel like an asshole when a disturbing thought crosses my mind. If it doesn’t work out with Amber, maybe the barista could be the one.
A television hangs on the wall in the opposite corner. The sound is off and closed-captions for the hearing impaired scroll the bottom of the screen, partially blocking yellow crime scene tape quarantining a section of wilderness. A body bag, strapped to a gurney, is loaded in the back of an ambulance. At first, I am struck with worry, but the footage is grainy. Aged. The show cuts to a news broadcast and I can tell from the anchor’s hairstyle that it’s not today’s news, it’s one of those true crime shows that use DNA tests and generations of insect larvae to solve cold cases. On someone’s front porch people hug and sob and cry.
So many of those shows crowd the airwaves these days that people have become desensitized to murder. You never hear about serial killers anymore. Not because fewer people are going around killing others, but because the ones you hear about have to be real butchers to get in the spotlight. The whole thing makes me feel like the hand I was dealt came from a deck missing a card or two.
Mocha-caramel-frappuccino-half-caff-soy.
I hear Amber’s voice and I can see our unborn children. The world seems fair again.
From where I sit, her back is to me. I have never seen her hair down before. She curled it too. I appreciate the effort she makes.
She sits down four tables away from me without even looking in my direction and keeps her back to me. No smile. No eye contact. No polite acknowledgement of a fellow human being in her presence. Typical. Chicks make me so angry sometimes.
If she would interact with me in any way at all, I could finally introduce myself. I really have to curve my arm and hand around to chew the side of my thumbnail that I like. I bite the corner. Deep. It draws blood. I can taste it.
Amber sends text messages on her phone while her netbook opens to her Facebook page. Her profile picture is different again. She always goes online before working on her Sociology. The second website she opens is more secretive. She glances back at the counter before opening her online dating page. I don’t even have to struggle to recognize it. I have done the 30-day free trial membership on all of them. And I am still alone.
Amber is admirable. She stopped for coffee and worked on her homework immediately after leaving her class. I was more the type to wait until the last minute to do my homework. What a pair we would make. I can’t stay mad at her.
I bet she is one of those people that doesn’t really speak up much. I bet in Sociology class there are students who can’t wait to share their view of the world. Amber seems like the kind of student that would only speak when called upon.
But a person can only bottle up their feelings for so long. I bet she has her moments where she really tears into people. Like if someone was going to cut a vegetable or a block of cheese directly on the kitchen counter. I bet she would shriek and pull the knife right out of their hands.
Amber checks her phone, finishes her mocha-caramel-frappuccino-half-caff-soy and packs up her books. I know my window of opportunity is closing. I can’t sit here like an idiot Tuesday after Tuesday waiting for her to make the first move.
As soon as she starts getting up I shut my laptop down, but keep gazing at the screen or just the top edge as I watch her go out the side door and walk back around the front window and down the street.
Once outside, I can’t find her. She has slipped away again. I curse myself and walk toward my car, crossing the street by the baseball stadium. I am so busy bitching at myself that I almost miss her when I walk past the vestibule at the bus stop. She’s inside, on the bench, her phone in hand.
I smile, circle back toward the stadium and occupy myself with the posters of the ball players while I wait. It feels like the first time I saw her.
Finally, the bus arrives and Amber gets on. The bus pulls away and across the marquee above the front windshield are the words “EAST BLAIR.”
That’s all I need to know. Next Tuesday, I will be on that bus.