On a January night after work, freezing with snow on the ground, I rode up 18th street to the bar district. I knew there would be people there. I ate at the empanada shop, sitting at the window bar and watching the people go by. I crossed the street into the giant coffee bar and found a couch in a well-lit corner. I realize that the server for my section is a beautiful girl. She delivers a menu and a water. She is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. I order a rye with bitters and a cherry and open my sketchbook. I listen to a couple behind me talk in another language. The drink comes, delivered by the beautiful girl. She looks foreign. I watch her walk away to the other tables. I start a sketch from one of my photos.
A girl sits down on the other side of the couch from me. I watch her check her bank balance on a tiny laptop. I draw the two girls from a photograph I took last year. The beautiful girl comes back again and again. She looks like drawings I have drawn all of my life.
When she isn't there I can see her appearing around the room. She moves like an apparition, and when she materializes again it is always in a monumental pose: reaching, leaning, stooping, bending, looking back. (Did she look my way?)
She is an angel on earth.
The girl next to me on the couch often looks my way. I don’t look at her, but see out of the corner of my eye that she is doing a crossword and drinking a white wine. I wonder if she is a lonely girl and just wants to get out and see people; kind of like me. I wonder if she sat next to me and looks in my direction because she would like to get my attention. And I wonder if that’s just how it always is in life, that someone who loves someone else always finds that that person is looking far away… at a beautiful waitress… or whatever.
I don’t think so really, I think we’ll all find out match. I think we all get what’s coming to us.
I wonder if that is the only reason this girl next to me comes to the coffee shop… to check her balance and do the crossword. I don’t know why anyone comes here, but just to sit and do their thing in between looking around at the other people. I really don’t understand the ones who don’t look around, knowing myself that there are angels with us
on this Earth.
A girl sits down on the other side of the couch from me. I watch her check her bank balance on a tiny laptop. I draw the two girls from a photograph I took last year. The beautiful girl comes back again and again. She looks like drawings I have drawn all of my life.
When she isn't there I can see her appearing around the room. She moves like an apparition, and when she materializes again it is always in a monumental pose: reaching, leaning, stooping, bending, looking back. (Did she look my way?)
She is an angel on earth.
The girl next to me on the couch often looks my way. I don’t look at her, but see out of the corner of my eye that she is doing a crossword and drinking a white wine. I wonder if she is a lonely girl and just wants to get out and see people; kind of like me. I wonder if she sat next to me and looks in my direction because she would like to get my attention. And I wonder if that’s just how it always is in life, that someone who loves someone else always finds that that person is looking far away… at a beautiful waitress… or whatever.
I don’t think so really, I think we’ll all find out match. I think we all get what’s coming to us.
I wonder if that is the only reason this girl next to me comes to the coffee shop… to check her balance and do the crossword. I don’t know why anyone comes here, but just to sit and do their thing in between looking around at the other people. I really don’t understand the ones who don’t look around, knowing myself that there are angels with us
on this Earth.
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