Sitting in the afternoon at Table 45 outside at Café Diplomatico under an ad for a major American beer, I am watching life at College and Clinton. (The table number is conveniently marked in large red numbers on the table for servers who become lost.)
They have a medium pop rock radio station playing over the speakers. Perhaps, selecting CD’s is too difficult a task.
The long double espresso is just drinkable.
A fly seems to find my white shirt attractive. I flick him off, but he comes back.
Perhaps, he doesn’t like, as I don’t, the bright red plastic table cloths. Perhaps, he needs to find a calm place to restore himself.
Earlier I had walked by Bar Italia and its cooler crowd to come here, as I wanted to sit outside on this corner in memory of the past of this place.
I think the fly is having a personal intimate moment. He is quivering.
There is a young proper new-Canadian couple across from me thoughtfully and carefully eating in silence.
Farther down is a shaved-headed man in black with tattoos laughing with his friends as he uses his clenched fist to demonstrate a motion that looks like a sex act, while commercials play over the speakers from the medium pop rock radio station. One commercial contains the voice of a fashion notable describing her new line of clothes on sale at a major retailer. As she chirpily talks about her fashions, I watch the increasingly intense face of the shaved-headed man in black with tattoos as he continues to thrust his fist towards his friends. He has noticed that I have been watching him. I quickly close my gaping mouth and look up to the sky for inspiration.
A woman with long lustrous black hair falling over her bare shoulders partially covering the dangerously narrow straps of her black dress walks by and sits beside a very male man in a blue check shirt with writing on it. All men should be able to move their hands the way he does. He is talking, and the woman’s eyes, surrounded by the lustrous black hair falling on those shoulders, watches only her friend’s masculine hands as he talks.
The string of radio commercials is now over, and some heavily-beated, augmented female voice I do not recognize is singing something incomprehensible over the speakers.
The fly is back. Perhaps, it’s just a friend coming for a brief moment of pleasure on the sleeve of my white shirt.
A woman with a book and a magically floating red scarf sits down at the next table. A cappuccino appears at her table, and she takes from her large bag a pastry in a wrapper, which she has wisely brought with her.
She looks around with intelligent observant eyes and then turns to her book with the title “The Value of Nothing.” I would like to know this woman, to talk to her about her book, to talk to her about the infuriating but necessary book from the 30’s that I am now reading.
The radio announcer interrupts with a cheery “helping you get by with a smile” as he introduces the next song.
I want to rip the speaker from the wall. I want to do something physical to express my reaction to this radio station. Then, miraculously, the sound from the speaker stops abruptly just after the beginning of a pop rock song that is just as calculating now as it was when it first played in the 80’s. Perhaps there is a God, and perhaps She is as observant as some say.
I decide to take another sip of the espresso. There is a small fly struggling on the surface of the brown liquid. Without thinking, I lift it out with my spoon and place the spoon on my saucer. The fly struggles awhile, and then he crawls to the edge of the spoon to dry his wings by flapping them slowly.
Will anyone care that this fly has been spared for now? As the fly mindlessly pursues the balance of his life, will anyone notice, will the fly even realize, that the extra time he has been provided is a wonder?
The woman with the book has been watching me write. She looks back at her book as I look up. If I was a better man, I would walk over and talk to her.
