Homesick for Another World(26)
“Maybe a city ordinance. No idea,” I answered. Claude took my arm as though to comfort me. Paul shook his head and picked at his lips and stared out over the tables.
We followed a short Latina woman to a booth. “This okay?” she asked, her smile wavering slightly as she registered that Claude and Paul were retarded. One must make certain adjustments—that’s normal. Paul squeezed in on one side of the booth, and Claude sat next to me on the other. The woman slapped down huge, laminated menus on the table from under her arms. I thought of Marsha Mendoza, her dark lipstick, the furrowed sadness of her mouth at rest. But our waitress looked nothing like Marsha. She bore no resemblance to any Hooters girl, either. She was heavy. Her lips and eyes were rimmed with dark liner, her hair maroon and stiff. Her hands were small and meaty. She looked like a hardworking woman, someone’s stern mother, eyebrows raised high in expectation. She left us to peruse the menus.
“You see, Paul? Nice lady like that’s going to be our waitress. Now pick what you want to eat before she comes back.”
“She’s not that nice,” Paul said, opening the menu. “Hooters got nicer ones.”
I doubted that Paul could tell the difference. He had no clue what real beauty was.
“I’m having ice cream for dinner,” Claude said, “because it’s Paul’s birthday. Happy birthday, Paul.”
“Paul, what are you getting?” I asked, trying to sound chipper.
“Chicken shit,” he said, laughing despite his disappointment. Then he banged at the table with his fat hands. “This place sucks,” he whined.
Claude frowned in sympathy.
When the Latina woman came back, I straightened Paul’s silverware. His pouting did not discourage her. She had her pad out, pen poised, smiling. Only those eyebrows—which now I realized were just painted on in two wide arcs across her forehead—seemed to quiver. She wore a red shirt and black trousers. Her figure was not very good, breasts and gut melded into a solid tub of fat under her cinched apron. The pouch at her waist bulged with straws. Her skin was dark and pitted and silvery with makeup. Still, there was kindness in her eyes. She looked at Paul and nodded.
“This,” he said, smudging his finger over a picture of a large platter of BBQ ribs.
After Claude ordered his ice cream, the woman clicking and unclicking her pen during the pauses in his litany of requested toppings, I ordered the meat loaf. It was an item in the Seniors section.
“That comes with a Happy Ending Sundae,” the woman told me.
“Sounds fine,” I said and thanked her. When she’d gone, Paul promptly resumed his laments. I couldn’t blame him for being disappointed, but it seemed ridiculous for a grown man to sit whimpering at the table, blowing his nose into napkins and stuffing them in the pockets of his cargo shorts. I couldn’t look at him at all. His face became so apish and gross when he was upset. The sight of him, I felt, would ruin my appetite.
“They sell hats at Hooters,” he sniffed. He stared at me and moaned.
It was clear that my succulent wasn’t a good enough gift for Paul. He was materialistic, like my wife. How many blouses and bracelets does a woman need? How many terrible framed watercolors, throw pillows, little silver things shaped like birds or cats, or ceramic hearts filled with potpourri, or crystal ashtrays does a human being require? My wife had filled the house with that kind of nonsense. And she was a snob, on top of it. She would have rolled her eyes if she’d seen me eating at a Friendly’s with a couple of retards. She would never have understood why I was there. She had no idea what it meant to expand one’s horizons.
I put my arm around Claude, hoping we could change the subject. “Excited for ice cream?” I asked. Our waitress stopped off to deliver sodas and small packets of colored crayons for Paul and Claude. Claude tore into them immediately, scribbling on the back of his paper place mat. Paul opened the packet and snapped each crayon in half, let the broken pieces roll across the table toward me. Claude collected them, herding the pieces into a pile, then continued to draw.
“You can have my sundae, Paul, if it makes you feel any better,” I told him.
“I don’t want your stupid sundae,” he said. “Ice cream melts, Larry. You eat it and it’s gone. You can’t take it with you.” He took another napkin, rubbed his eyes, blew his nose.
“You can take your crayons with you,” I said. “I could ask for a new pack. Should I?”
He grunted, wiping the tears off his face with the hairy backs of his hands. Then he turned to the window and began to peel the paper off his straw very slowly, like someone plucking a flower, lost in thought. “I hate life,” Paul said and quickly sucked down his glass of Coke.
“Guys. Ice cream,” said Claude, watching his silver dish float through the air, high on the huge tray our waitress carried. She set the tray down on a little stand next to our table, then distributed our plates, smiling. She seemed undeterred by the awkward tension in our group, which I took as a testament to her strong character. She was very professional. Nothing like the girls at Hooters. I caught her attention by staring into her eyes, which were big and black and set deeply under the fat, shining ridge of her brow bone.
“Okay?” she asked.
“It’s his birthday,” I said, pointing at Paul.
“You wanna cake?” she asked, addressing Paul directly. “You wanna candle?” Paul said yes, licking his fingers morosely, his face already covered in BBQ sauce. He was not ashamed.