Little Things

On the veranda for sushi after the big storm.  It is a conceit, a remembrance, really, for the place has gone to hell with the recession.  Often now, the sushi is not so good and I send it back.  But still I come because once it was romantic with someone or alone.  The all black uniforms were new and crisp, the waiters handsome, the waitresses beautiful, all exotic to an extent, the food fantastic and fresh.  I come because the past now has as much pull on me as the future.

A drizzling rain remains and no one is about.  The storm has dispelled the terrible heat, but the air is still thick and heavy.

The waitress brings the sake.  She does not pour the first cup.  I wonder if she is insulting me or if she is merely ignorant.  I eat the edamame that is surely Monsanto's, Round Up Ready, so I know, too, that I am eating poison.  A little bit more dying.

Two boys walk by.  They are eighteen, twenty.  One says to the other, "The girl with the white hair was hot!"

"I know she was," says the other in enthusiastic agreement.

"I don't care if she was under eighteen."

I picture her immediately.  Of course she was.  I have much to say about this.  No one wants to hear it anymore.

The rain returns.  The slapping of the big water running off the awning.  The other, more constant sound of the falling rain.  The gray light fading.  Then suddenly, the rain falling harder.

I would watch a movie tonight.  "The Sorcerer" perhaps, or "The Year of Living Dangerously, or "Indochine."  Or maybe "The Lover" or that strange movie where the woman wants men to write on her naked body.

I would.  But there are no video stores open here any longer.

All at once, there are people in the rain.  It is time for the movies to begin at the theater next door.  People come running through the downpour, some with umbrellas, some just getting wet.  All the movies begin at once, within a five or ten minutes of one another.  Quickly, the crowd is gone.

And then dinner is done.  The sake was needed and the tuna kabache passable.  There has been luck.  The rain has let up now, and I will go to my car.  Sometimes little things work out.