I awoke from my nap to find that the neighbors on either side had put up so many Christmas lights that my house, in the center and without a single light yet, looked like an expectant runway at an airport. The boy with the musical corduroy pants was hungry, so we left for the Chinese buffet before any jumbo jets taxied into the living room, destroying his Lego dinosaurs, and before he burned the house down from his corduroy legs rubbing together.
The waitress wasn’t Chinese. The young blonde, was eleven or twelve feet tall. I shouted our drink order into her navel hoping it might reach her brain, somehow. Music played through speakers in the ceiling and Corduroy Boy sang along. I didn’t know the song. The radio in my car only picks up what sounds to be the decades-old transmissions from Sputnik, so I never turn it on. Corduroy Boy knows all the songs.
At the buffet, we speculated about what it might be like if buffaloes really did have wings, and what a mess that would make of car windshields, and how people would need to wear helmets and heavy raincoats all the time, if buffaloes really could fly. The wings were boiled, as best I could tell. I didn’t complain; the Chinese have trouble with their “R’s”, I understand. The shrimp was good, and we peeled and ate, making large piles of shrimp shells as the couple next to us stuffed chicken and sliced steak into bulging baggies under the table like felons.
Both tired from having built a lean-to in the woods behind the house earlier, we took turns pulling each others heads out of our plates of pork fried rice as we dozed, heads nodding. It had been man time. Swearing, karate-kicking branches, breaking them to size, leaping over streams, and pissing on trees in the woods made us remember that we were manly men, tired manly men.
When the fortune cookies arrived with the check, I learned that something good, although it remained a mystery what it might be, would happen soon. I looked around furtively, careful that my fortune not fall into enemy hands. I discreetly ate the slip of paper, washing it down with fizz-less diet soda. Corduroy Boy laughed, showing a mouthful of teeth, tho one or two missing, the rest still covered in chewed chocolate chip cookie residue.
Mils says
“an expectant runway at an airport” / “The young blonde, was eleven or twelve feet tall.” – lovely words; lovely words …
Eric says
Thanks Mils. Hope you’re doing alright, my friend.
Mils says
Up and down; down and up. But the presence of my eldest, his birthday y’day, his significant other, and other positives in my life at the moment … they all help deal with the downs. Thank you for asking. You? Do you keep well?
Eric says
I understand up and down. Glad you’ve some positives for balance. I’m more in a sideways slide, I suspect, like driving on ice, a bit of fun mixed with the fear of uncertainty. Still and always writing tho. Write. Write. Write.
Mils says
🙂 Write. Write. Write. Yes.
VictoryInTrouble says
I can barely see your face in your gravatar and can barely see your boy’s face because it’s so small but oh my goodness is he your mini-me! That is so so adorable! I love your story! I hope you eventually got some lights outside, if only for the health of lego dinosaurs!
Eric says
Thank you, Vic 🙂 I kinda like being a grainy apparition of myself, but yes he does look a lot like me. This is actually an older piece, and yes, I was shamed into putting up some lights 😉
VictoryInTrouble says
I figured it was some time before Christmas with the lights. Unless where you live, they have a tradition of Valentine’s lights… 😉 And I don’t show more than a hair obscured lower half of my face so I got nothin’ to say! 😀
tiffanybeingfree says
Eric, always great posts! So endearing and lovely to read about your son and your time together with him. I’m jealous that I cannot pee on trees, not sure I ever felt that jealousy before…just calling it like it is. Glad you had a tiring and fun day!
Eric says
It’s a testimony to the power of the prose if it can make a woman wish she could pee on a tree. Lol. I’m sorry. That amuses me. I’m simple that way 🙂
tiffanybeingfree says
No reason to apologize! It was meant to amuse you, too, as it made me laugh!