Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Scrutable

I saw him from my seat on the bus.  He sat under the awning of Caffe Mio, shaded from the morning sunlight.  A broadbrimmed, high-crowned black hat covered his head and gave him a sinister halo of darkness behind the pale brown hair that fell back in waves to his shoulders.  A black trenchcoat concealed his person, with broad lapels and epaulettes, a fortress of oilcloth, inky and mysterious, falling extravagantly to his black jeans and black boots.  Small wire-frame glasses outlined his pale eyes; a pale van dyke beard fringed his delicate pale lips; his pale face was impassive and inscrutable as he smoked his cig, sipped his coffee, gazed out into the street from the shadows where he sat like a visitor from another time, another plane of consciousness.  He was above, beyond his environs.  A wizard in his own mind. 

No sooner had I gotten a good look at him than I saw her walking down the sidewalk toward him.  She was slim, tall, blonde, with long hair trailing veil-like in the morning breeze behind her.  Peach cotton top, white cotton pants, understated sandals, skin like creme caramel.  She looked like four perfect scoops of buttercream frosting packed into a delightful summer outfit.  She walked like gravity didn’t really pull her earthward like it did to other people. 

I watched him as she entered his field of vision.  The impact was visceral - she was three feet from his knee when she passed him.  He looked her rapidly up and down, then hiked himself more upright on his seat, squared his scrawny over-protected shoulders, leaned forward, and helplessly watched her walk away from him down the sidewalk until she was lost in the crowd.  The bus began to pull away as he leaned back in his seat, titillated and frustrated and impotent.  He took another drag on his cig but his inscrutable expression no longer seemed so inscrutable to me.  Underneath that big black hat he looked to me like he would sell his sister for a scrute.