Chapter 42

42

It’s approaching noon on a Thursday afternoon and I‘m sitting in a tiny sandwich shop downtown, flipping through today’s newspaper. At a table for two, I wait for it to show.

I order an iced tea from a waitress who doesn’t look up from her pad of paper while taking the order. For all she knows, I could have painted myself blue before leaving the house this morning. I fumble with two packets of sugar while reading an article about a man who suffered from a seizure while crossing the street in afternoon traffic. The outcome of such a tragedy couldn’t have been more dismal.

The sugar sinks to the bottom of my glass like tiny white weights of dissolution. I stir the liquid, kicking up the dust, and wonder what kind of shoes the man might have been wearing.

Two and a half glasses of iced tea later, I find the need to relieve myself. Without a companion to hold our table, I leave my jacket draped over the chair to signify my occupancy. I beg my glass of tea for its pardon and head to the men’s room.

I open the door with my left hand, my right already lowering the zipper on my blue jeans. Out of the corner of my eye I notice something hairy washing its hands. Stopping to take a quick assessment, I observe that the hairy hand washer is actually a man dressed in a gorilla suit. I believe that it would be very hard to urinate while wearing such a get-up.

Standing at the urinal, I hum a Beatles tune that I forget the name to.

By the time I finish my business, the monkey himself has finished his and has left the bathroom. I return to my table, finding the other seat still unoccupied. Much to my chagrin, my coat is nowhere to be found. My iced tea sits alone on the table, claiming to not have seen my coat disappear.

“Perhaps if you had been paying more attention…”

I was told to be here at 11:30 and to be expecting it to arrive at noon. It’s currently 12:17 and the monkey/man is ordering a turkey sandwich, without mustard, at the counter.

I wonder if the monkey/man has seen what it is that I’m waiting for. I wonder if he’s seen where my coat has wandered off too. I wonder when gorillas began ordering turkey sandwiches without mustard.

Returning to my iced tea, I begin skimming the sports page. While I am reading about the Red Sox beating the Yankees in thirteen innings, the gorilla walks past my table carrying his sandwich in one hand, and my missing black leather jacket in the other.

I watch as the monkey/man opens the front door and walks out into the city. I decide to let him have my coat in hopes that whatever it is I’m waiting for shows up with a couple of extra cigarettes and the answers to today’s crossword.