pinup

it's a tuesday night. i get home from work around 9:00 p.m., change my clothes and set out for a cheeseburger and a beer. i take the train three stops to harvard square. i enter the bar and exchange coquettish pleasantries with the bartender i know all too well. i order the cheeseburger and beer. i open the page of the book where the folded poem is marking the place. i begin reading.

"why are you reading in here?" asks the human to the left of me, who was armed with a camera, making howling noises at every female who walked by.

"he came in here for a bite to eat," says his buddy of the tucked in t-shirt, crew-cut, ivy-league, self-aggrandazing manner. (you know the type: a real asshole.)

"i came in here for a bite to eat." i say.

"i'm brandon." says the buddy.

("is this some sort of good cop/bad cop routine?" i wonder.)

"pleasure. i'm bert moth." i say.

"do you go to school here?" buddy asks.

"no." i say.

"what do you do?" he asks.

"i'm a lawyer." i respond.

"oh, do you like it?"

"it's a fucking ball." i say.

he laughs. "so you could get me out of trouble if i needed it?"

"if by trouble, you mean debt restructuring, sure."

the cheeseburger is served. i take a big swig of the budweiser. buddy hands me his card and begins talking about oracle compatible open-source databases. i stick my fork into a french fry, which is acting as a wonderful surrogate for picking up my stool and smashing these two in the sternum.

"do you know what these databases do?" he asks.

"i don't know, dude... a bunch of servers employing jit inventory controls?"

he smiles. i bite the cheeseburger. his friend makes a cat call at two girls walking by.

"shot of jameson?" the bartender asks.

"god, yes." i say.

buddy begins prattling on about databases. i finish my cheeseburger. his friend is taking pictures of girls and talking wildly to two bird flu scientists sitting next to him.

i take the shot and feel the warmth rise in my stomach. i order one more beer and try to read. the friend with the camera says, "we're going to be featured in "dig." we're going bigtime!"

"oh, good luck." i say.

"well... it's not guaranteed...yet," the other one says. "but they're interested in us."

i want to put the beer in the mainline vein. i tilt it full up, then say goodbye to the bartender.

"call me." says the buddy.

"you bet." i say.

i leave the bar and the wind is rising up and howling viciously. while walking to the train, my poem flies out of my book. i see it whipping in the wind and heading toward the building across the street. i board the train, and i imagine my poem flying through the air and landing flush against the window of the tea shop. i imagine it surprising some students as they discuss african health policy. and maybe they read it.

"i think of you in april and your hands upturned coyly in the rain."

and maybe we're all smiling, as i look into the posted mirror on the side of the tracks. and i watch everyone diminish and vanish around the curve of the road we can't help traveling together.