nice dinner conversation
Last week I had dinner on my way home at the Wrap Works. When I got my number and sat down I noticed a man sitting at a table sort of talking to himself. All the empty tables were in his area, so I just sat at the most comfortable one and buried my face in my book.
But he wasn’t talking to himself. He was involuntarily talking. Shouting obscenities and mostly incomprehensible garble. Thus the perimeter.
I glanced.
It’s quiet.
“FUCKING ASS PLACE (sumthin sumthin sumthin) DIRT”
I glance up over my pages. My paranoia makes me face doors, people who are scary, etc. So we were facing each other from different tables.
“MUTHA kkrrrrp nnnnnBBuuuu” The man is trying to chew his salad, and something in his brain is making this happen.
Suddenly I feel better. He’s not angry. Is this turret’s syndrome? How do you spell that?
He’s got a briefcase at his side. I imagine people who sit near him at work. Did they give him his own office? Does he have a cube?
My food comes and I make busy with it. I sip my straw and our eyes meet. His eyes look tired and a little bored. But not angry, or completely crazy. By the way, angry worries me much more than any category of brain trouble.
“BUUHHIITT!” a small piece of lettuce flies. That must be really annoying for him - my projected feelings. He looks nonplussed.
An employee comes around and takes some of his trash.
“Thank you,” he says in a perfectly normal voice.
He gets up for a soda refill. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s duo The Girl Is Mine begins to play. He dances, snaps his fingers and does a twirl but doesn’t sing. He’s crazy, I think.
But maybe he’s not at all.
Maybe he’s developed a wonderful and harmless lack of inhibition and self conciousness as a result of the tourrets (sp?). I have danced in grocery stores, mainly because they are such large and boring places. My brother has laid down on the floor in the subway to learn about the public’s response to the unusual.
I stand and clean up. The squawked and grunted wordthings continue, but quieter. Maybe the short in his brain gets food coma.
today i was lying on the grass at tafe (college) and a man crossed the road in front of me and mumbled ‘fuck crapping crush the fucking car bullshit’ and then just walked on as if nothing had happened.
A good friend of mine, who was there for the security guard shopping incident, likes to lie down in the aisles in supermakets making ‘lino angels’ on the floor. He also likes belly sliding in empty shopping centres right after they’ve been buffed.Tourette’s I think.
Making eye contact with drunk people is disturbing the way looking at myself in the mirror when I’m drunk is disturbing. I feel very alone both times.
When people ring up, I usually bellow loudly into the phone - sometimes moose-like, other times like much stranger animals. I like it because it’s a non-controntational, but personal way of finding out what people are like. If they are normal, they will just pretend it didn’t happen. If they aren’t, they’ll say something or bellow back. I’ve found it a very reliable method so far. Also more selective than lying on the floor in subways, although that is good too.
My friend used to get dressed up in funny clothes and go out and catch buses, just so she could meet interesting people. People are much more willing to chat, if they know you aren’t going to think they’re wierd for doing it.
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