Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Pair the Second: Sartorial Inscription Mentations
It’s been a busy day in Chuckleland, and the post I’d hoped to foist upon you before noon today now might - just might - get up before midnight. In lieu of an off-color joke skulking in the corners of that prior sentence, I choose to offer my second “pair” posting in a row - a pair of pairs, rendering me vulnerable to a full house if you’ve got one. Lacking that, enjoy this - I dare you!
A Pair of Mentations Regarding Sartorial Inscription, by Chuck L. Hutt
* The boy sat across from me, slouching on the plastic bus bench with the look of embarrassed boredom borne of maternal proximity - and indeed, his mom was sitting right next to him, with flabby biceps and an overbearing scowl. The boy wore a red sweatshirt with white lettering, which I compulsively tried to read. I’ve got to be reading this wrong, I thought. Does his sweatshirt actually say, “PATHETIC”? I abandoned all pretense of subtlety and took a nice hard gander. Yes, his sweatshirt says “PATHETIC”. What was his mother thinking? There’s no way he was old enough to buy his own clothes, how could she OH! I see now: as the boy shifts in his sullen antpantitude, he reveals a few missing letters - two in front, one in the middle.
Not “PATHETIC.” “(GA)P ATH(L)ETIC.” Well then. I guess that’s okay. Carry on.
* I leave the bus and cross the intersection the first of twice, to find myself waiting for my next walk signal next to the hand-out guy. He’s in the ‘hood a lot these days. A filthy man with matted chaotic hair, his skin is dark, stained darker from a sidewalk life. He’s missing several teeth and his clothes are execrable: tattered jacket and pants that shine with grime, a once-red t-shirt hanging from his sunken chest, threadbare, shabby. He’s learned a little English over the past few months; where once he’d stammer a perhaps-Tagalog jangle with his palms extended in supplication, now he asks for change in an English that’s weak, heavily accented, but at least intelligible. Today as I stand next to him he’s asking again, dime or quatah sah? He extends toward me a receptacle for my hoped-for generosity: a black baseball cap so dirty that its very blackness has been blackened. I shrug my apology to him and he repays me with a jagged smile. I notice the legend embroidered on the back of his outthrust cap - the name of a television show. I wonder if he’s ever seen it. I wonder if he even knows that it says “Lost.” To me, it seems entirely apropos.
There you go then, chew on that in good health and from your blog to god’s ear. Back later, but not later tonight, with another pair or so of whatever it is I seem to be doing here. These are the jokes, folks. I’m here all week.