I had wandered, what seemed to me a long time,
and was buying a toothbrush when I floated past them.
The Young Chinese Couple.
The marbled, air-conditioned, general store.
She was fretting over skin care products and he...
He held her face in his hands,
and PullTugged at her until she molded and conformed herself to the hollow
of his hip,
then...
kissed her.
True
love pouring thickly from the decanter of patience into
the crystalline tumbler of feigned detachment.
A
green-eyed mandarin.
The cat in the machine is serene.
He is close to the steering column and feels at one with its’ swing-song rotations;
its’ rocking chair ways.
through alleys,
across concrete spans.
One whisker shorter then the rest
and his damp grey fur twitches spasmodically,
as he notices the pot seeds scattered across the aging, factory-original,
red carpet.
hears the constantly changing, ethereal music,
and JumboYawns himself to sleep;
trammeled in the machine’s steel and rubber embrace,
tangled up in scattered, chaotic ribbons of sunlight,
surrounded by the mechanical womb,
and floating in hydraulic, amniotic fluid.
its’ hands, quietly, in its’ lap
and with a single-pointed concentration
listens to the cerebral purring
of this
cat in the machine.
They are the ones that pick up the napkins you
carelessly toss underneath your table.
They clean up after your child that throws bits of cracker and bread and
napkins and straws and paper menu and chunks of crayon; small mucusy strands
of egg.
They see how much drink is left in your glass
and quietly, politely, ask if you would like
some more.
They stand next to the steel washing box and the hanging nozzle, separating
again and
again silverware from plates, glasses from trash with their
bare hands.
Sauces, dressings, ketchup, coffee, beer, wine,
strands of pasta and half-chewed steaks,
torn up, empty sugar packets and other assorted crap stew in the big trash
can next to
them.
The Busboys hear your conversations, arguments,
negotiations, boasts and complaints.
They know that they are invisible to you and to the waiters, the cooks, the
managers and
El Viejo.
They are only visible to each other.
And, they know this.
Some of them, a lot of them, bike home and drink
and drink until their brains are swollen
and dehydrated. They fall asleep deliriously laughing about.....something.
One takes the bus home and, you know, watches
T.V.
Maybe, talks to mom about the doctor’s appointment they have next week.
Maybe, the doctor has another prescription to give.
Secretly, she worries about who’ll care after she is gone.
Another has a manager that drives him home late
at night.
The garage belongs to the busboy.
The house, and family attached to it, belong to his younger brothers.
Sometimes he wonders why he doesn’t have a house and a car and a family.
“Maybe, God has a different plan for me,” he thinks,” Or, maybe, it was all
that mota y
cerveza in my younger days.”
He plays with candle wax and falls into his burned out porn collection.
Others write letters to their families in Sonora,
Jalisco, or Tabasco
asking how the crops are,
how does the ocean look,
how much bigger has their Leticia grown.
It’s been 3 years.
They send money home.
The tip of a tip.
You see them, sometimes, as you drive to, or
from work.
They stand, very still, at the bus stop under a stoical sun
and wait
for the city buses that will gobble,
chew,
and then
vomit them
onto floors that sparkle with Windex boredom.
Desolate salad bars,
groaning tea pitchers,
vinyl aprons,
rubber gloves,
and
industrial-sized buckets of dirty water.